Developer marketing examples

The best dev tool marketing campaigns, designs, and copy
that I found on the internet

developer experience
copy
pricing

Start Free Pricing plan from CircleCi

Why not highlight your free plan?

Most companies highlight their middle paid plan saying it is "most popular".

First thing, yeah, sure it is your most popular plan.

But more importantly, most visitors will not convert to your paid plans right away.

So why not try and capture as many devs as possible on the free plan?

If they like your dev tool there are many things you can do to convert some of them to paid plans.

But if they leave that pricing page and go with some other free tool, you are not converting anyone.

@CircleCI highlights free and they are in the mature, competitive market of CI CD tools.

Idk, it really does make a lot of sense to me.

If people need more advanced features they will choose higher plans anyway.

But if they want to get things started with the basic plans they will choose free or go elsewhere.

I'd rather have them choose free than none. ย 

developer experience
vs competitor

RavenDB performance benchmark

How to present benchmark results masterclass from RavenDB

The biggest problem with the software benchmarks that you run is?

People don't trust you. Especially when the results are good.

๐—ฌ๐—ผ๐˜‚ ๐—ท๐˜‚๐˜€๐˜ ๐—ป๐—ฒ๐—ฒ๐—ฑ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ฏ๐˜‚๐—ถ๐—น๐—ฑ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜ ๐˜๐—ฟ๐˜‚๐˜€๐˜. ๐—ข๐—ป๐—ฒ ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐˜„๐—ฎ๐˜†๐˜€ ๐—ถ๐˜€ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ด๐—ต ๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐˜€๐—ฝ๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ป๐—ฐ๐˜†.

People from RavenDB do it by:

  • Showing where they ran it (AWS, Linux)
  • Showing exactly what infra they ran it on. Extra points for making it interactive.
  • Explaining how they ran it with code snippets and setup
  • Copy is also very to the point, technical, docs-like

This looks solid because it feels like I could re-run what they did myself.And so I trust them and I probably won't ;)

reddit
social posts

Great Reddit post and comment from Convex devrel

When you promote your feature/product launch on Reddit, it can easily end up being "not well received" to put it mildly.

I am talking downvotes, negative comments that get upvoted ย and break the discussion. Or good old crickets.

But Reddit can also be a fantastic source of audience feedback, peer validation for your product, and some of the most vocal advocates you'll ever find.

I really liked how Tom Redman from Convex directed the discussion in the Reddit thread under their laucn post:

  • Transparent intro: who you are, what you know
  • What you like about the tech: why you think it is valuable to the community
  • Community-focused call to action: helpful, feedback-first (not conversion-first), disarming with "if I can't answer I'll ask"

The launch post itself was great too:

"Open sourcing 200k lines of Convex, a "reactive" database built from scratch in Rust" that linked to the GitHub repo.

Doesn't get much more to the point and devy than that.

campaigns
conferences

Speed Tetris at the booth from Storyblok

Conference activation idea: Tetris competition at the booth.

It is hard to get devs to your booth if all you offer is a "do you want to see a quick demo" spiel.

You need to get a bit more creative than that.

๐Ÿ’š The team at Storyblok ran a Tetris competition:

  • Playing station at the booth to make sure people come by
  • Live leaderboard for when people were not playing + to get folks to play again
  • Branding around the playing station for those who take photos to share it on socials
  • A cool devy prize (mechanical keyboard) to build some additional reason to play talk about it

Afaik it was a big hit and I can definitely see why.

๐Ÿ“’ A few more notes:

  • make it live at the booth, not available online -> you'll get no buzz for it otherwise (made this mistake)
  • try to get organizers to give you a few minutes of the schedule to give away prizes
  • if you can connect the game to your product in a memorable way do that. ย 

btw, Iย read about it on DX Tips. You want to check out that article on dev conferences from DX Tips

blog
call to action

"Aside" call to action from Auth0

A classic dev tool blog call to action that is somewhat underused these days.

Was going through Martin Gontovnikas blog and found a post from a couple of years back.

He called this "Aside CTA" and the idea is this:

  • You write an article about a problem X
  • You don't mention your tool much (or anything) in the article
  • But your product helps solve that problem
  • So you add an "Aside" at the end where you say that you could also solve it with your tool

Why this can work well with devs is:

  • You write a genuinely helpful article
  • You don't "pollute" the article with your product
  • You add value first with content
  • You let people "upgrade" their solution experience with your tool
  • You are explicit about what your tool does and what the content does.

Definitely a classic that is worth trying.

Read Gonto's article.

campaigns
github
product led growth

GitHub PR growth loop from Snyk

Beautiful growth loop that uses GitHub PRs to spread awareness even internally in the org.

And just one dev needs to sign up for the product to start it.

Works like this:

  • New user signs up for Snyk
  • they connect their GitHub account
  • Snyk finds vulnerabilities in their repositories
  • Snyk-bot creates Snyk-branded PR to fix them
  • other devs in the org see and interact with the PR
  • some follow links to check out Snyk
  • some of them sign up for Snyk

Heard about it onย Lenny's podcast episode with Ben Williams (the story starts at 20:53)

... and then signed up to see the actual PR.

I really love this one as it allows you to spread inside the organization even if everything is on-prem and you never get to see it.

Those PRs are just working behind the scenes doing marketing for you.

Brilliant!

developer experience
docs

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, a classic 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 ย 

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 a beautiful implementation that is just a delight to use.

copy
campaigns
brand

"There are two types of companies" from Fly.io round announcement

"There are two types of companies": Just a beautiful piece of copy from Fly.io

Doing us vs them doesn't always play out well.

But folks from Fly made it snarky and playful and fun.

And they basically said that they are:

  • are developer-centric in the way they sell (self-served)
  • are actually easy to use
  • are great at the developer experience

And this is just such a nice brand play as well.

You just show personality and confidence in this devy snarky way.

I dig it.

developer experience
landing page

How it works as a timeline from SST

I like this idea of showing how your dev tool works.

With developers, you almost have to explain how it works on your homepage.

Many products do some version of Step 1 -> Step 2 -> Step 3 -> Success.

I really like how @SST approached it with a timeline.

I find it more engaging than those disconnected steps.

And when I follow this journey the final and logical step is to try it out. Get started.

campaigns

Vercel templates gallery

Well done templates gallery from Vercel.

For developer-focused products, having an examples/templates/code samples gallery can be a powerful growth lever.

โœ… It helps people:

  • understand what you do
  • see if anyone did what they want
  • get started with something real-life(ish)
  • get a feel for a product without committing to it yet

Just a great touchpoint in the developer journey.

๐Ÿ’š And Vercel does this one really well IMHO.

They start with an easy-to-find CTA in the navbar resources section. Bonus points for adding one-liner descriptions that make it clear what is on the other side of the click.

On the templates library page, they give you solid use case navigation with tags. And each template tile has a result thumbnail and a one-liner description. The beauty of this is in the simplicity and what they didn't put in here.

Each template page shows the result, gives you a tutorial on how to use this, and clear CTAs to either see this live or deploy yourself. Bonus points for the "Deploy" action copy (instead of "Sign up").

Kudos to the Vercel team. They are one of my favorite inspirations.

video
landing page

Streamlit explainer video

Streamlit has an amazing explainer.

They show how to go from:

  • Writing your first line of code
  • To creating data dashboard
  • To deploying it across the web

In 42 seconds.

No audio, just code and a simplified result window.

Amazing stuff.

pricing

Usage based pricing with cap from Appsmith

Usage-based pricing is loved by devs. But has its own problems.

Ok, so first what are those problems?

Value metric:

  • users don't understand your value metric
  • even when they do, they cannot map it to their usage patterns.

Predictability and procurement:

  • it is easier to predict the headcount than the usage
  • per user pricing is obvious, everyone across the org understands it

But devs love usage-based pricing:

  • it is "fair", you pay for what you use
  • you can scale up/down as you need

It is great for a dev tool company:

  • you align user adoption, the value created, and monetization
  • as org-wide usage so does the invoice

But pulling it off is not as easy as you may think.

Choosing that value metric, packaging it, and presenting it is a struggle.

@Appsmith solved it in the following way:

  • give people an option to go with a usage-based pricing
  • but cap a per-user cost at $X a month
  • it guarantees a better deal than a flat per-user pricing
  • but gives you the predictability of a per-user pricing

Very interesting approach.

call to action
landing page

Open-source project homepage CTA from Astro

What CTAs should you choose for your open-source project homepage?

Was always wondering what is my default.

There are many options: "See docs", "Get started", "Sign up", "Start X"

But in open-source you want people to start playing with it, install it.

So what should you choose?

Recently came across Astro homepage and loved what they chose.

"Get started"

  • Takes you to the quickstart in the docs
  • Is action-focused copy
  • Sets obvious(ish) expectations

Install code

  • Gives you copy-pasteable install command
  • + it shows the code to make it more devy

Whatever I choose I will actually get my hands dirty.

I think this will be my default from now on.

developer experience
landing page

Feature section design from TailwindCSS

I love the design of this crossover section on the Tailwind homepage.

I see the code and the result next to each other.

I see how I can get that result with code.

It is interactive and catches my attention.

It makes me feel inspired.

Great job Tailwind team!

social posts
linkedin

Toolstack diagram for Linkedin post

People want to be valued by their tribe.

One of the ways to do that is by being helpful.

So they want to share things that have a "smell" of insight.

Tool stack/workflow/pipeline chart makes them feel that way.

โ€

social posts
linkedin

Concept 101 with a diagram

Devs like diagrams.

When you explain a complex concept in one diagram it is just very shareable.

If you are interested in reading more there is an entire "blog post" when you click see more.

Just a very solid content format.

call to action
landing page
developer experience

Header with tabs from Appsmith

What to put in the header when your dev tool does a lot?

I like how Appsmith approaches it.

In their case, they have multiple use cases they want to showcase.

But you could use the same idea for many features or products.

Show multiple clickable tabs:

  • It invites the user to click and see.
  • It hints at all of those different use cases
  • It doesn't overwhelm your audience with too much info

A bonus idea is the "Try cloud" | "Self-hosted" CTA.

It communicates right away that you can deploy that dev tool anywhere.

If the self-hosted deployment is important to your customers let them know.

You don't want them to look for it and drop from the page trying to find the FAQ.

developer experience
pricing
docs

Pricing in the docs from fly.io

Pricing in your docs? That is how @Fly.io does it.

You click a pricing page link on their homepage and you go to the docs!

No 3 boxes with the "most popular" being the middle paid plan ;)

They just give it to you how it is. Exactly what you'd expect from the docs.

There are tables, explanations, and links to other docs pages.

Very bold decision imho. It definitely makes them feel super developer focused.

Plus if you do want a more standard, enterprise stuff you see:

"If you need more support or compliance options, you can choose one of our paid plans. These come with usage included and additional support options."

And that page looks like a classic pricing page.

But they focus on the developer buying experience here. Super interesting.

video
youtube
ads
campaigns
brand

Postman "We did this" campaign video

How to do a dev-focused brand video and get 10M+ views?

Making a memorable brand video is hard.

Doing that for a boring tech product is harder.

Doing that to the developer audience is next level.

Postman managed to create not one but three of those brand videos that got from 4M to 10M youtube views.

The videos I am talking about are:

  • "I am gonna push some buttons"
  • "Together"
  • "We did this"

So what did they do right?

  • They are all short playful stories touching on values coming from a centralized API platform.
  • They hint at the motif of space which is a clear part of Postman's branding
  • They do show the actual UI of the product

Honestly, I am not exactly sure what special sauce they added but those are just great videos that you watch.

And I definitely remember them and the company which is exactly what you want to achieve with brand ads.

landing page
developer experience

Interactive feature tiles from clerk.dev

How to present many features at once?

Sometimes your dev tool has many features/products that you want to show.

โŒ Showing all of them as separate sections doesn't work with more than 3. It just gets too long very quickly.

โœ… You can go with the tabs pattern where each tab has copy+visual for a feature.

๐Ÿ’ก But there is another option that makes a ton of sense when you have many features to show.

Interactive tiles of different sizes.

๐Ÿ’š I like the implementation of that pattern coming from Clerk:

  • Each tile is a combo of feature name + one-liner description + an interactive visual
  • When you hover over each tile it starts playing the visualization explaining the feature even more
  • Some of the tiles are bigger which makes the entire section more interesting. It could be one (core feature or differentiator) or a few if you present many.

That pattern can work really well on blogs or learning centers too but I think we're going to see more of it on dev tool websites.

video

Funny explainer of OpenSaas

Funniest dev tool explainer ever? Coming from Wasp.

Let's face it, introducing a problem in an explainer video is often boring. Especially if the problem is

How do you introduce a SaaS boilerplate? Good luck pitching faster time to value or something.

Wasp did something out of the box:

  • They start by googling "how to buy a Lamborghini"
  • Go to a Rebbit thread where people talk about starting a SaaS on boilerplate. But it is paid.
  • Go to Google again and type their positioning ;) "Free open-source SaaS starter".
  • Go to their product and show it.

Got me hooked and kept me watching for sure.

+ funny is memorable so you will get a better recall too.

campaigns
product led growth
free tools

Hacker News search by Algolia

Algolia gets over 80% of referral traffic from a single free tool they created called Search Hacker News.

But why does it work so well for them?

Hacker News doesn't really have a native search experience.

Algolia gives devs an amazing search experience out of the box.

So folks from Algolia created their own website where you can search Hackernews... with Algolia search engine.

Of course, when you click on "Search by Algolia" you get directed to the website and can learn how to set up a similar search, which you have just used yourself.

What I love about this:

  • solves a real problem for the audience Algolia is after (many software devs read hacker news)
  • it shows rather than tells how Algolia's search works. And it works amazingly.
  • it feels almost like an extension of HackerNews with the same brand colors and design.

And looking at the results it delivers.

social posts
linkedin
developer experience

Code + UI Linkedin post format

A great example of a dev-focused Linkedin post format from Khuyen Tran ๐Ÿ‘‡

What I like about this:

  • It stands out in the feed with a pink background
  • It is helpful and visual. Shows the code and result of the code in one view.
  • I know right away what the post is about and why I should "... see more"
  • It is a format that can be reused for many scenarios

Just great job!

social posts
twitter

"Education focused" tweet format

Explain a concept clearly.โ€

Good visual with concrete numbers makes this example easy to understand.

Because it is beautifuly explained people want to share this with their network to be perceived as helpful (and smart).

social posts
twitter

"Nostalgic" tweet format

Make it about belonging.โ€

Something some people can deeply connect with.
Nostalgia is a very strong emotion.

It feels good to be a part of something as well.

swag
conferences

Swag donations

What if your next swag was a donation? That's what Cockroach Labs did.

Ok, so the typical way of doing swag at a conference is to give out t-shirts for badge scans.

And then folks either wear them or throw them away (or keep wearing them when they should have thrown them away but that is another story).

After the conference you take leftovers with you, ship them home or, you guessed it, throw them away.

A lot of throwing away for a badge scan if you ask me.

Cockroach Labs decided to do something completely different.

They donate a few $ to a great charity @Women Who Code for every badge scan they get.
I love it.

An extra benefit (and where the idea originated) is that with this, you can do virtual badge scans too.

campaigns
seo
product led growth

Product-led SEO tactic from Cronjob

Great SEO tactic.

What folks from Cronitor did is:

  • For every combination of "cron +" they created a website
  • Those simple websites rank for particular keywords like "cron every 11 minutes"
  • When you land on the page you get a command you need that solves your problem
  • And you get a nice explanation of their paid tool for monitoring cron jobs

This can be used for many dev-focused tools as by definition they use commands which can be templated.

I've heard about it originally from Harry Dry over at https://marketingexamples.com/seo/cronitor

โ€

blog
copy
campaigns
hacker news
seo

Great "What is {my core keyword}" article from Planetscale

How to write a "What is {MY CORE KEYWORD}" article that gets to the top of HackerNews? ๐Ÿ‘‡

First of all, almost no one succeeds at that as you write those articles for SEO distribution, not HN distribution.

To get an SEO-first article on HN your content quality bar needs to be super high.

But you can do it.

PlanetScale managed to get their "What is database sharding and how does it work?" on the orange page (kudos to Justin Gage!).

Here is what was interesting about that article:

๐—ฆ๐˜‚๐—ฝ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—ฝ๐—ผ๐—ถ๐—ป๐˜ ๐—ถ๐—ป๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ผ.

โ€ข โŒ No "In today's fast-paced data-driven world enterprises work with data" stuff.
โ€ข โœ… Justย ย "Learn what database sharding is, how sharding works, and some common sharding frameworks and tools."

๐—›๐—ถ๐˜๐˜๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐—ธ๐—ฒ๐˜†๐˜„๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ฑ๐˜€ ๐˜„๐—ต๐—ถ๐—น๐—ฒ ๐—ฏ๐˜‚๐—ถ๐—น๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ฝ๐—ฝ๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐˜ ๐˜„๐—ถ๐˜๐—ต ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐˜ƒ ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ.

๐Ÿ’š Speaking peer to peer, not authority-student:

โ€ข "Youโ€™ve probably seen this table before, about how scaling out helps you take this users table, all stored on a single server:"
โ€ข "And turn it into this users table, stored across 2 (or 1,000) servers:"
โ€ข "But thatโ€™s only one type of sharding (row level, or horizontal). "

๐—จ๐˜€๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐—ท๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ด๐—ผ๐—ป ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐˜‚๐—ป๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐˜†๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ฟ ๐—ฎ๐˜‚๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ฒ๐—ป๐—ฐ๐—ฒ

Things like:

โ€ข "Partitioning has existed โ€“ especially in OLAP setups"
โ€ข "Sifting through HDFS partitions to find the missing snapshot "

๐—”๐—ฐ๐˜๐˜‚๐—ฎ๐—น๐—น๐˜† ๐—ฒ๐˜…๐—ฝ๐—น๐—ฎ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ต๐—ป๐—ถ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—น๐—น๐˜† ๐—ต๐—ผ๐˜„ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด๐˜€ ๐˜„๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ธ

๐Ÿ”ฅ Look at the section "How database sharding works under the hood" with subsections:

โ€ข Sharding schemes and algorithms
โ€ข Deciding on what servers to use
โ€ข Routing your sharded queries to the right databases
โ€ข Planning and executing your migration to a sharded solution

๐ŸŽ ๐—•๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜‚๐˜€: ๐—ฝ๐—น๐˜‚๐—ด ๐—ถ๐—ป ๐˜†๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ฟ ๐—ฝ๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐—ฑ๐˜‚๐—ฐ๐˜ ๐—ด๐—ฒ๐—ป๐˜๐—น๐˜†

Section "Sharding frameworks and tools" shares open-source tools (every dev, but HN devs in particular like OS projects).

And there as an info box, you have the info that Planetscale comes with one of those OS projects deployed.

Just a beautifully executed piece of content marketing.

brand
campaigns
ads
billboards

snowflake billboards

Ideating how to do dev tool billboards?

I like these from Snowflake.

Especially the customer showcase ones as the format can almost be copy-pasted ;)

One more interesting thing about those billboards though:

  • folks from Snowflake placed just a few of them strategically in the cities
  • And changed content of the billboard often

By doing that they seem to have billboards everywhere, fight ad fatigue, and stay top of mind.

Love it.

social proof
developer experience

Case study in a single view from Resend

Super short dev tool case study on a single viewport.

Many case studies follow a Hero -> Problem -> Solution -> Results framework.

Many try and do it on a one-pager.

But what @Resend did is next level and I like it.

Especially with devs, you want to be technical and succinct.

And Resend took all the possible fluff out of it.

  • They put a strong quote up top
  • They highlight the benefits for easy skimming
  • They explain the problems and results succinctly
  • They show who said it and make it more believable
  • They show the customer: logo/ name + what they do

I'd like to have some before or after probably or a stronger results (or pain) ) focused headline.

But I think this is great actually.

copy
pricing
developer experience

Retool pricing page copy

Most dev tools have two deployment options:

  • SaaS
  • On-prem / private cloud

And then companies present it on their pricing page with some flavor of two tabs.

And you need to name them somehow.ย 

And how you describe those things sometimes adds confusion for your buyers:

  • You put โ€œyour serverโ€ > then does it scale to a more robust infra?
  • You put โ€œon-prem" > then can I deploy on private AWS cloud?

I like how nice and simple solution Retool used on their pricing page:

  • "Cloud (we host)"
  • "Self-hosted (you host)"

Explicit, obvious and to the point.

Love it.

developer experience
product tour
product led growth

Sandbox experience from Sentry.io

This is a sandbox experience folks over at Sentry.io created.

I like the navbar CTAs with a big "Documentation" button in there.

Reminds me that I can go and see it when Iย need it.

But Iย also get those conversion focused "Request a demo"ย and "Start a trial"ย for when Iย am ready.

On top of that Iย get tours and help in the sidebar for when Iย get stuck.

.... and the whole thing is gated behind a work email which Iย don't love.

But having that work email let's you nurture (and Sentry is known for awesome emails).

Plus it does help sales. If anything it is an additional signal for your account scoring models.

But if you are going to gate a sandbox, make sure to show all that value behind the modal like Sentry did.

With that Iย can feel compelled to type in that email.

ads
youtube

Hygraph "bad reviews" YouTube short ad

I love this video ad format from Hygraph.

They are reading and reacting to bad reviews.

I saw this in B2C but not in the dev tool B2B. Love it!

So basically how they did that campaign is:

  • The marketing team finds bad product reviews.
  • Most of the reviews are technical and speak about some features.
  • Their employees (at least some devs in there) read them out loud on their phones.
  • They react to the reviews, typically explaining what the product does and why.
  • They serve it as YouTube short ads and link to the whole 5-minute video on their channel.

Through all that, you get entertained and learn something about their product. This is such a fun format to test out!

developer experience
pricing

Cost calculator from Mux

Sometimes your pricing is just complex. But you can still make it work.

If you want devs to convert, make it possible for them to estimate the cost.

@Mux does it nicely with a calculator:

  • They give sliders for dimensions that are obvious to the dev
  • They give (pre) select boxes for things that are a bit less obvious
  • They show additional costs
  • They give you a clear final price estimate

What is crucial is that the calculator dimensions need to be understandable and familiar to the reader.:

  • If you use expected industry concepts (view count, upload, users) you should be fine.
  • If you use weird obscure concepts the best calculator will not help.

The goal of this is to make it possible for a person to get an estimate right here right now.

Not have to setup a meeting with half the team to figure your pricing out.

developer experience
call to action
blog

Great article in-text CTA from DigitalOcean

Adding CTA in dev-focused articles is hard.

You don't want to be too pushy, but you do want to get conversions.

DigitalOcean strikes a great balance with its in-text article CTA design.

They make this CTA look like an info box that you'd typically see in the documentation.

It is clear that it is a Digital Ocean CTA but it doesn't feel pushy.

It feels like a piece of potentially useful information.

Love it.

campaigns
copy
linkedin

Meme focused on product value from Datree

Memes are good top-of-funnel, awareness-type content.

Many companies use them on socials as they can "go viral".

But.

You need to either:

  • connect the meme to your company/product value
  • make the meme so good that people follow your account

I like how Datree connects it to the product here.

They are a Kubernetes configuration tool and talk about exactly that here.

They do that with jargon too "k8", "config". When used well it can help you belong to the tribe you are marketing to.

landing page
developer experience
call to action

Benchmark section on homepage from Astro

Your dev tool is faster/more scalable/more X -> show it with benchmarks.

For some tools the entire unique selling point is that they are faster.

You build your messaging around that, put a flavor of "fastest Y for X" in the header and call it a day.

But devs who come to your website cannot just take your word for it. They need to see it, test it.

For some tools it is possible to just see it for themselves, get started.

But you cannot expect devs to really take a database or an observability platform for a spin.

As to test the speed or scalability on realistic use case you need to...

... set up a realistic use case. Which takes a lot of time.

But you can set that use case and test it for them. With benchmarks.

I really like how Astro approached it:

  • they list out known competition by name
  • they hint at technical reasons for why they are faster
  • they shows those benchmarks high on their homepage
  • they link out to the full report and mention the trusted source

If your usp is that you are faster/more scalable/ more whatever. Back it up. This is the nr 1 thing devs on your website need to trust you with to move forward.

ads
brand
billboards

vercel billboard ad

Just an awesome billboard/ad format for a dev too company coming from Vercel.

What I like about it is:

  • you catch attention with something different
  • those who are in your audience get it, maybe they feel more seen
  • you reinforce that your brand is very developer-focused
  • you don't forget to put the "obvious" branding in there
  • and there is a CTA to get people to do something

Simple and beautiful.

Btw, they actually run similar ads on Reddit and it makes a lot of sense IMHO.

social posts
twitter

Good Twitter thread format: nice hook

Good format of the tweet copy.

Start with the hook.

Then validate it with more story.

Then open a knowledge gap with a thread.

social proof
landing page
developer experience

Showing testimonials related to features from Appsmith

How to bring attention and trust to a feature section?

Add a testimonial.

Ideally, it should talk about that feature to make your message even stronger.

I like how Appsmith made it animated and it just makes you look.

And you read the testimonial and look at the feature above it.

Good stuff.

ads
twitter
video

"Timer" Twitter video ad from Kinde

This is such a fantastic ad creative because it is just so different.

So basically what Kinde it does is:

  • It shows the timer, dev, and the screen nothing else.
  • The dev adds authorization to the application in under 2 minutes
  • The fact that the dev is sneezing while coding just makes it so real and human
  • You see a how-to-add Kinde for authorization tutorial while rooting for the dev to complete ;)
  • ๐ŸŽ Bonus points for having that filename saying what it is, almost like an ad title: Authspeedrun.mp4

๐Ÿ’š That timer is such a great way of catching attention and keeping it while landing your product message. It seems raw and "whatever" but I think it is very intentional in its dev-friendly delivery.

So if you have a dev tool that has awesome devex and can get people to that aha moment quickly then give it a go (and tell me how it went ;)). ย 

ads
video
youtube

YouTube shorts ad from Digital Ocean

Digital Ocean went for an ad for the Hactoberfest in a tricky place.

To keep it in the medium that fits YouTube shorts they:

  • made it into an actual short vid
  • used a comic book story

I think doing YouTube shorts is an interesting opportunity in a yet unsaturated market (as of 2022).

And doing ads that fit that medium so nicely is an art.

Good job DO!

video
brand

General audience explainer video from Auth0

Handing #1 dev obstacle: "We can do it ourselves".

Check it out from second 0:35:

โ€"Iย bet you're like
We can do it ourselves, it's not that hard.
We know what we're doing.

First, Iย hear you.
Second, are you sure?"

This is mastery.
Pointing out ignorance without alienating people.

navbar
landing page
call to action
product tour

Playground CTA in the navbar resources section from Prisma

Simple yet powerful CTA in the navbar resources section.

The resources section in the navbar is mostly navigational. Well, the entire navbar is ;)

But you always have that one action that is more impactful than others. ย 

๐Ÿ’š And I think that a Plauground ย is a great option. You get people to see how your product works. You let people play with it and see for themselves.

Not many next actions can be as impactful as getting people to experience the product.

Especially if you are a heavier infra tool that people cannot really test out in that first session. I mean, you won't really create a realistic example of your core database in 15 minutes to see how that new tool that you just saw works.

๐Ÿ”ฅ Making this CTA "big and shiny" and showing a glimpse of what will happen after clicking is great too.

๐Ÿค” 2 changes I'd test out:

  • Making the copy more descriptive performs better. ย Like "Launch playground", "Play with Sandbox", or something around "Run an example project/app/environment".
  • Showing something more exciting about the product (or playground/tour) on that visual

But the core idea behind making the playground your core navbar resource section CTA is just great.

copy
developer experience
call to action
landing page
hero section

Header content CTA from Plaid

Sometimes you have an article, report, or event you want to drive people to.

And it is important that they read it.

What Plaid did here is an interesting way of putting it right in the hero section without making it overwhelming or distracting.

I like it.

developer experience
landing page

Feature tabs header pattern from PostHog

Which feature/product to show in the header?

How about all?

Many dev tool products are feature-rich. And you want to show those awesome features.

But it is easy to overwhelm the reader when showing so much info.

That is why I really like the header tabs pattern that @PostHog uses:

  • You have clickable tabs with product names + descriptive icons
  • Copy + Supporting visual (UI, code etc) and a call to action in each tab
  • Supporting visuals are in vastly different colors to make it obvious you switch tabs.

This pattern is especially powerful when you want to communicate completeness.

Posthog definitely wants to do that. If you are on that train I'd strongly suggest considering/testing it.

video

Explainer video from Algolia

Great flow of the explainer.ย 

Starts with the outcome "Build search UX".

Goes straight to code and 1-2-3-results format.ย 

Explains every snippet of code as it is added.

Ends with a nicely presented result: a working search on a website.

No voiceover just code and screenshots.

And it's only 45 sec !!!

developer experience
hero section

Pricing page header from Mux

Many dev tools have complex pricing and packaging.

Say your dev tool/platform has many product offerings.

And you offer usage-based pricing but also enterprise plans but also per-product options, and additional customizations.

But you want to present it in a way that is manageable for the developer reading your pricing page.

Mux solves it this way:

  • they direct people to the proper parts of the page in the header
  • they give self-served prospects a link to the calculator and metering
  • they give enterprise/high volume people a "talk to us" CTA
  • they give people who want just a single tool (not the whole platform) a CTA to a dedicated pricing page
  • they squeeze in a "start free" CTA + info about free credits
  • they give navigation to FAQ, features table, and the calculator

Extended headers on pricing pages are not common as they add friction.

But sometimes adding friction is exactly what you need to do.

Mux managed to make this page (and their offering) easy to navigate by adding a little bit of friction at the beginning.

Maybe you don't browse plans right away but at least you don't waste energy (and attention) on the parts of the page that doesn't matter to you.

Good stuff.

reddit

Posting entire articles on Reddit

This is a very nteresting approach from PubNub.

They could have published an article on their blog and posted a link to Reddit.

Instead, they just posted an entire article, 3851 words . That post got 360 upvotes and made it to the top of r/rust. Wow.

Never seen anyone do that before but I like this. It could be great:

  • when you want to drive discussion around a topic in the community you care about.
  • Or when you want to rank for a keyword you couldn't possibly rank for on your own (Reddit will index it later at their 95 Domain Authority). ย 

Some things I also liked:

  • To the point title, and devs really like a real improvement/debugging story
  • The use of emojis in the title grabs attention and stops the scroll. Slightly controversial on Reddit but worth a try.
  • In the feed, it looks like a deep (long) technical post. That intro is also fantastic because it does tell you what they did which suggests there will be more juicy details later. Love that.
  • Shows a sneak peek of a performance comparison chart that you just want to see
  • The post has images, code snippets, sections etc. Like a proper article. Also, you kind of need that at 3851 words ;)

Super interesting approach that I want to test out myself.

ads
reddit
copy
social posts

Basic Reddit Ad from Kubero

How did this super basic ad get so much engagement on Reddit?

First of all, the value prop is succinct, to the point, and says what it is.

No "streamlining", "boosting", or "democratizing" is involved.
No clever tagline or pains, benefits, or values just says what it is.

But what it is, is "free and open-source" which is what many devs, especially on Reddit want to hear.
And Heroku is a known brand so if you know what Heroku does, you know what Kubero does.

I liked that they linked out to the GitHub project too.

Not 100% sure if that would perform better than a landing page or home. ย But I see how it feels more in sync with the channel you are running your ads on.

The screenshot? I don't like it but perhaps it doesn't matter as much here?

What do you think?

Oh, and if you read the comments, you'll see that people actually talked about the project, said that they liked the ad etc.

Good stuff.

campaigns
hacker news

Newsjacking by GitGuardian

Newsjacking is a great marketing tactic.
Especially when you can connect it nicely to your product.
โ€

And GitGuardian, a tool for secrets management does it beautifully here.
They ran a story on how Toyota suffered from a data breach.
Because they didn't manage their GitHub secrets properly.
โ€

Brilliant.

developer experience
landing page

Auth0 developer portal: How it works diagram

Show how product components fit together.
โ€
A good diagram is such a good solution to that.
โ€
They use the same colors and eyebrow copy that was used for body sections.
It all clicks now, I get the full picture.

โ€

โ€

swag
copy
brand

"It doesn't suck" shirt from Bare Bones

A classic "It doesn't suck" campaign.

Afaik, Barebones ran the first version of this campaign 20 years ago and it was a huge success.

It is so simple, it just speaks to that inner skeptic.

It doesn't say we are the best, we revolutionize software.

It says it doesn't suck.

That is way more believable and makes me think that there is a dev on the other side of that copy.

And there is something cool about this message that makes me want to wear it to the next conference.

Good stuff.

copy
developer experience
call to action
landing page
hero section

Auth0 developer portal Hero section CTAs

There are three CTAs actually.

Common knowledge suggests doing one, maybe two, they do 3:

  • build
  • see docs
  • see examples

Devs want relevant and practical.

Also, devs love docs and examples and check them before signing up.

Action-focused copy is great as well.

developer experience
landing page

Multi-tab GIF cross section website design from Supabase

I like the design of this crosshead.

  • Starts with the gif to catch my attention
  • When tabs change the copy, CTA, gif change
  • The figs have a nice click cursor that shows what I am doing
  • CTA is very "silent", non-intrusive
blog
call to action
developer experience

In-text blog CTA from Planetscale

Subtle but effective dev blog CTA -> info box.

Basically a plain article in-text CTA but there is something special about it.

It looks like a docs info box.

It is not a "buy now" style call to action but rather a subtle "you may want to know about X" push.

But for it to really feel like an info box it needs to connect to the section of the section of the article around it.

Otherwise, it will just feel like an intrusive ad anyway.

PlanetScale does a great job here.

They link the part of the article about the sharding library Vitess with their product that was built on top of it.

It feels natural and I am sure it gets clicks and if not then product awareness.

ads
reddit

Kftray Reddit ad

Nice Reddit ad from kftray.

This is a simple ad format but lands the message:

  • Clear, transparent "What it is" and "What it does" in the Headline
  • Basic screen share video that shows both the code (terminal) and the ย UI (product app)
  • Unblocked comments make it more confident and spark conversation

An interesting fact is that there is no call to action?!

They say "Kftray is an open-source" which is enough for those interested to google "kftray github" or just go to GitHub and find it. And makes the ad less pushy which is a nice touch on Reddit.

But the most important takeaway is this. If the problem is real to the dev audience you target you don't need to go fancy. Just show how you solve it.

developer experience
blog
call to action
social proof

Devy blog design from Bun

This is one of the more devy blog designs I've seen in a while.

It has this docs-like feel.

But is just a bit more fun and loose than most docs would allow.

Here is what I like:

  • smells like there could be value with code all over the place
  • shows visuals taken from another devy channel, Twitter/X
  • hints at social proof through Twitter/X engagement

And if your posts are code-heavy, then a docs-like experience is where you want to be anyway.

But you can spice it up with things that wouldn't fit the docs.

Like a Twitter/X embed or a meme.

docs
call to action
developer experience

Flatfile docs office hours CTA

How to get people to sign up for your office hours?

Why not put it on your docs homepage?

Btw, I really like the concept of office hours.

  • You give people the option to "get a demo" and answer their questions
  • But you don't make them schedule anything, they can just come (or not)

You get your devrels or product to do those weekly and then you just have to figure out how to get people there.

Classic options are to put info in onboarding sequences, in the app, or on the website hello bar.

But Flatfile had another idea. They put it in their docs homepage header.

I find this idea brilliant as many people who browse your docs (especially for the first time) are in that evaluation mode and would actually want to do that.

Plus calls to action in the docs get more respect by design ;)

campaigns
developer experience
copy
vs competitor
landing page

VS page format from Ably

Vs pages are a classic SaaS marketing.

But I like how Ably adjusts them to the developer audience:

  • For each criterion, theyย say why it matters
  • Theyย link to their resourcesย to extend further why Ably works great there
  • Theyย use a lot of developer jargonย to make it feel like a dev wrote it for devs
  • They go over a lot of different categories to make this comparisonย deep enough to be valuableย for the buyer
copy
developer experience
landing page
hero section

Axiom competitor-focused messaging

In a mature category, it is safe to assume that people know about other tools.

Especially devs.

I love how Axiom owns its unique selling point and how it stands out from the competition.

  • They explicitly say how much more scalable they are vs well-known brands like DataDog, Splunk, SumoLogic, and others.
  • They don't pretend to be the only company in the observability space.
  • They just own their unique selling point and make it easy for people to understand why choose them not others.

Takes guts but I love it.

social posts
twitter

Meme tweet format from Supabase

Memes that resonate with your ICP (in this case website backend devs who use PostgresSQL).

Content like this helps people find their tribe.

And then those memes can get folks to follow your account.

If you mix your content well you can then push them further down the funnel.

ads
video
youtube
social proof

Testimonial Video Ad from Teleport

Classic remarketing ad. But things are classic because they work ๐Ÿ‘‡

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 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.

reddit

Dev audience research on Reddit

Not sure how to find developers for audience research interviews?

Sometimes all you need is ask.

I really liked what the founders of this startup did:

  • Found relevant subreddits where folks working in MLOps/DevOps and ML are (for example r/mlops)
  • Clearly explained why they wanted it: building a startup and doing exploratory analysis
  • Clearly explained what they wanted: interviews with mlops/devop/data scientists
  • Clearly explained what they will give for it: cash, as simple as that

Sometimes you don't need to overthink it and can just ask.

campaigns
developer experience
swag
brand

Promo T-shirt design from GitGuardian

There are a lot of boring vendor t-shirts at conferences.

And they get boring results.

I like this bold design from GitGuardian:

  • they go for anime which is loved by many devs
  • it feels and looks like an anime t-shirt, not a vendor t-shirt
  • they use their core message "Keep secrets out of your source code"

Nice.

brand
campaigns
billboards
ads

"Ask your developer" billboards from Twillio

Just wanted to share this classic dev tool branding campaign.

There is even a book about this from Jeff Lawson at Twilio.

But I recently saw someone share on HN that it got changed to "How can I reduce acquisition costs by 65%". Made me a bit sad.

But perhaps after years and years of working it stopped delivering any additional brand awareness/affinity.

Could they have come up with another flavor of "Ask your developer."?

Maybe. But maybe at their levels of mind share you are playing a different game.

The good thing is, you are not at that stage ;)

And f you pull off something that is 1% of the success of that famous Twilio campaign you can make your brand noticed and remembered.

I know we are in the year of doing what brings results right now. And branding campaigns may not make the cut.

But maybe we can (and should) afford to do something that helps us deliver that pipeline next year or a year after that?

copy
developer experience
landing page
hero section

The header copy of Auth0 developers portal

I love this copy. It answers:

  • what it does -> "authentication and authorization"
  • how is it different -> "simple to implement, easy to extend"

It doesn't talk about the value as it is obvious to devs.

Obviously, it will save time and make things safer.

Don't talk about it.

copy
campaigns
hacker news
product launch

fly.io Hacker News launch description

Hacker News developer audience doesn't love promotion to put it mildly.

But some dev tool companies manage to make this audience their biggest ally.

Fly.io is one of those companies.

And they had a super successful product launch a few years back. ย 

So how did they do it?

  • "Who"
  • "Problem"
  • "What" and "How"
  • *Speak "dev to dev". Spec no fluff.

Let's go through these in detail.

Who are you? Why should I listen?

  • show your face
  • Say who are you and
  • hint at why should I trust you

What is the problem really?

  • Describe how you discovered the problem
  • Agitate that pain, explain technicalities deeply
  • Share your stories dealing with that problem (ideally obvious solutions that didn't work)

What does your product do and how does it work?

  • Say what it is, like a technical spec.
  • Say what it does, like really, low-level job to be done
  • Explain how you solve it, be deeply technical

Speak "dev to dev"

  • use technical jargon and relevant terms: "docker image", "global router", "VMs", "root filesystem"
  • don't explain like I am 5, explain like I am 5 years in my dev journey "we convert docker images into a root filesystem, boot tiny VMs..."
  • Don't use words that don't really mean anything and just take space. Speak MECE (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive)

By doing it this way you have a chance of gaining love from the prolific HN crowd.

Fly.io definitely did, and is still reaping rewards with constant HN exposure.

social posts
twitter

"Divide people" tweet format

Say what we are all thinking. โ€

This tweet is great as it states something that most of us feel.
It is something that you may have had a discussion about with someone recently.
You might have fought about one tool or another.
But at the end of the day tools don't matter.

You can share it with someone as:

  • sorry, we had a stupid fight
  • rub it in your face :)

โ€

landing page
hero section

Great product header visual from Deepgram

If you have an API product presenting it in an exciting visual way is hard.

But Deepgram managed to do just that.

They go for an autoplay presentation that has four acts:

  1. Context: playing an audio file showing a spectrogram -> sets the context that this is something audio
  2. Code: They show the code from one of the SDKs being typed. And they show tabs at the top with other important SDKs to convey that this is not Python-only.
  3. Result: Shows the output of running the code, a transcript, and an AI-generated summary and topics. ย 
  4. Layers: Takes the points above and layers them in one viz to communicate that this is all part of one product, just different "views" of it.

And the delivery is just slick and elegant. Kudos team!

btw, Mux, the video API has a similar design of their visual. I think it is just a great visual element for API products.

copy
call to action
product led growth
landing page

Posthog "do not talk to us" copy

Most devs want to explore products themselves.

They want to read the docs, see examples, play with the product, or watch a video.

They don't want to hop on a demo call, especially early on in the evaluation process.

And they definitely don't want to sit through the demo to learn what your pricing is.

But there will be moments when they will want to talk to you. They will raise their hands and let you know then.

Posthog speaks to this reality with this copy beautifully:

  • They basically say "don't talk to us"
  • They give you transparent pricing on the website
  • They give you a recorded demo on the website
  • They let you try the product for free without talking to them
  • But if you want to talk to sales/support you can reach out

This is very developer-focused approach and I love it.

blog
call to action
developer experience
brand

"Top of article" CTA on the blog from Eartlhy

Need one more call to action idea for your dev tool blog?

How about starting an article with it?

Sounds weird but if done right it can work. Even with devs (or maybe especially with devs).

Earthly did and they are known for great dev-focused content.

Ok, so how does it work?

You start your article with a contextual call to action where you explain:

  • Who you are and what your product does
  • And how that is relevant to the content of the article
  • Link out to more product-focused pages, ideally relevant to content

And then you let people read.

Those who find the topic important will remember you and/or maybe click out to see more.

I like it. It's explicit, transparent, and actually noninvasive.

ads
reddit

Stack trace ad from Sentry.io

I really like this Reddit ad from Sentry.

Powerful simplicity.

They don't do:

โ€ข long value-based copy
โ€ข fancy, in-your-face CTAs
โ€ข creative that feels "professional

They go for:

โ€ข focus on the pain
โ€ข creative that speaks to that pain
โ€ข low-key CTA ", get Sentry" rather than "Get Sentry Free!"
โ€ข building rapport with the dev with copy "If seeing this in React makes you ๐Ÿคฎ"

And through simplicity and focus they deliver a message:

โ€ข Stack traces in React are not much fun
โ€ข They seem to understand that
โ€ข Sentry helps you solve that

Good format.

developer experience
navbar
github

"Star us on GitHub" navbar design from Supabase

A nice example of making navbar more developer-focused.

Ask for GitHub stars with a link to the repository.

It does three things:

  • shows where your repository is and that you have something I can see
  • lets me see that you have a popular repository
  • reminds me that I can star it (if I am a returning user)
developer experience
copy
call to action
product led growth
landing page

Hero section CTA from Cypress.io

That CTA.

You go straight for the install/download.

I don't know if you can go more developer-focused than that.

It sets the tone for the entire homepage.

And let's be honest (almost) nobody actually clicks that "Sign up" button in the hero section.

developer experience
call to action
blog

Auth0 blog sidebar CTA

I like those sidebar CTAs from Auth0.

They go with a sticky Table of Contents which gives a better reading experience.

They put two CTAs below that TOC:

  • "See docs" presented in a very subtle, very developer-friendly way
  • They put a more aggressive banner but it is still on the tasteful side.

Solid job.

developer experience
landing page
hero section

Header design from Iterative.ai

I love this simple design.

They show:

  • A GIF of code and console
  • Have a few tabs with features, explained
  • Social proof with Github stars

Simple, and powerful imho.

social posts
linkedin

Toolstack diagram post on Linkedin

Architecture diagrams are awesome.

They have this smell of value that makes you want to share them with others.

This one is particularly good-looking imho.

campaigns

GitHub Skyline campaign

Very cool project.

You type in your GitHub name and see your history in 3d.

  • engaging 3d viz
  • cool music
  • button to share it on Twitter

And Voila!

You have an intrinsically viral brand awareness campaign.

Just brilliant.

developer experience
github
call to action
social proof

Sticky "star us on GitHub" from Posthog

OK, the best way of getting GitHub stars is by creating a project that solves real developer problems well.

I assume you have done that already and the metric that people love to hate โญ is growing organically.

What do you do now?

I mean you got to ask people in one way or another.

Many companies put it in their navbars or hello bars.

Posthog adds a sticky banner at the bottom of the page that follows you as you scroll.

It also shows a start count which at their size (11k + stars) acts as social proof.

You can close it and the next time you visit the page it will be off not to push too much.

I like the concept makes sense to test it out this way imho.

ads
copy

Trieve newsletter sponsorship ad

Awesome sponsorship ad from Trieve in the Cassidy Williams newsletter.

Not sure who wrote it but it must have been a dev ;) It is just so refreshingly to the point.

๐Ÿ’š What I like:

  • "What is it": A product description gives you no fluff "what it is". Feels like something from "Hacker News launch" ย almost.
  • "What it compares to" | "Why should I care" : They compare vs a well-known dev tool in the space. And this is great, helps the dev anchor with something they know. Helps them understand why this could be valuable. They even give you a life app where you can see for yourself.
  • "How can I test it for myself": They offer free credits to play with in a cloud version.

This ad does it so gracefully and quickly it is just hard not to love. ย 

campaigns
social posts
swag
linkedin

Big prize swag campaign from NannyML

Is it better to do one big prize or many small prizes?

This is a decision you have to make when thinking about running a swag campaign.

Turns out that a ย small number of huge prizes can get you way better ROI on the same budget.

And NannyML has done it brilliantly here.

They are a monitoring tool and they give away monitoring setup.

This is something that actually can go viral. And it did.

ads
social posts
reddit

Reddit ad format from ClearML

Code-style ad format on Reddit.

Code can speak louder than words (sometimes).

It makes your value prop real and concrete to the right audience.ย 

developer experience
landing page

Mongodb for developers section

Good in-place code pattern.

I can go and see different code snippets without moving to other parts of the website.

At the same time, I can read explanations and value propositions.

I like how "view documentation" is such a strong CTA with so much going on here already.

blog

How to tell a debugging story from GitLab

One of the best types of developer content is a debugging story.

"What is X" or "How to solve Y" work in some situations, especially when you focus on SEO distribution. But a good debugging story is something that even senior devs want to read.

This is an old article from the GitLab and is such a good example of thos format:

  • Set the scene: Say what happened, what results you managed to get, and introduce the problem. Skip the fluffy intro and invite devs into the story
  • Go deep into the problem: show what happened and go into technical details. Address the obvious solution that unfortunately didn't solve the problem. Showing profilers, charts, UIs. Make the problem more concrete.
  • The journey: explain what you tried, how it failed, and what you learned, go technical and detailed. Take people on that journey
  • Close the loop: Close with a win, show the improvements/results, summarize what you learned

The downside of using this format is the same as with most good developer content. You need a real situation, explained by an actual dev in a technical language.

navbar
developer experience
blog
copy

Snyk navbar resources tab design

The "Resources" tab is the most loved and hated tab for developer marketers.

Ok so the common problem is that you have lots of different resources:

  • docs
  • product videos
  • meetup videos
  • recorded webinars
  • learning center guides
  • blog articles that don't talk about your product
  • and so much more stuff

You want to showcase them in the navbar but where do you put them?

Under product? Company? Docs?

How to make sure that people don't go to your blog to read about your product just to find out that you talk about the industry problems there?

Enter the "Resources" tab. The "Miscellaneous" of the navbar world.

And typically it is just crammed with all stuff that doesn't fit anywhere. Just like any respectable misc folder would. ย 

How do you deal with that?

Snyk approached it in a clear and logical way:

  • Add sub-navigation
  • Make it clear to devs which parts are about the product and which ones are not
  • They use "Using Snyk" and "Learn & Connect" that could be extended to "Using {Product} and "Learning {Category/Problem}"

I love this (and already stole the idea for our site).

landing page
social proof

Modal Community section

The main message you want to land on your homepage community section is:

"We have a big community of devs who love using the product"

๐Ÿšง That helps you tackle obstacles your dev reader has:

  • "is this tool any good" ย 
  • "do real companies use it in production"
  • "are there people who can help me when I hit roadblocks"
  • "where would I find others using the tool when I have questions"

๐Ÿ’š Modal solves it beautifully by going simple but smart:

  • Join our community header and a call to action to join Slack makes it obvious where users are
  • Wall of love style testimonials give a feel that there are so many users and they love it enough to share that with others
  • They all look like Tweets even though (I presume) some of them aren't. That is a nice trick to boost social proof. People give more value to social post testimonials.
  • They show a face, name, role, and company which builds trust and makes it obvious those are other devs (like me)

It lands the message that this section should land for sure. I really like it.

youtube
video
ads

Pattern-breaking pre-roll ad from Sentry

Pre-roll ads are obviously invasive and annoying, especially to devs. But they are also prime real estate in the ad ecosystem.

You can choose not to do them at all (fair option). Or try and make them more fun and less annoying ;)

I like how Sentry handled it in this 16-second video:

  • They start with a funny, disarming hook. A pic of a cat pic ;). It catches my attention and stops me from clicking "skip ad" as I want to understand what it is about.
  • They show how those pics didn't come off well and introduce the company saying "Sentry can't fix that". That keeps me interested enough to see what it does.
  • They show a straightforward, short product video with the actual application screenshots and zoom-ins to show pieces of the product for the rest of the video.

Basically they managed to "buy" 11 seconds of attention with 5 seconds of a pattern-breaking hook. ย In the world of pre-roll YouTube dev-focused ads, I'd say this is a win.

Also, I don't know the results of the "Sentry can't fix that " campaign, but I like how this builds curiosity. Even with that slogan alone.

ads
reddit
social posts

Meme Reddit ad from Zesty

Developer-focused Reddit ad. 33 upvotes, 30 comments.

So @Zesty is a company that targets devops folks and helps with cloud cost optimization.

And they decided to run Reddit ads.

So they:

  • Chose the format that works with devs on (some) subreddits
  • The funny message that connects to their main value prop
  • Made it clear that they solve that problem in the copy
  • Added clear(ish) branding

And they got 33 upvotes and 30 comments.

Some of the comments were technical.

One comment that got 67 upvotes was actually

"Okay, this ad is pretty funny"

And I agree, this is a pretty funny ad that I am sure brought them some brand awareness and clicks.

copy

"CI" vs "Build" A/B test from Earthly

Copy that lands makes a huge difference in dev tool website conversion.

Earthly proved it with this "tiny" change.

So I am a huge believer in good copy.

Not the clever one but the one that is written with words that your customers use.

That is rooted in product and research.

But I often hear devs or founders say things like "it's just copy".

It is not "just copy" it is your message, it is your positioning.

It is the difference between ย "cool, let's try it" and "now for me, whatever".

So some time ago I came across this article from the Earthly CEO Vlad Ionescu.

He shared that at some point they decided to run this A/B test with just a "tiny" change.

They changed the word "CI" -> "Build" across the homepage.

  • Control -> "Earhly makes CI super simple"
  • Test -> "Earhly makes builds super simple"

And their core website conversion doubled.

So next time you work on website copy give it some more thought and you may be surprised that "just copy" made a huge difference.

swag
conferences

Swag with CTAs from Union.ai

How to get more ROI from your dev conference booth? ->ย Add obvious CTAs.

Yes, giveaway stuff.

Yes, make it nice and branded.

Yes, make it funny, shareable, and cool.

But give people an easy and obvious option to give back and support you and your goals.

I really liked how Union.ai approached it at the recent MLOps World conference:

  • A simple folded paper info with CTAs right next to your giveaway
  • CTAs to GitHub stars, Linkedin, and Slack community

Just a nice little tactic but I bet it squeezed a bit more of that ROI juice that we all need in 2023 ;)

social posts
twitter

Hand written diagram tweet format

Share an idea about a new concept.

Explain the concept in simple terms.
Back it up with a visualization.

I like the "hand-written" style of this viz that makes it less formal.

โ€

โ€

โ€

developer experience
navbar

Navbar product tab design from Posthog

How to design the navbar product tab? This is what @PostHog does ๐Ÿ‘‡

Figuring out what to put in the navbar is tricky:

  • How should you name tabs
  • What should go where
  • Should you have "resources" or divide it

The "Product" tab is especially tricky.

It can get overloaded with a ton of content.

  • Some teams put docs, and product videos there.
  • Some show features, integrations, and code examples.
  • Some go with solutions and per person per industry pages.
  • Some just put everything in there ;)

I like how Posthog approached it:

  • They use the word "features". Most devs like it more than other options.
  • They show the data stack with which the tools integrate. That is an important obstacle handler pretty much always.
  • They include customers in the product tab. Most devs want to see the product and may not go to the "customers" tab. This is a nice way to add social proof and increase conversion to user stories pages.
  • They show customer logos and the results they got from the product. Again more social proof without clicking out.
  • They use "customer stories" rather than "case studies" which again feels more devy .

I like it.

billboards
ads
copy

Funny competitive campaign billboard

Funny and memorable competitive billboard ad from @Statsig ๐Ÿ‘‡

You have a big incumbent, everyone knows them. Use it to anchor your brand.

And tell the story of how you do things differently.

๐Ÿ‘€ But first, make people see you. And remember you in the next conversation when the big known brand or a category comes up.

And being funny is one of the best ways of getting attention and being remembered.

๐Ÿ’š I love how folks from Statsig did it here. Such a playful pun on the feature flag category incumbent Launch Darkly. Job well done.

Btw, this was shared by Oleksii Klochai in the Developer Marketing Community (you joined yet?).

blog
call to action
seo

JTBD blog post from WorkOS

This is how you write dev tool JTBD blog posts.

Masterclass of writing this type of content from @WorkOS imho.

Deep 2000 word guide that explains how to add webhooks the your application.

Goes into examples, best practices, everything.

One thing it doesn't do?

It doesn't push the product left right and center.

In fact, the only CTA is hidden in the very last sentence of the very last section.

Why?

Because most likely, the reader's intent is around understanding the problem at this point.

They want to understand what adding webhooks to their app really means from the practitioner's standpoint.

And they did that beautifully.

Could you have pushed the product a bit more? Sure.

But by answering the actual questions devs came here for they managed to build trust.

And I am sure got their fair share of click-throughs and signups anyway.

navbar

Great navbar design from Auth0

Navbar is a hugely important conversion lever on the dev-facing website. I saw it move the needle by x times in some cases/conversion events.

So, what does a good one look like?

Auth0 did a great job on their developer portal. But the learnings can be applied to your marketing website too.

What I like:

  • They have an explicit division between docs and resources (you can do without it but I like it)
  • Community (with all the events, forums, support etc) is clearly emphasized and discoverable
  • When you click on the navbar tab you get an extensive mega menu with many options
  • Each item in the mega menu gets a one-sentence description of what you'll find there

That makes it easy for devs to explore. Without having to click out to see what each tab/item means. And when devs know what you mean they are more likely to actually click out. And convert.

brand
campaigns
ads
billboards

"What good is bad data" from Segment

This is a really clever billboard campaign.

Show don't tell they say.

And Segment did exactly that by putting billboards with the wrong location printed on them (LA in SF etc).

The theme/message was "What good is bad data?" which was exactly what they wanted to convey.

What I like about is the alignment between:

  • campaign creative
  • campaign theme
  • product value

This is hard to do imho so big kudos to them ๐ŸŽ‰!

Downside?

Reportedly many folks who saw billboards didn't get that it was intentional and Tweeted at them about the error.

Or maybe they were next-level jokers...

copy
swag
reddit

"Did X and all I got is this lousy t-shirt"

This is a solid swag copy template that resonates with devs.

"I did X and all I got was this lousy Y"

Why this works imho is:

  • it is snarky
  • it is a little self-deprecating
  • it brags a bit about the work/expertise

Very solid start if you run out of ideas.

social posts
linkedin

Linkedin promotional post of a library

I like how this post shows:

  • what the library does
  • shows how to install it
  • gives the option to read more in-feed

All in one visual post.

developer experience
landing page

1-2-3 how-to section from Appsmith

How easy it is to get started is a big conversion factor for any dev tool.

Devs want to test things out and if it is hard to do they will be gone testing a competitor that made it easy.

And so a good how-to section on your homepage can make a big difference in getting devs to that first experience.

Appsmith does it beautifully with their 1-2-3 How-to section:

  • 1-2-3 format: Connect data -> Drag and drop -> Customize with code
  • Interactive GIFs with code snippets and UI elements
  • CTAs to integrations, widget library, and docs
  • Dev testimonial at the end to make it real

It is so engaging and just beautifully designed. And the CTA to additional resources like integrations, widget library, and docs make the message land. I do believe it is easy to set this up.

Great pattern to copy-paste imho.