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"If you talked to people the way marketing talks to people they'd punch you in the face." It doesn't have to be that way, and I think I've demonstrated that.
So tonight I'm going to talk about developer marketing, the economics of a media business, and how to sell goods and services without losing your soul--with examples.
If you go to http://lastweekinaws.com , you'll see a newsletter (to which you should subscribe if you haven't already; it'll become relevant downthread) and two podcasts. There's also a blog, but that's not DIRECTLY relevant to this thread since it holds no sponsored content.
All three of those things are supported by sponsorships. Those sponsorships are sold to folks who want to speak to this audience, via one of my favorite bits of writing / art we've ever done at this company: the media kit.
I adore this thing so much. It hits the point that matters--it's not just about audience size or CPM or whatnot; it's applying my version of expertise in telling a story to the folks listening or reading. "Here's who we are. Here's what we do. And we're hilarious."
First up, the AWS Morning Brief podcast. These demographics are all that we provide to sponsors, and are effectively all that we have past "what podcast client people use." That's important. You don't need to be creepy to market effectively!
We then break up the text with a sponsor testimonial-- @scalyr in fact. It's probably time to update this one; @mike_julian successfully operationalized this thing to the point where he almost never works directly with sponsors anymore.
Next is @lastweekinaws, the newsletter. And OF COURSE now that I'm tweeting it I see that we list two different subscriber numbers, neither one of which is strictly accurate (as of this moment it's 21,880). Those stats come from optional self-reported answers.
Those stats are in line or above baseline for what most newsletters of this size see. And of COURSE I spotted a typo that needs to get fixed now while writing this. DAMMIT.
One of the challenges in putting this media kit together is that its target audience (by which I mean Demand Gen professionals) are *not* the target audience for the media itself. It took work and iteration to explain all of this to our buyers. THAT is what marketing is.
You have to meet people where they are. Different customer personas need different messaging; ideally that messaging doesn't put off the OTHER personas.
We break up the flow of words again for another sponsor testimonial, this one from @turbothq. This used to be from @pete_cheslock; we had to swap it when he left @chaossearch and started working here; it kinda lost some authenticity when the testimonial is from "my employee." 
These testimonials are all legit and written by our customers, incidentally. We didn't draft them for them.
Next up is Screaming in the Cloud, the not-snarky interview show.
We offer "promoted guest" slots where you tell me who I'm interviewing. It doesn't change the format / make it a "softball" discussion any. This happened by accident, but it works SUPER well for everyone.
We offer "promoted guest" slots where you tell me who I'm interviewing. It doesn't change the format / make it a "softball" discussion any. This happened by accident, but it works SUPER well for everyone.
Then @thousandeyes says how much fun I am / tolerable @mike_julian is. Now that they're part of @Cisco, it's not clear they're allowed to have quite as much fun anymore. Maybe.
Okay, so that's the media stuff that sells ads every week like clockwork. Let's get to the stunts that I inflict on you. These are ebb-and-flow; the stuff I just listed goes out every week like clockwork. Pay attention, DevRel types. This next one's up your alley.
I'm sorry if this is news to you, but your webinars basically suck. Every time I say that, most people nod knowingly. So I wrote it down.
Next, I refuse to believe that this won't become relevant again someday--but until COVID19 ends you probably can't afford my hazard fee.
But far and away my favorite thing is the "special projects." I'm serious; for the right price I will attempt to de-orbit a satellite via @awscloud Ground Station onto Larry Ellison's house. If it works, your company makes the front page of basically EVERYTHING!
As an example: my current Special Project is https://requinnvent.com/ . This year's re:Invent (AWS's own version of Cloud Next) is going to be very different, so I'm trying something gutsy.)
We've had a lot of conversations with sponsors, and we know what questions always get asked. "What kind of performance can we expect?" The honest answer is "that depends, does your ad suck?" To put it only slightly more diplomatically:
I'm serious. If you want to sound like a billboard, knock yourself out. People are pretty good at tuning that out. The audience here is sophisticated. You've gotta talk less about you, more about your customer and what's hurting them. Fix the pain, win a customer.
Another question is around the attribution of ads. Look--people listen to podcasts while doing lots of things that don't involve computers. They're unlikely to stomp the brakes, ram a bridge abutment, and fire up your website. It's an awareness play, not a direct response game.
One of my favorite stories was a sponsor that didn't renew after their first buy because they "didn't see the value."
A month later they come back and buy everything we'd sell them. "Uh... what changed?"
"A few of our largest customers heard about us on Screaming in the Cloud."
A month later they come back and buy everything we'd sell them. "Uh... what changed?"
"A few of our largest customers heard about us on Screaming in the Cloud."
And the schedule is something I admit I have to check regularly myself. It's not exaggerated: I personally put out two newsletters and five podcast episodes a week.
Next we have our own sponsor wall. The honest answer to "who the hell would pay you to market them?!" is "an awful lot of companies." Nobody is going to stop doing business with a company because I taunt them--but they might hear about you for the first time while I do it.
In the interest of transparency, let's talk money. What do all of these sponsorships cost? "What the market will bear." This was probably the single biggest shock to me: @patio11 is always right when he says "charge more."
Don't hold me (or more realistically, my account exec Caroline) to these prices; they change dynamically with demand. For example, there are no open ad slots left in the newsletter until Q1 2021.
Professional advice: do something like this if you charge for speaking engagements. Trying to charge corporate rates to a DevOps Days or similar doesn't do good things to your reputation.
I'm sorry, this platypus graphic makes me lose it every time.
It's also very much worth pointing out that there's a team behind this. Between Meagan and Caroline, I don't see or know who's sponsoring something until after it's written / recorded. It's an "editorial firewall" that keeps me from inadvertently compromising.
Remember, I have a day job on TOP of all of this! http://www.duckbillgroup.com is a fair bit of work in its own right.
I don't sleep much.
I don't sleep much.
And that leads to a marketing challenge. "Here's me making fun of AWS" is hilarious and engaging as a media property.
"Hi, I'm Bozo the Clown here to fix your AWS bill!" means that people are going to cancel engagements. Media drives consulting; it's a tightrope.
"Hi, I'm Bozo the Clown here to fix your AWS bill!" means that people are going to cancel engagements. Media drives consulting; it's a tightrope.
What continues to also vex me is the disconnect between "what customers experience" and "how companies see their products." I'm a huge fan of doing panels or interviews with customers instead of vendors as a result. It also comes off as less "salesy."
This also kinda leads to an identity crisis. I'm a consultant, cloud economist, business owner, media personality, industry analyst, cloud marketer, and a bunch of unprintable things.
Also of note to marketers: there aren't garbage companies in that list of sponsors. We've politely declined to work with a couple of prospective sponsors whose product was just Not Great. If I say no, I can sell the spots to someone else. If I say yes, nobody trusts me anymore.
I'm not playing to hit quarterly goals; I've got plans for ~2025 or so. "Yay I sold another $20K this month but lost my soul" compromises the hell out of them.
Anyway--that's a high level overview of both my views of marketing to a technical audience, and how I've accidentally built a business unit on top of doing that. Hit me with your questions!
Oh! And in case you're not a marketer and want to see a different media kit for comparison purposes, here's the re:Invent (AWS's own version of Cloud Next) sponsors prospectus. Prices are higher, opportunities less fun. Careful; it's a 250MB PDF. âŠhttps://2020awsreinvent.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2020+reinvent+prospectus
Thanks! "How do I showcase the team when I'm the 'face' of the entire thing" is a constant struggle. https://twitter.com/HPC_James/status/1304283642009657344?s=20
We're two halves of it. He's great at systems, architecting a greater strategy, and acting as a check on my lunacy. I excel at the tactics, stunts, and "holy crap did he just say that" piece.
We'd each hate the other's role. https://twitter.com/AnadeliaFadeev/status/1304284070608687104?s=20
We'd each hate the other's role. https://twitter.com/AnadeliaFadeev/status/1304284070608687104?s=20
A common misconception is that you can't ever screw up when you're in the spotlight. I strongly disagree. I think you can screw up plenty--just make sure you learn from it, and apologize sincerely where appropriate. https://twitter.com/Grant_Case/status/1304284076728221701?s=20
Ah, "do I have giant enterprise sponsors besides @awscloud".
The giant companies are interesting; they've got a lot of process, and often lack flexibility around copy--so it isn't as likely to resonate with this audience. https://twitter.com/dberkholz/status/1304285276248965121?s=20
The giant companies are interesting; they've got a lot of process, and often lack flexibility around copy--so it isn't as likely to resonate with this audience. https://twitter.com/dberkholz/status/1304285276248965121?s=20
If it's any consolation, @awscloud DOES have to pay their outgoing bandwidth bill internally for this horror. https://twitter.com/HPC_James/status/1304287356904771584?s=20
We politely tell them that we can't help, and periodically point them to folks who can.
We do help folks migrating into AWS from other providers, but that's really about it. Our current consulting expertise is AWS, not "the cloud." https://twitter.com/UrenaLuis2/status/1304293300191424512?s=20
We do help folks migrating into AWS from other providers, but that's really about it. Our current consulting expertise is AWS, not "the cloud." https://twitter.com/UrenaLuis2/status/1304293300191424512?s=20
