Developer marketing examples

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.

"How fast do you ship?"

Not many dev tools answer that on their homepage. PostHog does.

In a typical (enterprise) sales process, people often ask:

• what is on your roadmap?
• how fast do you deliver new features?
• what has your product progress been like last year?

And you show them the roadmap or get someone from the product on the next call.

But I haven't yet seen dev tools talk about it on their homepage.

But why not?

Devs who want to buy self-serve want to know it almost just as much.

After all, they won't be able to twist your arm to build that custom feature cause "we are your biggest client and we need it".

I like it, it builds trust, it shows me you are transparent,

And it shows me that those features I can see on the public roadmap will come true.

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.

💚 What I like:

• "What is it": A product description gives you no fluff "what it is". Feels like something from "Hacker News launch"  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.  

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.

It's a nice template for ads on socials.

So you have:

• Value
• Testimonial about the value/benefit
• Person
• CTA

Ideally, I'd make it dark to stand out in the feed and make the CTA about that value as well.

But still, great ad imho.

How to design the navbar product tab? This is what @PostHog does 👇

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.

Well done templates gallery from Vercel.

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

✅ 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.

💚 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.

This is a cool story coming from the GOAT of all docs. They added a signup button to their header and the conversions and revenue followed.

All they did was added a "Create Account" button and saw a huge jump in conversions.

Interestingly, Peggy shared that when they added it to Apollo GraphQL docs, signups went up by 20%.

It sounds like a good thing to try out.

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.

This is one of my favorite our dev tool vs competitor blog posts.

With these pages, you want to explain when you are better.

But you don't want to berate your competitor.

And above all, you want to help people make a decision.

Chances are (almost 100% ;)) that you are not better for every use case. And your developer audience knows it.

But there should be use cases, tool stacks, or situations when you are the best option.

Talk about those. Dev to dev.

@Convex did a great job in this post that I think can be a template for how to write these:

• They start by saying what is the same. That sets the context.
• Then they say good things about their competitor. Shows respect and understanding
• They follow by listing 3 key differences/situations when you should consider them
• And they go ahead and explain each of these differences deeply

After reading that post you are fairly convinced that if your situation matches the one described and if it makes sense to use it.

Love it.

Modal with updates.

Adding a modal with "what happened lately" for users who come back to the app.

Good idea for re-activating users by showing new features or examples.

+ a link to a deeper resource.

13% signup form conversion bump with a dev-focused trust/motivation builder.

Dev goes through your page, clicks the signup button, and sees a signup form. Now you want them to actually sign up.

The V1 approach is to go clean, a few social signup buttons like GitHub and call it a day.

The V2 is to add trust/motivation builders on the page:

• Logos -> big enterprises and hot startups using your product always feel reassuring
• Testimonial -> fellow dev talking about the product makes your claims real
• Value prop-> reiterating what the product does, key capabilities, makes what you can deliver clear
• How-to -> showing how you get to that value with a 1-2-3 steps removes friction, makes it feel easier

Now, Stytch went for an interesting V3:

Code snippet -> how about just show it? this is a flavour of that 1-2-3 how-to but extra dev-friendly. They also made the code interactive so that you can tinker with it, make it feel yours already.

And they saw a 13% signup conversion bump.

Definitely an interesting thing to test out.

Check out Stytch CEO talking about it here.

I like how this starts with a [WHAT IT IS ABOUT] scroll stopper.

That is coupled with a big block of code that has:

• input -> code
• output - > results from console

(presumably) when you click "See more" you get the rest of the text post.

Marketing through free tools is powerful. And Auth0 implemented it beautifully.

In an old article from Gonto I read about some free tools that Auth0 created years ago.

And those tools are still generating traffic and leads today.

And they are helpful to developers and make the Auht0 brand even more appreciated by the community.

One of those tools is JSON Web Token Debugger.

So how this works for them is this:

• You understand that your target dev audience has a problem
• You realize that helpful blog posts can only do so much
• You create a small tool that helps solve that problem
• You create content that explain the concept to help build SEO
• You link out to that content on the home
• You add links to your core product/events or other offers in the navbar
• You wait for devs to come ;)

Now, Gonto suggested that is important to do it on a separate domain to make it less promotional.

I am not sold on that especially when I know there are companies like @VEED.IO that build "SEO tool clusters" in the /tools/ subfolder of their page and crush it in search.

But either way, if you can solve a real problem your target devs have, no matter how small, you should be able to get some developer love (and $) from the value you created.

Is this brand campaign 💩 or ❤️?

I like it a lot actually.

It gets attention, it is memorable, it gets reactions.  

And It does speak to a product message: that you have better developer experience than other tools.

It definitely beats flavors of "5x developer productivity".

Interactive product tours are all the rage.

But how do you make them work for the dev audience?

How do you deal with:

• Explain your complex dev tool value proposition quickly
• Show both code and UI elements
• Make devs feel great developer experience of your product
• Push devs to the conversion action without being to pushy
• And do all that without overwhelming

That is hard.

But Vercel somehow made it.

This is by far the best product tour I have seen so far.

What I love:

• Great, clean navigation that lets me go back if I want to
• They use their slogan "Develop, Preview, Ship" to reinforce the product message
• They show both code and the UI
• The CTAs are visible but subtle enough not to distract

This product tour is what dev tool startups will aspire to for years (or months ;) ) to come.

Mark my words.

If you want to get your post to do well on HackerNews you may want to break some "marketing rules" you'd expect to work elsewhere when it comes to titles.

And the titles are really important on HN.

People will start a discussion and fight viciously on both sides of the argument without even reading the article.

I even tested it one time by putting an article "Why people on Hacker News comment without reading" on HN. It went to the first spot in 5min and got a few people talking before it got flagged ;) The article obviously had nothing in it. Just an ask for people who clicked out not to comment saying it was empty.

The point stands though. Titles are crucial imho. They set the tone. Good titles give you a better chance.

And no, in this case, Karma didn't play a role here:

• ssivark 5804 Karma got 2 upvotes
• gregsadetsky 5625 Karma got 3 upvotes
• stefanpie 1223 Karma got 219 upvotes

What I think mattered was the titles. Very similar theme but a vastly different vibe.

• "Your Paper Is an Ad" is punchy, authoritative
• "How to Get Your Paper Accepted" is actionable, authoritative
• "Getting a paper accepted" is understated, builds curiosity, it feels like a story

Imho this is what happened here. The Hacker News crowd lives on good hacker life stories, on feeding curiosity. On titles that don't feel like a marketer would post.

So when in doubt go understated.

btw I have a good story of helping an infra startup get to the top of HN Show if you are interested. Added a bunch of links to resources/learnings in there too: https://www.markepear.dev/case-studies/glassflow

Nice and clean code example.

Clear copy, what it does etc.

Calls to action with links to Github and website.

Really long code example which looks great when clicked on.

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.

How to promote your important company event? How about right there in the header.

A typical approach to promoting events on your site is to have them in the Hello bar (right above the navbar). This is a solid option of course.

But what if this is a super duper important event that you really want to push?

Put it in the header.

The header is the most viewed part of the most visited page on your site.

Doesn't get much better than that.

But you don't want to distract people from your value propositions and main CTAs too much.

How do you do that?

This is how Vercel did with last year's NEXT.js conf.

• above the H1 headline so as not to break the flow
• prominent but not more distracting than it needs to be
• has conference logo, crystal clear copy, and an event CTA

Nice execution on that pattern.

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?

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

‍

‍

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.

Simple and powerful messaging.

They say what they do. Zero fluff.

They make it easy for devs by explaining how they are different than (obvious) competitors.

They add a little developer-focused social proof.

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.

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.

With infrastructure tools, it is notoriously difficult to show people the value quickly.

To really see it they would need to set up everything at their company infra, create dashboards for their use case, and so on. 

A lot of work.

That is why creating a sandbox experience is a good way of giving people a taste.

I like the way Axiom calls it a playground and says "Play with Axiom" and "Launch playground".

This copy is good because:

• they acknowledge it isn't a real thing (but a playground)
• it conveys that it will be interactive and you'll be able to click around
• it makes it feel like less work and more, well play :)

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"

🚧 That helps you tackle obstacles your dev reader has:

• "is this tool any good"  
• "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"

💚 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.

The problem with presenting API is that it is hidden. It gets the job done in the background.

So it is not "attractive" in the way some other dev tools can be.

But you can:

• show the end result and how it gets the job done.
• show how easy it is to use.
• let people play with something interactive to make it real.

That is how Mux, video API, solves it.

Found this awesome crossover on their homepage.

They give you:

• devvy language that just says what it does without high-level fluff
• code, input/outputs
• end result of your API call, to make it real
• demo to get the feel real-time

Love it!

Pushing cold blog readers to try your tool rarely works.

So you need a transitional CTA, something that worms them up.
But it needs to be aligned with the goals of the reader.
And I think pushing folks to a community discord is a solid option.

I like the copy "Discuss this blog on Discord" as it is very reader-focused.
Some folks read the article and have more questions.
They want to discuss it somewhere.

And while you could just do a comments section, a community gives you more options to get people closer to the product.

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.

𝗔𝘁𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗱 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹?

Hard, but Run.ai did that.

Infra products are not "obviously cool".

There is no shiny UI, no happy people wearing your sneakers,

So what do you show on your ads?

First off, the rules still apply:

• Catch your audience's attention
• Say what you do in their language
• Better yet, show how it actually does it

And Run.ai ai and MLOps infra tool managed to create a beautiful Linkedin ad IMHO:

• They catch attention with the code visual
• They say what they do quickly with "Dynamic Fractional GPU using One Command"
• They extend on that in the post copy with an action-driven "Open Terminal -> Run Command -> Boom"
• The code shows what it feels like to use the tool
• And it shows you the result -> fractional GPUs

Job well done!

Classic Auth0 campaign coming back in 2023.

I love how simple and powerful this message is.

You can outsource a dull but important problem of authentications to them.

That is all the say.

But it is enough to get you interested and understand what they do.

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.

I love how simple this delivery is. But this is what makes it powerful:

• What it does (benefit): "Launch Apps Near Users" just tells you right away what is in it for you
• How it does it (features): some specifics in the header that make you understand the how
• Visual: doubles down on that "near users" by showing which locations they support
• Joke: that little joke "6 continents -> * Antarctica coming soon" makes it more memorable and adds one more point of emphasis to that "near users" story

Bonus points for showing those regions with their balloon logo.

Just loved how they focused their message to the very core and used all of those elements to land it right away. Great job.

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.

Say what you do and how you do it.

What:

• Supabase owns it with an "open-source firebase alternative"
• They don't streamline project delivery or anything. ‍

How:

• Value proposition around speed of set up
• Then jargon that hits the spot with your ideal developers
• Short, and to the point. 

CTA (bonus):

• "Start your project" action-focused
• Documentation. With devs, this is always a good alternative CTA

The idea behind this conversion play is to put an "Aside CTA" that is unrelated to the content early in the article.

And get that clicked.

But obviously, if you do that it will be pushy and intrusive.

So?

Nevo David from Novu shared this idea on one of the podcasts:

• Put a small section right after the introduction
• Add memes to catch attention and disarm the "I hate ads" reader (a little bit)
• Make an explicit ask. Make it human and somewhat vulnerable

Btw, Nevo says that cat memes work best.

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

Dorky joke right?

But it does two very important things beautifully.

It gets a smirk (from some people) and when it does you know you just moved someone closer to your brand.

It has a clear CTA which is hard to do with joke-format ads.

This subtle call to conversation/check us out does the job.

Love it!

I like how it has a proper "hero section" feel to it but it adds a developer-focused twist:

• Explains in simple words what the tool is
• Adds a lot of navigational links (website, docs, examples, blog)
• Then it goes into detail about what it does

The rest of the Readme is great as well but the hero section is gold imho.

There are a few developer experience gems here:

• RSS feed: many devs love rss, let them consume your blog that way
• Search: some devs will immediately know this article is not for them. Let them search and stay.
• Clear branding: Some devs will read the article and leave. Make sure they at least remember your brand.

Also, their design is super clean, non-invasive, and simple which makes for easy content consumption and more developer love.

Make a {X} cry in 5 words or less.

Great Linkedin (or Twitter) post format.

This is one of those fantastic self-selecting mechanisms as well.

People who understand the joke are the people you are looking for.

You may get the exact people you want to follow your profile.

With a nicely targeted joke.

Love it.

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.

"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.

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

Check it out from second 0:35:

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

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

This is mastery.
Pointing out ignorance without alienating people.

There are many things that I like about it.

• A clear value proposition: Explains what it is: an open-source alternative to a well-known product Shopify.
• Shows code and what the code does visually. Great product explanation.
• Adds a social proof with "#1 JS ecom platform on GitHub:". When you have 16k stars you should use it!

Overall with very little effort, I understand what it is, and what it does.

And I can go and dig deeper for myself or spread the word with my circles.

"32 billion reasons to check out..." - I love this ad from Aikido Security.

What I Iove the most is that it doesn't say much, it just points. I think it comes from Harry Dry or the book Made to Stick.

But the idea is that the best stories are not something you write. It is something you tell. You don't say, just point.

And this is what folks from Aikido did:

• the story is that Wiz got acquired for $32B by Google
• often companies that get acquired the quality drops over time
• some folks in the dev community (on Reddit) are not happy about it

So they pointed:

• They pointed to a Reddit comment (simple screenshot)
• They pointed to them being acquired (which is a huge story in the space)
• They combined it all with a beautiful pun "32 Billion reasons to check out Aikidko"

Love it! Sometimes I think I live for this stuff ;)

Thank you Marie Jaksman for sharing this gem!

"See docs" is one of my favorite secondary CTA on dev-focused pages.

TailwindCSS takes it to the next level by inserting docs search right into the header CTA.

This takes devs directly to the page they are interested in rather than have them try and find things for themselves.

They could have searched the docs in the docs, of course.

But this is just this slightly more delightful developer experience that TailwindCSS is known for.

Funny and memorable competitive billboard ad from @Statsig 👇

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

And tell the story of how you do things differently.

👀 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.

💚 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?).

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  "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.

I like this Reddit ad creative that uses a classic, devy, bell curve meme.

This is a good creative to use when what you want to communicate is overcomplication. As in:

• there are simple "bad" beginner, obviously not working solutions
• there are complicated "you are so smart" overengineered solutions
• there are wise, pragmatic solutions... that look exactly like the simple beginner ones ;)

Plus, with devs, if you can make something not look like an ad you already won.

And there were a few comments suggesting just that:

• "Good job using meme as add on reddit kudos"
• "I only noticed after reading this lol"

LOVED HOW Flagsmith did it here:

• They start with a spicy controversial hook: "Test in production"
• They explain their product capability in super simple terms: "Decouple deploy and release with feature flags."
• Their call to action feels low commit, not pushy, no "do it now or..." but "Try Flagsmith open source". Having open-source in there is always good for places like Reddit, HackerNews
• The overcomplicated part of the creative shows that they get their audience. They use jargon that the tribe gets (this part can be tricky sometimes if your understanding is actually way off)

And they got people curious to see how Flagsmith makes this Test in production claim reasonable. I'd check it out if I was working on those workflows.

How to communicate the flexible part of your plan?

Many dev tools have 3 plans:

• Free
• Team
• Enterprise

Especially the ones doing some flavor of product-led-sales or open-source go-to-market.

Now, the Team plan is often a self-served version.

And for many dev tools, this part is partially or entirely usage-based.

So how do you present it?

You can just have "+ what you use" and explain it in the big table below.

But if you have just one usage dimension then why not do it here?

Resend does it beautifully communicating right away that it starts at 20$ / month and grows with the amount of emails you send.

Very clear. Very nice.

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.  

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.

I really love this hand-drawn feel.

It makes it super authentic.

Also, starting from scratch (not a ready diagram) makes following it more fun and less overwhelming.

Great stuff.

BTW the tool used for this is called excalidraw.com

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.

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. 

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  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.

Really good product navbar tab from Supabase.

The product tab in your navbar is likely the most visited one on your site.

And there are a million ways of organizing information in there.

But ultimately, you want to help people understand what this product is about at a glance.

Even before they click. Even if they never click.

And how do you explain your product to devs?
By answering common questions:

• "What are the capabilities/features, specifically?"
• "What do people use it for in producution, specifically?"
• "Ok, so how is it different than ... I used before/use now?"

Supabase does it really nicely:

• They show features + give a one-liner explanation
• They show customer logos + a one-liner on what they got from it
• They list the most common competitors with links to deeper comparisons

Very solid pattern imho.

What I'd improve:

• Make the third testimonial copy more dev-centric, more specific -> It reads "... to become top 10 mortgage broker"
• I'd add a link to a page with all comparisons -> what if I don't see mine?

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.

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 on 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!

An interesting option to push people to read the next article.

You use a slide-in triggered on a 75% scroll with a "read next" CTA in the bottom left.

On the aggressive side for sure but when the article you propose is clearly technical it could work.

And if your articles are not connected to the product explicitly you do need some ways to keep people reading and see more of your brand.

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

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.
‍

Brilliant.

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. 

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

• You put “your server” > then does it scale to a more robust infra?
• You put “on-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.

7k likes on an event promo post to the dev audience.

I don't think I've ever seen 7k likes on a developer company post on Linkedin.

Ok, this is Github, but still.

This is a 26sec video where they go:

• "What happens when a CEO..."
• "... builds an app LIVE in 18 minutes ..."
• "... in front of 15000 people..."
• "... with Copilot X for the first time?"
• "What could go wrong?"
• "What it Live"

This is a job well done:

• Super slick but minimal design. Feels a bit like that famous nextjs prisma conference tickets.
• Offers a live coding session which is one of the event types that devs like cause it is real.
• Plays powerful music, but no voiceover that would make it feel more corporate.
• Dev to dev, conversational copy. + this final snarkiness appeals to devs.

And they could have done:

• Copy: "We are happy to announce our CEO streamlining business value for the enterprise"
• Design: Show people at previous events and stuff that you saw a million times
• Offer: Talks from industry leaders (that  are customers using your product)
• Voiceover and music: Boring corporate classic.

This is how to promote an event. LOVED IT!

I really like this Reddit ad from Sentry.

Powerful simplicity.

They don't do:

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

They go for:

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

And through simplicity and focus they deliver a message:

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

Good format.

Classic widget PLG loop.

Algolia really crashed it with these. Here is how they made it so successful.

Some time ago I did some research on Algolia marketing looking for gems. Found quite a few as they are truly amazing at this.

One angle that is bringing a lot of traffic to their site is that classic PLG widget.

So what they did is:

• They gave away their search box for free (under conditions)
• They made sure that folks who do get it for free have some (ideally a lot of) overlap with their target audience.
• People who added that search box got the branded "Powered by Algolia" version of it
• Some devs who used the sites with the Algolia search box liked the search and went to their site
• Some of them started using it and spreading the word further

And the sites that brought the most traffic were:

• Hacker News search (that is not exactly the widget but a standalone site)
• Fontawesome (site with fonts for devs)
• Open-source documentation sites (they give away free docsearch to OS projects)
• SteamDB (gaming site)

I love this tactic as it aligns:

• the value their product provides
• the value that site users get
• the value that the company gets from developers finding out about it

Win Win Win

When you find those "Win Win Win" tactics/strategies you are golden.

This is one of the most interesting content pieces I have seen in dev tools recently 👇

Comes from @SST and believe it or not is a comedy video created to promote integrations.

That's right.

So SST integrated with Astro and instead of creating "just another how-to use X+Y" video they created this:

• A copy of "Between Two Ferns" comedy show
• With one of the founders of Astro framework which they integrated recently
• Where they don't really talk about integration too much ;)
• And reportedly got a ton of signups from this

It was a fun brand play but got way more views than a tutorial ever could.

And it connected with their audience in a human way that will be remembered (and shared).

Nice.

This body cross-section is just awesome.

It makes it obvious that I can connect it to my workflow.

This is a must for dev-focused pages imho.

What I like:

- there are many integrations listed

- I can see the code and that it is easy to use

- The CTA is to integration docs, awesome!

‍

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.  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.

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.

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.  

💚 And I think that a Plauground  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.

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

🤔 2 changes I'd test out:

• Making the copy more descriptive performs better.  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.

How to run developer-focused Reddit ads that get upvoted?

Reddit is well known for anti-promotional sentiments.

Just post something along the lines "you can solve that with our dev tool" and see.

So running ads on Reddit feels even more like a no-no.

Especially if you add problems with bot clicks and attribution as most devs will have some sort of blocks.

But you know your audience is on Reddit.

And for some of us, it may very well be the only social platform they are on.

So what do you do?

This is how @Featureform approached it to get almost 100 upvotes on an ad:

• They start with a simple conversational copy pointing at their target users pains
• They agitate target users pains in their language (lots of jargony terms, tools and problems)
• They use very devy language, likely rooted in deep user understanding (voice of customer)
• They don't talk about their product in the meme
• They show clear branding so that you can connect the dots.

If you are going for brand awareness rather than a direct conversion those types of ads can work very well.

I liked it for sure.

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 ;)

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.

Funny ad, that makes fun of ads.‍

But it actually communicates that you don't care about the ads but more about something else, like:

• docs
• code examples
• integration
• backend
• UI

Devs have a love/hate relationship with "Book a demo" call to action.

Mostly hate though.

Especially if what they want is:

• know what they will be paying for your tool
• just see a golden path of how this thing works

Let's just say that sitting through an hour demo call with a salesperson just to get the pricing is not what most devs love to do with their time.

But there are moments in the buyer journey when devs do want to have that live session:

• they tried it, went through the golden path, and have deeper questions
• they know they have specific needs and are unsure/couldn't find it in your docs/website.
• they want to customize the pricing plan to their needs.

Then, having a live session/demo is the fastest way to move forward.

@PostHog handles this dev journey reality nicely with:

• recorded, ungated product demo -> if you want a generic demo just watch it
• transparent pricing and a free plan -> don't need to sit through the demo to ask for price
• if you want a custom demo or just talk to a human -> just schedule a call

This approach solves both scenarios really nicely.  

Fantastic all-text Reddit ad from Latitude.

Dev ads are hard. Promotion on Reddit is harder.  Running a dev ad on Reddit that gets 50 comments and 90 likes is expert-level hard.

But folks from Latitude managed 🔥

They used one of my favorite Reddit ad formats: all text.

Here is what I liked:

• They start with who you are and what your product is. I love that they put it right in the title. Having open-source in the title helps too, it just makes you more trustworthy by default.
• They introduce themselves as a technical founder. Makes it more likely to get comments as you are technical, you are a founder, you are a human (not a brand) so you will answer questions.
• They apologize for the ad. Acknowledging that this is an ad makes people less combative.
• They explain technically what it is. Use technical terms. It's very dev to dev.
• They give  devs an easy way to try it. And they chose Github, not their website. That is great. It makes it even more developer-centric. More trustworthy.
• They ask for feedback and contributions.  Not signups. And the more feedback they get (as comments) the more visible and trustworthy the ad will get.

Great execution. Chapeau bas Latitude.

What if you not only posted entire articles on Reddit but also promoted them?

This is what WarpStream did and I like it.

A few weeks back I shared an example of a company posting not a link with a snippet but an entire article on Reddit.

WarpStream is taking it to the next level by promoting it as an in-feed Reddit ad.

I love this trend 100%:

• Platform first: don't force you to click out, read the content here
• Ads as distribution: treating paid options as a distribution channel

By doing that you assume that if your piece of content gets read by the right people it will lead to business outcomes. People don't need to go to your site to be retargeted by ads and attacked by popup banners.

That is a very fair assumption, especially with devs.

But even generally in B2B SaaS and social channels like here on LinkedIn that concept of zero-click content, coined by Amanda Natividad, is gaining traction and I'm glad that it does.

This is a nice little touch in the last step of the signup process.

Linear asks you to do two things:

• Subscribe to the newsletter with updates
• Follow-up on their main social channel

The beauty of it is while this is an ask it is done so gracefully:

• balances promotion with value for the user
• It is explicit in what it asks for and explains each ask with a one-liner
• makes the ask small enough that it makes sense to be an "impulse buy"
• the CTAs are clear -> not only "follow us on Twitter" but also gives you their handle

Nice and simple and I am sure it gets some folks to subscribe/follow.

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.

Mux does a few things beautifully in this header.

Value proposition:

• The "what" is explained right away: "Video API", "live and on-demand experiences"
• Super clear on persona "developers" and job to be done "build online video"

Animated visual that is really good for dev tools:

• that have an API/SDK
• that have a UI where the results of that API calls go

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  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.

How do you make your dev tool pricing simple?

I really like this one.

Saw someone share a pricing page from Userfront some time ago and really liked it. They changed it now but I really like the thinking behind the older version.

It is just remarkably simple while hitting all the boxes:

• You have tiers aligned with buyer persona: Free, Self-served (team), Custom (enterprise)
• Your usage metric is obvious (Monthly Active User)
• For Enterprise you just go with "Contact us" CTA (which is what enterprise buyers expect anyway)

Just a very good baseline.

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.

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!

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.

How to show integrations on your dev tool homepage?

Every dev tool needs to integrate with other libraries in the space.

And you want to show how well integrated with the ecosystem you are.

But you ctually want to do a bit more than that.

You want devs to see how easy / flexible / clean it would be for them to use it.

That is why instead of showing just logos from your ecosystem it is good to show the code too.

Meilisearch does that beautifully:

• They show a big list of integrations that show the breadth
• For each, there is a code snippet on a relatable example
• + call to action to all integrations and selected one

I am sure this is getting more clicks than just a list of logos.

An ad that doesn't feel like an ad.‍

I like that this is almost a meme.

But it still explains what the company does.

Love it.

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.  

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).

Classic remarketing ad. But things are classic because they work 👇

Youtube remarketing is one of the most popular ways to stay top of mind with devs who visit your site.

Lots of devs spend time on Youtube so it is a solid match.

But, "buy now" style ads rarely work because if they wanted to try/buy they would have already.

They need something more.

That "more" is often trust.

They simply don't trust you, your product, and your company.

They don't think you are the real deal and will solve their problems.

But you can build that trust. And to do that you can use testimonial-style ads:

• use case explained in the voice of 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.

Instead of giving away hundreds of small things that people will forget give away one thing that leaves an impression.

And a huge LEGO set is a great candidate for that one big thing. There is a big overlap between devs and folks who love LEGOs. They are both builders after in their hearts.

Now, some important considerations:

• Create a giveaway so that you can still get all your badge scanned, social mentions, GitHub stars KPIs
• Make the prize visible to conference participants. Put it out there. Make it obvious.
• Make participating relatively easy to complete.

You need to commit to it too.

Don't do 3 different things like that at a conference. Focus on one play like this at a time and try other cool ideas at another conference.

Folks from Sigma Computing ticked all these boxes.  Love it!

Good format of the tweet copy.

Start with the hook.

Then validate it with more story.

Then open a knowledge gap with a thread.

Make it about belonging.‍

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

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

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.

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.

Nicely done Reddit post that went viral on r/MachineLearning.

Reddit dev communities are notoriously hard to market in.

You need to have something really valuable to say to that dev crowd.

But even if you do, it is so easy to screw it up and get trolled or downvoted for "obvious promo".

I know that from experience. So painful to watch.

This is a really nice example of how to do it right:

• Start with an interesting, attention-grabbing but not yet a clickbaity title.
• Say who you are and why you have something (new) and valuable to say here.
• Go straight to the point, to the (technical) value. I like the obvious numbered list delivery.
• Drop emojis, bolding, and extensive formatting if you want to "keep it real".
• Make sentences short. Cut all the fluff. State your opinions and facts "as they are".
• Do implicit CTA. Drop the explicit one but hint at something that those interested may want.

Try something like that next time you post and see what happens.

Obviously, it is nearly impossible to do when:

• You have no real experience to share
• You have nothing really valuable to say
• You don't have opinions and/or facts on the subject

But then why would you even post something?

Funny dev newsletter CTA. From shiftmag .dev by Infobip.

It starts with a chuckle-worthy:

"Sarcastic headline, but funny enough for engineers to sign up"

Then they follow up by disarming the "is that spam" and building more rapport with:

• "Written by people, not robots - at least not yet."
• "May or may not contain traces of sarcasm, but never spam."

They end with an alternative call to action. RSS feed.

Most newsletters don't do RSS.

But for many devs RSS feed is the preferred content subscription.

Great job!

Very nice design solution on the homepage.

Classic communication of the world before using your tool and the world after.

Really liked how it felt messy before.

And is nice and clean after.