How to market platforms, the missing part of platform engineering - VMware Explore EU 2023

We built it, and no one came - How to Market Your Internal Developer Platform

You’ve built the perfect platform, but those pesky developers aren’t using it. I’ve hear this story frequently over the years. More than not, it means the platform team is not doing the marketing needed. Branding, t-shirts, platform advocacy, community management, staffing for marketing, and the other basics of a marketing program. I know: you read the word marketing and you feel a little revolted. For a successful platform in a large organization, though, you need it! Thankfully, there are many years of organizations figuring out what platform marketing is and how to do it. This talk will go over what platform and product marketing is and then tactics learned in organizations like Mercedes-Benz, ING, BT, Garmin and others.

Benefits to ecosystem: Getting people (developers, mostly) to use internal platforms is often difficult. The people setting it up often do some basic marketing, but are not skilled in or knowledgable about marketing a product like an internal platform. This talk helps fill that gap and also gives next steps to get to quickly. It's based on the experience of larger organizations doing platforms and marketing: these organizations often have the largest challenges getting platform adoption.

Alternate abstract: In today’s fast-paced world of software development, it’s important to have a robust internal developer platform (IDP) that can help your team stay productive. In this session, we will explore the key skills you need to master to successfully market your IDP. We will discuss the importance of creating a compelling value proposition, building a strong brand identity, and leveraging Slack/Teams and other channels to reach your target audience. We will also take a deep dive into one of the most powerful features of Spotify Backstage: TechDocs. With TechDocs, you can create beautiful, easy-to-use documentation that can help ease the learning curve for new developers and speed up the onboarding process.

Originally presented at VMware Explore EU 2023: https://event.vmware.com/flow/vmware/...

MAPB1755BCN