Marketing Knowledge for Developers

December 1st, 2015

When you are a Developer at a certain company its quite good for you to don't know about marketing stuff. A bit more advanced, if you are freelancing in the online market places this time you may need to know a little bit.

But when you are founding your startup, You need to know a lot about marketing, growth hacking , getting business leads, doing 24/7 communication for one sale or for one final deal, this the phase I am currently in now.

Doing 24/7 communication around the world, cause at the end Sales and revenue that's what matters for a startup.

I have been looking for tools, tips. tactics and resources to develop this skill set, trying newer things every new day.

Is there any suggestion from the FD community here or would you please share your personal experience here.

Many thanks

Sharon McCarthy Chief Marketing Officer

December 1st, 2015

I'm a 20+ year professional marketer. Here's what I tell people.

Hubspot Inbound marketing certification. This is a good overview of the tactics of marketing, especially if you're a B2B business.
For your brand positioning/promise (the benefit to customers) I'd read and commit to memory Doug Hall's book, Jumpstart Your Business Brain. Even though it's very B2C focused, it's still one of the best books out there on brand positioning and it's been validated by a ton of data.

That should get you started. Other places to look are the online courses from Northwestern or Coursera. Avoid anything by the Shaw Academy. Lynda is hit or miss.

Other books: Michael Hyatt's How to Build a Platform in a Noisy World. Daniel Pink's, To Sell is Human. Positioning by Trout and Ries. If you're B2B, definitely read Moore's Crossing the Chasm.

Michael Boezi Writer, Strategist, Educator.

December 1st, 2015

Marketing is everyone's job when you're at a startup, even the developers. The good news is that the rules of marketing have changed, and I believe that anyone can do it now. It still takes a lot of work, but the opportunity is a gift.

I am an advisor to small businesses and startups, so I teach this to clients every day. Here are some free resources that I've created-I hope you get something out of them:
My podcast, Marketing without the Marketing: http://marketingwithoutthemarketing.com
My blog series, Content Strategy for Entrepreneurs: http://bit.ly/MB-CSE

Chris Gorges Managing Director, Infinia Group // Founder, Biddlist

December 4th, 2015

Check out Google Primer: www.yourprimer.com

It's a mobile app full of bite-size (~5 minutes) lessons on marketing topics like the ones you mentioned.

Michael Haupt Strategist, speaker, mentor, advisor | Creator of The 2100 Pendulum - a simple model to explain today & predict tomorrow

December 1st, 2015

You are asking the question all technical founders struggle with - "I've built an awesome product, now how on earth do I tell the world about it?"

That's exactly why I put together a marketing toolkit to help startups solve this problem. I won't post a link here, because that smacks of self-promotion ;) Checkout my profile if you're interested.

To answer your question about 24/7 communication - do checkout a very useful tool called https://www.intercom.io. All serious startups use them, and they've written a number of highly recommended books on customer engagement and product design. There is a small cost to use them, but way less than what your time is worth.

Jeff Hadfield Trendsetting, Imaginative Marketing & Content Expert, Cutting-edge Advisor, Coach, Speaker

December 1st, 2015

Shihab,

This is exactly the challenge I've been helping people with for many years. On one hand, I help marketers figure out how to effectively market their products to developers, and on the other, I help developers learn how to grasp the fundamentals of marketing. Many excellent answers precede this one, with some great resources.

Ultimately, however, it comes down to knowing your customer, understanding what problems you're solving for your customer, and the most effective ways to reach your customer. Reaching your customer requires a mix of tactics as you attract customers along the entire buying path.

Happy to chat further; feel free to message me here.

best

Jeff

Ananth Agasthya Principal Facilitator at ILIFESigmoid

December 1st, 2015

Dear Shihab Uddin, I am happy that the questions have come to your attention at this stage. I am not a marketing Guy but I can share a few things from my own failures and insights. 1. Many times we make assumptions without verifying whether they are valid or whether there is any risk that the assumption may not turn out to be right. So whenever you decide anything, including price, delivery schedule etc., it may be worthwhile writing down your assumptions. Sometimes, we may realize that the assumptions are simplistic. 2. Selling and getting business is about focus. I would recommend that you segment the market as each segment require a different strategy and approach. Choose to focus on the segment which will give you maximum leverage, not just what is easy. 3. There is another fallacy that we are often blinded by our emotional minds. This is called " what you see is all there is ". We do not question whether there are other customers, other ways of doing, other possibilities which we are not open to etc. 4. Don't get misled by either an yes or a no as an answer. Each customer has a threshold level before he or she commits. 5. Please make sure you spend enough time with the decision makers and influencers and opinion makers. Don't spend time with those who give time. Best wishes . Anantha Agasthya Sent from my iPad

Isabel Fernandez

December 1st, 2015

Hello Shihab,

I've had the exact same challenges as I founded a startup without knowing much about marketi I have taken many courses now over the years and by far the best one has been Marketivity by Keith Aichele. It is an e-course with live events you can attend as well as webinars every three weeks. The software you get is even more powerful than InfusionSoft and all for less than half the price of InfusionSoft alone. You can contact Keith directly and let him know I recommended you. Let me know I f you're interested and I can send you a private message with his contact information.

Hope that helps!

Isabel

Anthony Miller

December 1st, 2015

Hi there! Not sure what kind of startup you have, but there is plenty of goodies here. http://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/

Good luck!

Omon I I AM NOT THE NEXT STEVE JOBS. I AM OMON

December 1st, 2015

Shibab, That is a great question you asked, and I am glad you asked it because many businesses have the same problem you have. Generally, conventional wisdom demands that you do all of them or as many of them as possible. I would argue to the contrary. The reason for that is, i have had the opportunity to advise small businesses around, and many of them believe that the more marketing avenues you are in, the better for you. While that is somewhat true, you often find that it is wasted effort because you may not be capitalizing on the best avenue for your service or product. Not every product or service needs to go viral, and not every product or service needs growth hacking. It depends on the kind of service and product, and who your core base is. You'd be surprised that perhaps your product or service will be best served going the traditional route rather than the digital route. In your case, I would advise that you consider the traditional approach of having press coverage, through magazines, and television. You can start from places like MIT review, Wired or even PC magazine, just to name a few. Hope that helps. Omon imolorhe Omon Imolorhe 289-400-9968 Let's Connect: https://www.facebook.com/omon.o.imolorhe https://twitter.com/Omon_Imo http://www.linkedin.com/in/omonimolorhe "The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions." - Claude Levi-Strauss

Lydia Sugarman Entrepreneur. CEO + Non-Technical Founder. Seeker. Thinker. Drinker of bourbon.

December 1st, 2015

I had a conversation about marketing, sales, and business development earlier today with a startup founder in the Bay Area for a couple weeks for meetings and networking.

I must disagree with Omon. PR and traditional advertising is simply too expensive, too slow, and impossible to track. The research has shown that it really doesn't convert well and startups need to focus on conversions, especially to get that initial traction to attract investment dollars. We should all be so lucky to have our startups go viral, but solid marketing, business development, and sales should result in a solid customer base. Ideally, those customers will love what you've created and become advocates and evangelists who will trigger that viral effect.

Growthhacking (a term coined by Sean Ellis) is seriously labor intensive if done correctly, but definitely more than pays for itself. Otherwise, engaging a marketing consultant who has experience with online campaigns and understands the startup environment is worth the investment.

You have to identify your market. Define the personas of your customers. Or, follow Clay Christensen of Harvard Business School and use job-based marketing. Some products are better defined by the job they do than the customers they serve.

Then, figure out where your customers hang out. Some are on Pinterest while others are on LinkedIn. Choose three of the most likely social media and focus your efforts on them, along with good ol' email marketing.

Measure everything. Adjust. Test. Measure. Adjust. Repeat.

I'd suggest you do a search for Sean Ellis, GrowthHackers, Dan Martell, Peep Laja, Conversion XL, and also 500Startups Distrosnack. Subscribe to everything and read it all. You'll get a great education.

Spend some money on the right tools but don't get sucked into spending more than necessary.

Disclaimer - While I'm working to launch Personal Health Cloud, I'm still running my company, Venntive which a complete marketing-sales platform. I've been advising on online marketing and email marketing since 2001. If you'd like to take the conversation offline, just ping me.

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