Messaging for developer tools
For when users love you, yet you’re struggling to get sign ups
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Put an end to the lukewarm reactions
Great products can still struggle if they aren’t clearly communicated. Even if you’ve built the greatest features, a limp pitch will still only get you a polite nod and an “oh, cool”.
Symptoms of weak messaging include:
Users love it, but non-users don’t seem to “get” the idea
Devs only get excited deep into a demo when the concept suddenly clicks
Word of mouth converts well, but you struggle to get signups from other channels
People don’t understand how you’re different from your competitors
It’s tempting to blame the product and build more features, but these are all signs that the pitch is missing the mark
“As a founder, you’re so obsessed with your product, in the web of features and amazing things your product can do, that you forget about the customer’s pain.
Zach was able to look through this web and pull out the things that are most important to our customers. I cannot recommend Zach’s services enough”
“Working with Zach was great, he created messaging that spoke to the pain points of enterprise users and nailed the pitch, giving a 2x lift in trial signups.”
Speak straight to their key pains and priorities
You need to clearly address your prospect’s core pain point and motivation, not overload visitors with every possible benefit. That can be easier said than done, when you spend so much time thinking about the tool and are enthusiastic about the many ways in which it’s awesome.
It’s the classic advice of “sell them on the six pack, give them a whole body workout”. Strong messaging relies on identifying the key motivations, the main headaches devs have with their current way of working and clearly showing that you can fix it.
Differentiate yourself from competitors
When you offer the same core features as competitors, it can feel tough to communicate exactly why developers should choose you. Vague statement like “get started in minutes” aren’t enough.
In these cases, it’s all about the pain points of their existing methodology. Strong messaging will address the pain points on achieving the overall outcome, the headaches people from their current method whether it’s doing things manually, OS tooling or legacy systems.
“Zach sought a deep understanding of our product and customers to find technical details that resonate with our developer audience. His questions also prompted new product and marketing ideas I hadn’t even considered!”
Skip the empty, fluffy statements
Boost conversions by joining the conversation in their head
How aware are developers of the relevant issues? Do they understand the implications? Are they actively looking for solutions, or do they think the problem is an inevitable headache?
Any landing page needs to consider questions like these so it can be relevant to paid traffic. Working on the messaging for landing pages means ensuring it meets visitors at their current stage of thinking before boosting their pain awareness, instead of jumping the gun by immediately pitching features.
Example: Pitching the upgrade
This client is a good example of how it plays out. They sold a cloud monitoring tool, so their landing page generally promoted the benefits of getting started with cloud monitoring.
Our first discussion quickly uncovered a key disconnect. The enterprises they wanted to sell to were already using some form of monitoring tool.
So, we reworked the page to focus on the headaches enterprises experience with these alternatives, such as the tools not being able to scale up far enough or being unsuited to large teams.
As well as changing the hero section, the rest of the page also focused on their ability to handle high volumes without any slow down. The result was a roughly 2x increase in conversions.
Hi, I’m a nerd who loves fixing things
Hi, I’m Zach Goldie, a messaging consultant for dev tools.
I have always loved delving into how things work and fixing things. I first applied this to mechanical engineering before moving into marketing.
As I went deeper into troubleshooting campaigns and copy, I ended up obsessing over messaging. I found that rebuilding the pitch to better match the best prospects enabled me to repeatedly bring huge boosts to my clients.
This was especially true for developer services, where I enjoyed the challenge of taking a complex product and pinpointing the relevant details.
My clients have ranged from monitoring platforms to autoscalers to Rails upgraders, and I’m always open to hear from new exciting projects.
Messaging services
I offer two options for helping companies improve their messaging:
Messaging Workshop - $450
A one hour workshop to identify key issues in your product messaging. I recommend this if you are having tricky communicating the overall concept of your product or explaining why it’s better than alternatives.
To prepare for the workshop, I’ll ask see a product demo or walkthrough so I can best understand how it works.
Homepage Overhaul -
Custom Pricing
I can also get more hands-on with both overhauling the product messaging and applying it to a key page (typically the homepage).
This includes interviewing a customer-facing team member, reviewing marketing sales content and watching sales recordings. I use this to identify key messaging elements to include in the page.
I then write the full copy for the chosen page, pulling out all relevant details and suggesting imagery where appropriate.
To see how it plays out head over to my past results.
“Zach is my go-to when I need help resolving structural issues for a client. With his help, I was able to launch a new landing page and ½ my CPA by using the positioning he created.”
Request a call
Please send me an email at hello@zachgoldie.com if you would like some help with your campaigns. We can have an initial 15-min call to go over your situation and whether I would be able to help.