In late 2022, I started mentoring founders, product marketers and developer advocates on ADPList. Many of them were first-time contributors in dev-first companies and reached out to learn the nuances of developer marketing.
I've been working in developer tools (Clerk, Specify) for years, experimenting with what works and what doesn't work, and I co-run a community of tech founders and marketers from awesome dev-first products like Resend, Supabase, and Vercel.
This post is about what I learned when marketing to developers and some resources to help you get started.
cracking the code of developer marketing
Above all, my #1 lesson learned is:
You can put down your B2B marketing playbook.
Traditional B2B marketing techniques do not work with developers. They're resistant to anything that looks, sounds, or smells like marketing.
Let's start from scratch. First, below are some must-read resources:
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Developer marketing (2020) by Helen Min (Meta, Dropbox, Plaid)
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Developer marketing doesn't exist (2021) by Adam DuVander (SendGrid)
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On developer marketing (2024) by Lee Robinson (Vercel)
Let's dive in.
Developer marketing by Helen Min (Meta, Dropbox, Plaid)
In this blog post, Helen sets first principles and best practices when marketing to developers:
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Show, don't tell;
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Features over benefits;
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Be genuinely helpful.
Helen puts it simply:
Think of [developer marketing] as community building, where the goal is engagement, and not marketing, where the goal is generating new leads.
— Helen Min, Head of Marketing, Plaid
Developer marketing doesn't exist by Adam DuVander (SendGrid)
In this book, published in 2020, Adam DuVander, previously writer at ProgrammableWeb and content strategist at SendGrid and Zapier, introduced the DEV Content Framework — a structured approach to creating helpful content for a technical audience.
DEV stands for Discovery, Education, and Viewpoint. In short:
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Make your product and docs as accessible as possible;
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Keep your content helpful, educative, and inspiring;
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Have an opinion — stand for how things should work.
You can read an introduction to this framework with real-world examples from Stripe, Linear, and more in this blog post.
On developer marketing by Lee Robinson (Vercel)
More recently (2024), Lee Robinson, VP of Product at Vercel, published a blog post summarizing what he learned when engaging with developers.
This quote really resonates:
The best developer marketing teaches how to build great products, builds and retains trust, uses precise language. It's both concise and precise. it values your time — every word matters.
— Lee Robinson, VP of Product, Vercel
going forward
Over to you! To go more in-depth into this topic, below is a quick checklist with more helpful resources:
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Star this awesome-developer-marketing repo: an open-source collection of great resources, by Ronak Ganatra (DatoCMS, Hygraph);
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Subscribe to the Markepear newsletter: real-world examples, strategies and tactics, by Jakub Czabon (Neptune.ai);
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Listen to the Scaling DevTools podcast: insights and best practices you need to grow, by Jack Bridger;
Ronak, Jakub, Jack, and 1,000+ tech founders and marketers are part of the Developer Marketing Community to share insights and best practices. Join the fun!
And if you enjoyed this read, feel free to connect on LinkedIn and/or Twitter for more insights.