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Why do developers not like marketing?
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flo merian
@aqsa_sajjad hi Aqsa, great topic!
I've been working in the dev tool space for years and co-runs a community of developer marketers from awesome dev-first companies like Supabase, daily.dev, and Appsmith.
to clarify, developers don't hate marketing, they hate spam (as we all, don't we?). the difference is that developers might be the most spammed audience.
in this blog post, @nickwritesit puts it very eloquently:
> "developers say they hate marketing and they’re not lying. our reaction has to be learning how to market to them in better ways."
FYI you can find more insights in this related Discussion. keep it up!
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@aqsa_sajjad @nickwritesit @fmerian This is exactly right. A lot of marketing is about pushing products, hype, and grandiose claims. Developers are pulled towards products that solve a real problem in an easy way.
This article from Posthog articulates an interesting problem with standard marketing language:
> "Developers are especially sensitive to vague language when evaluating products...
I think it's because developers have to figure out how products work, to plug it all in, so details matter. Benefits language makes me feel like I'm being sold to, by someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.
Worse, benefits-heavy and feature-light language makes it hard to know what you're actually buying. I can evaluate for myself what benefits something brings, I want to see what it does, and how it compares to other products."
@aqsa_sajjad @nickwritesit @jingg_n_tonic absolutely LOVE this quote, Jing!
when marketing to developers, it's definitely features over benefits. period.
I think the algorithm of marketing it's not so engaging for them, especially as a back-end dev 😄
Developers may not like marketing because they often prioritize technical aspects of their work, find marketing tasks outside their comfort zone, and dislike the potential emphasis on hype over actual product quality or functionality.