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- 🍐#32: 3 tracks of PLG acquisition, testimonial ads, and great devex in the docs
🍐#32: 3 tracks of PLG acquisition, testimonial ads, and great devex in the docs
Jakub Czakon
August 12, 2023
Hey,
In Europe, it used to be customary to plant a pear tree 🍐 at a wedding. It would bring longevity and good health to the couple. Cool.
This week on the agenda:
3 tracks of acquisition in Product Led Growth from Elena Verna
Great developer experience in ReactJS documentation
Youtube testimonial ads from Teleport
+ a few bonus links at the end
Before we begin... big thanks to this week's sponsor.
🪧 Promo
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Developer marketing insights
1. 3 tracks of acquisition in Product Led Growth
Elena Verna is one of the top minds in B2B PLG.
And recently wrote this post that clarified some things for me, especially in the context of dev tool GTM.
There are 3 motions, not one.
1. End-user focused
Person: Individual contributor (IC) developer
Goal: get the first IC dev into the product
KPI: Sign up / team trial / product download
Tactics: Dev content on your blog, Youtube content, social listening, open-source projects
2. Teammates focused
Person: other ICs on the team
Goal: get teammates into the product
KPI: # of invites / # signups per account / # downloads per account
Tactics: Invitation flows, great how-to guides you can send people to
3. Buyer focused
Persona: team leader / VP Engineering / CTO
Goal: get the team leader sold on the value prop
KPI: # of opportunities / $ pipeline
Tactics: Linkedin thought leadership, G2 reviews, business-focused case studies
When you think about it this way you don’t push buyers to “try the tool” or talk to IC devs about “enterprise benefits”.
And to really make an impact with your PLG motion you need to make all three work.
2. Devex in ReactJS documentation
Nice way to show code and results straight from the React docs that people love.
And this pattern can be used outside of the docs for sure.
Anyway, this is a typical situation:
you want to show the code
you want to show the result of that code
you want to let people play with the code/results
you want to make it easy to read and copy/use
And folks behind React docs solved it nicely by:
Giving you a spit screen of code and results
Not showing the entire code but giving you the option to "show more"
You can change the code and see the results change (and errors pop up)
You can use buttons to reset the example, copy it, or fork on CodeSandbox
Not groundbreaking maybe but it's a beautiful implementation that is just a delight to use.
3. Testimonial Video Ad from Teleport
Maybe this is a classic remarketing ad. But things are classic because they work.
Youtube remarketing is one of the most popular ways to stay top of mind with devs who visit your site.
Lots of devs spend time on YouTube so it is a solid match.
But, "buy now" style ads rarely work because if they wanted to try/buy they would have already.
They need something more.
That "more" is often trust.
They simply don't trust you, your product, and your company.
They don't think you are the real deal and will solve their problems.
But you can build that trust. And to do that you can use testimonial-style ads:
use case explained in the voice of the customer/developer
real user sharing their story
clear product branding
That is it.
Show enough of these and % of people will trust you and convert.
How can I make this better?
I hope you learned something new. Did you, though?
What would you like to read more about?
Reply to this and let me know.
Talk to you next week,
Pears!
Need more developer marketing insights?
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