Start Making Sense: The zero marketing speak way to win over developers
Originally published in Product Marketing Alliance on March 19, 2025. Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.
DEVELOPERS are the most enigmatic group of highly technical folks you can build and sell products to.
True or not, that’s the general perception. Developers are deemed as marketing averse. They can retreat if they sense you’re marketing to them. Unsurprisingly, you see a growing subset of marketing aptly named developer marketing to “figure them out.”
So, what’s the goal of developer marketing? Here’s the answer that sits well with me per my own experiences -
To help developers discover, understand, use, and ultimately recommend your product.
This goal will serve as the north star for the 3Ts (Trigger, Topic, Tone) I want to offer you to win over developers.
TRIGGER: What forces a developer to explore something new
We don’t need to throw away the traditional product marketing playbook entirely out of the window while speaking to a developer. What we know about understanding adoption triggers for any buyer is also true here.
Get familiar with the inflection or tipping points that force a developer to explore a new tool or technology.
You have to identify which of the following triggers or a collection of them apply to your product. I’m breaking these triggers into two major categories: primary vs. secondary, with the numbers denoting the ranking for importance. The primary category should capture most of the compelling triggers.
1 / Need to save time or cut waste
All the AI talk in coding connects in some fashion to developer time and how we have little of it. Developers want to work on interesting challenges, put out quality work, and do so in a zen state, but time sinks make it more challenging.
2 / Eliminate struggle with legacy technologies
A developer in any legacy organization must deal with some jumbled mess of a codebase. It’s a perennial spring of frustration for developers worldwide.
3 / Desire for ease and simplicity
Think of a new developer thrown into software projects containing a creative mix of technologies. Any dev tool that shortens their onboarding time, be it through simple workflows, intuitive interfaces, 'easy to find' documentation, or so on, hits the spot for them!
4 / Meet newer client or market requirements
Every software effort is never static. One way or the other - say, due to market shifts, business pivots, or customer needs - you’re forced to add new features and sometimes embrace a new technology solution. Whatever cuts complexity or uncertainty here is a win.
5 / Integrate well with existing tech stack or frameworks
No dev tool exists in isolation. You’re at the mercy of current processes and workflows and, more importantly, how well you integrate with them. The developer doesn’t want to build integrations for every new tool they want to onboard.
As the name indicates, the secondary category is valid yet lower on the list of compelling triggers. Consider them, but aim to steer your product to solve one or more primary triggers.
6 / Solve collaboration issues
There’s a reason why your favorite corporate tool recommends you invite your colleagues to join you. Make it easy for developers to work with others in their team. Remember, they’re already stretched thin and reaching for that next pot of coffee.
7 / Gain access to a robust community
The open source spirit still shines even when developers work within walled-off solutions. Adoption is easier when there’s an active community and a plethora of learning resources, especially when a developer gets into the inevitable troubleshooting mode.
8 / Improve future job prospects
Developers have earned the right to be selfish. The half-life of every tool or technology they have to learn gets shorter by the day. They have incentives to lean to tools that position them as an expert, ride the wave of a trend, and look attractive to employers.
9 / Expand project scope
Expanding the scope of what’s possible is the takeaway here. What new features, applications, and projects can they get off the ground using what you offer?
10 / Tackle ‘specialized’ pain points
This one is unique, depending on the sandbox a developer plays in. Let’s say you’re talking to developers in the e-commerce industry. Solving thorny issues around conversion, conversion, and compliance (for example) is the name of the game.
TOPIC: The mindset to adopt and the content to serve the developer
Consider these three questions to shape how you share value with the developers.
1 / Where do you fit in their journey?
My favorite model to look through the lens of a developer and understand the stages they traverse comes from “Developer Relations” by Caroline Lewko and James Parton. As shown below, these five stages let you approximate how they feel, engage, and react, along with the available touchpoints.
Stage 1 - Discover: Is this of use to me?
Stage 2 - Evaluate: Will it meet my needs?
Stage 3 - Learn: How does this work?
Stage 4 - Build: Can I build a proof of concept?
Stage 5 - Scale: Can I build for the long term?
2 / What inspires them?
Knowing this journey, you’ll have to sculpt your content and sync it to the colorful situations that pop up in each stage. A valuable go-to model comes from “Win Over Wizards” by James Christopher, who proposes three collective approaches inspired by behavioral psychology.
Education - “You don’t just have to talk about what you have to offer… also teach them about the whole area you work in, including problems, opportunities, competition, activities, and trends.”
Thought Leadership - “It allows people to form their own opinions about you and your product…to show your expertise, establish your credibility, show your passion for your subject, and prove that you’re an authority in that space.”
Developer Experience - “Consider how developers work in their daily lives - it takes into account their needs, tasks, and workflows. It can also spill over into their personal lives if there are common hobbies or interests.”
3 / Which formats to explore?
The idiom “eat an elephant one bite at a time” applies perfectly here - no need to try and conquer everything at once. The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) concept should influence your actions. Taking inspiration from the book “Developer Marketing and Relations,” you want to start with the basics of what gets a new user up and running quickly. Get these right - your docs, getting started instructions, sample code, short tutorials.
After the MVP items, challenge yourself to be more daring, creative, and experimentative. Create a stew of content types that uniquely work for your developer audience. Initially, go wide across content types and then double down on what works within a preset time. Pick from content types like blogs, demos, podcasts, webinars, case studies, guides, infographics, social posts, and newsletters. Finally, look at how your content can support other related efforts like offline events, open source contributions, and engagement across social platforms.
TONE: Your voice in every prose
Always default to William Zinsser’s age-old advice on questions surrounding tone and writing, even for developers. We’ll use Zinsser’s four basic premises of writing - clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity - to full effect here.
On clarity
The rule of thumb here is to drop ambiguity. Err on the side of saying too much. Get comfortable with nuances and be specific. Every suggested CTA should be clear. Employ the 5W1H of asking and answering questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.
On brevity
This might sound contradictory to the previous point, but it's not. You can be elaborate while being concise. It's not the time to use flowery language. Turn long passages into compact paragraphs. Brevity is a boon when you cut to the chase to address significant changes or combat objections.
On simplicity
Clear thinking is a prerequisite for simplicity. Your product thinking should shine through in simple word choice, scannable content, flow of sub-topics, and actionable sections. Use the visual medium to your advantage. Lean on diagrams to convey hard-to-summarize concepts. The developer gets a subtle visual cue on whether they should linger on your content with a quick scan. Don't drag on a thought needlessly. Chop it up into parts.
On humanity
Develop a personality for your writing. Have a strong POV and portray a clear vision. Be a skyscraper in a sea of strip malls. Break through the noise. Employ the lessons of copywriting. Be engaging, empathetic, and shareable.
Besides these, consider four additional dimensions to resonate with developers.
Get the technical details right
Let the product take center stage. It's smarter to show the product in action while making claims. While we're on claims, back them up with facts and provable proof points. Set the context clearly in every piece. And follow it up by writing everything with utmost transparency.
Play the role of an educator
Your metric here is "time to value." Can I onboard them quickly? Can I help them make tradeoffs? Can I make it easier for them to solve their own problems? Take the BLUF (bottom line up front) mentality to heart - What should they know? What should they do? You're educating the developer on what's possible. Also, your product reputation rises and falls partly on the back of your documentation.
Show up consistently
Show up in sync with your company values. Show up with the megaphone for the problems you solve. One part of any content is creation. The remaining parts are all about distribution. Consistency is also relevant to your style of writing and naming schemes, among others. Ensure your guidelines are well-known within the company.
And finally, avoid selling…SAY IT AGAIN…avoid selling…SAY IT AGAIN…avoid selling!
Winning over developers is about creating trust. And trust begins with a spirit of generosity. Share the war stories. Give first and you shall receive later. Engage honestly. Refrain from sales-y talk and superfluous adjectives. There’s a place for it, but it’s nowhere in a community of developers.
Additional Resources
1 / “Developer Marketing Does Not Exist: The Authentic Guide to Reach a Technical Audience” by A. Duvander
2 / “Developer Relations: How to Build and Grow a Successful Developer Program” by C. Lewko and J. Parton
3 / “Ask Your Developer: How to Harness the Power of Software Developers and Win in the 21st Century” by J. Lawson
4 / “Developer Marketing and Relations: The Essential Guide” by C. Lewko, N. Sauvage, and A. Constantinou
5 / “Docs for Developers: An Engineer’s Field Guide to Technical Writing” by J. Bhatti, S. Corleissen, J. Lambourne, D. Nunez, H. Waterhouse
6 / “Win Over Wizards: A Developer Marketing Handbook” by J. Christopher
7 / “The Developer Facing Startup” by Adam Frankl
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