How to promote yourself to the developers

Good developers are always appreciated. But how does a customer find talent? To realize the value of a programmer, you need to distinguish him or her from the crowd, to see his or her advantages against the background of numerous candidates.

Software or site development from idea to full-fledged implementation is a gold mine of IT-sphere. Given that the profession is highly paid and in demand, many users rushed to retrain as developers, as a result, the market was overheated. 

The increased demand for developers has led to plenty of offers on the market. However, businesses prefer to order work from specialists who know how to make themselves known, demonstrate their skills and achievements. Therefore, it is important to present services and invest in promotion using effective strategies.

Who are the developers?

Developers create platforms, software, applications, and systems that allow devices to function properly. Developer services are in demand to create unique applications, workflow automation solutions, e-commerce products, BigData tools, CRM and training software. 

The demand for developers is observed in the sectors of AI, blockchain, data processing, electronic document management, cloud solutions, virtual and augmented reality, and cybersecurity knowledge. Without knowledge of trends and directions, a developer will not be able to evolve, hence he will be inferior to more energetic and aspiring competitors.

Developer promotion is effective in the online format. Offline events are only aimed at attracting local businesses. A developer can work from anywhere in the universe. Understanding the customer’s request and knowledge of a foreign language are important to him. That is why specialists of this profile often work in the international market.

It is necessary to formulate a unique selling proposition, which will analyze the strengths and weaknesses, external opportunities and threats. Those developers, who are able to understand what benefits they can bring to the client and explain it clearly, can successfully promote and sell their software.  Potential customers will buy a digital product only if they feel their benefit, analyze how their life will change after purchasing the developer’s service.

Peculiarities of developer promotion

To differentiate yourself from the competition, you need to clearly broadcast your own advantages. Developers who have achieved customer recognition promote their website, blog, use guest posting, have high ratings, show reviews, completed projects, partner logos, share interesting content. First of all, the publications focus on technology, market and development trends, and describe their own (positive and negative) experiences.

In order to sell yourself at a higher price, the following rules should be adhered to:

• Several orders are acceptable for free or at minimal rates. In this case it is necessary to understand what exactly the benefit lies in this kind of work.
• Completed projects are recorded in the portfolio.
• Pages in social networks are active. This is especially true of subpages working to build business reputation and establish working contacts.
• Communication and recognition in the professional community is aimed at brand promotion.
• On the Internet there is information about the work, skills, published useful expert advice, cases.
• Work is being done to involve potential customers in communication.
• Registration on freelance sites is desirable.
• All actions are aimed at increasing one’s value as an IT professional.
• Developed applications must be present in key online stores for various operating systems.

How to promote IT developers

The promotion of digital products is impossible without a built in strategy, which includes all the nuances – from the portrait of his client to the monetization options. In general, advertising for a web developer is subject to the general laws of marketing.

It is most important to understand what software is able to bring the developer maximum profit. To do this, surveys are conducted among clients (real and potential), top management. For each product, a new landing page is created. This gives a quick response to changing demand and the needs of customers.

The greatest effect for programmers and outsourced development teams gives:

• Contextual advertising, work with generated queries. The advantages are the lack of effort on search engine optimization, almost guaranteed to reach the top of search results, a clear segmentation of the target audience, work with warm potential clients. Problems concern the high cost of placing ads due to competition, the importance of involving specialists in setting up the advertising campaign, and budget skimming by unscrupulous competitors.
• Promoting a web resource, improving search engine rankings. The site gets traffic, leads are collected from it, and in the long run it works to improve ranking. Filling pages requires useful, optimized and posted content on a regular basis. Operating in an international marketplace requires multilingualism. Quality content increases user loyalty, builds trust in the developer, and increases conversion rates. It should be understood that organic promotion is an investment for the future.

• SMM-promotion, targeting to get closer to potential customers, building communications and experimenting with the forms of presentation for maximum coverage of the target audience. Due to the organic component, the number of subscribers increases faster. Social media warms up the audience faster, hot leads are collected, and there is an opportunity to emphasize the convenience of tech support. Without constant efforts to maintain the page and knowledge of the algorithms of promotion on the sites, the work may not bring the desired result.
• Content marketing is a set of methods aimed at gaining the attention of potential customers by creating useful information. Content is placed on the website, blog, guest posting and expert comments in the media space. It reinforces the developer’s expert status, reaches only interested audiences, and brings quick results. All postings can be done for free or on a paid basis. Since the work is done in manual mode, approvals and agreements with each site for content can take up to several months.
• Targeting. Allows you to find a target audience interested in the product. As a rule, creatives for targeting offer a free trial subscription, a limited functionality trial, and product-trippers. In some cases, in order to stand out and offer software “like the competition, but a little better,” you can run free training courses. This is a great opportunity to show the functionality and explain the benefits of the product.
• Registration in feedback aggregators, filling out cards on profile resources, participation in ratings to evaluate the quality of services based on third-party feedback. It is important for the development team to have an expert and independent assessment of their activities and capabilities. In this case, potential customers respond to it as a recommendation. As it is necessary to stand out at any cost, extended (paid) posting packages should be purchased. A set of measures gives an expanded presence, strengthens the credibility of the developer, and allows you to get external links. It is necessary to monitor reviews to create a positive reputation.
• Email marketing, work on collecting and warming up a “cold” base of contacts. It is acceptable to collect email addresses with subsequent warming up of recipients with useful information, achieving conversion into an order. This method is preferable to mailing on a “cold” base. Conversion is achieved by writing strong texts and embedding all outgoing correspondence into the sales auto-funnel. This strategy has a high return on investment, simple CA segmentation, and the ability to personalize the message. The development of messengers partially reduces the effectiveness of email newsletters, making it possible to quickly deliver useful information and news to interested readers.
• Crowd-marketing, placing links and mentions on thematic web-platforms. The strategy brings results only in the case of painstaking work. It is necessary to place mentions and links on profile resources in the network. On the one hand, it’s free, natively, allows you to get quality links. On the other hand, simple mentions, without emphasis on the author’s expertise, rarely work.

The main target audience for website developer advertising is businessmen who need tools to optimize processes, scale, and increase profits. They need specifics, not complicated terms. That’s why customer personalization, visualization, the use of short videos, simple demonstration of the value of work results, and live communication through blogs are important.