» uk-netmarketing: roundup: 03-11-2000

Tracking down techies
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - November 3, 2000

For a marketer, reaching those people who actually create the software that runs the whole beast can be extremely tricky. These technology-savvy users are particularly demanding and adept at filtering out marketing messages. So, how do you reach them? Chris Klopper asked, "Can anyone help with suggestions of what media (either off or online) that software authors/developers read?"

Fiona Campbell-Howes drew on her (very personal) experience and offered some suggestions, "Based on the completely invalid sample of my last two boyfriends, both of whom have been software developers (lucky old me, eh?), there is no correct answer to this question. Boyfriend 1 used to take the PC apart at weekends and hence liked to read all the PC press - PC Mag, PC Pro, PC Format etc. He was a Microsoft man. Boyfriend 2 reads the Guardian, the CNN and BBC web sites, and NTK. He is a Unix developer. Neither of them showed/shows the least bit of interest in the IT trade press - Computing, Computer Weekly, Business & Technology et al. Guess it all comes down to lifestyle and extracurricular interests. Or Slashdot."

Andrew Smith added, "In terms of the UK market, the dedicated off line titles will now be Application Development Advisor, Dr Dobbs Journal, Software Futures, Software Tools Bulletin, Software World. Of course, the key IT trades are also well read by developers e.g. Computing, Computer Weekly, etc (though a cynic would say they read them from the back to look at the job ads...) The granddaddy of UK developer titles, EXE magazine, sadly bit the dust recently...Danny O'Brien of NTK and Sunday Times fame started here. To reach developers directly, you could do worse than check out the various developer forums on CIX..."

Narrowing down the target publications is a little difficult without knowing the nature of the product or service being promoted, but Andrew made some more specific suggestions, "I suppose we should clarify why Chris wants to know what developers read - if its for the purpose of 'I have new programming tool that I wish to let developers know about' then App Dev Journal and its ilk are the most likely places to have it written about - the place where you will find articles on embedded systems portability in C; Apache; Version control; Java code performance measurement; sorting algorithms, etc. A developer may also read the Guardian, but the creative PR effort involved in getting the Guardian to write about a new programming tool will be considerably higher i.e. set the client's expectations appropriately or charge them more ;-)"

A couple of postings mentioned the predilection of the programming community to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the X files. Chris Heathcote picked up on this, "This is indeed true. Many of the programming/sysadmin mailing lists are mainly filled with Buffy gossip. Considering who you're trying to reach, why offline? These days programmers get their fix of news from Slashdot, The Register, and numerous peer mailing lists. You only read Computer Weekly et al for a good giggle...don't even think about spamming them - remember, some of these people control your email accounts ;)"

Since March this year, the press seem to have had a constant series of doom'n'gloom stories about anything to do with the 'dotcom' world. It was refreshing to hear about a few success stories after this question from Chetan Damani, "Are there any dotcom pure plays, who have 'never' received funding from a VC that make money? So basically some joe/jane public who decided to start a site, and ploughed his/her own money into the site, and now makes enough money to make a healthy living from the venture. There must be one?"

Ian Williams replied, "Yes, www.moneysupermarket.com is making money, less than a year after it launched. They don't advertise so the business has been built on PR (done by us) and partnerships/co brands etc (done in house by them). They now distribute through over 40 other sites."

Alex Sass added, "OUTintheUK (.com) rejects commercial sponsorship (and investment of that sort), survives well purely on optional donations from its user base (7-10% send in money). Employs full time staff and has kick ass servers. But no one drives a posh car and a Raleigh Racer wouldn't survive the many hundred miles between the admin and tech office (we left them up in a barn in good old York)."

Ian Fenn mentioned, "Chopstix must surely fall into that category - it's still here after almost 3 years. I don't make a healthy living yet - but I will."

Jason Dale emailed, "Loquax reaches 3 years in February and definitely makes that category, healthy living and all (well if you can count an obsession with competitions and URLs as healthy....)"

D. Dias went into some more detail about his company, "I suppose I could mention http://www.breakbeat.co.uk. My business partner set it up 4 years ago in his lunchtime when he was working for an IT company. He didn't really know what he was creating [he was only 20 at the time]. I got involved in 1998, and between us we put what little cash we had into setting up the company so he quit his job and do it full time. Today we have a globally recognised and 'category-killing' brand [We won Best Music Business Website at last year's Music Week awards] 11 staff, a number of diffusion projects that generate revenue [sell out events, world tours, merchandise, compilation album & TV show in production] and a pretty nice standard of living 'cos we live up north in Sheffield. Aye, and we don't drink shandy either."

It's good to know that the web and entrepreneurship in general isn't dominated by giant American or European media or telecom giants.

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