Why Every Developer Should Add Marketing To Their Skill Set
At first glance, web developers and marketers seem to be substantially different.
Programmers live in a Boolean logic world in which the true and the false can always be verified and quantified. Marketers live in a gray area of human behavior, revealing the complexities of consumers' intangible motivations and learning how to use them best.
Although they have seemingly incompatible mindsets, the truth is that every programmer would do well to add a large dose of marketing knowledge to their skill set.
This is true of all the many developer role variations, from the smallest single store that develops a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform to members of large coding departments working on enterprise software. Let's discuss why.
Marketing And Ux Go Together
As a developer, the usability of your products/services should always be a priority. Finding the right balance of ease usage, functionality, and aesthetic edge without overly complicating the interface is difficult. Nothing will sell your product better than a user who feels comfortable and empowered by the user interface you have designed and built when done properly.
Understanding the mindset of a marketer when building your project will help you make good choices about button placement, color schemes, and user flow to attract your end user. No amount of flashy ads, search engine optimization (SEO), or smart copy will make a poorly designed product successful, so understanding the basics of marketing as you build prevents you from accidentally sabotaging the process.
It Will Make You A Better Team Member
The truth is that everyone who works on a product wants to see it successfully, and most of the time, everyone is really trying their best to contribute to that success through their individual expertise. Often, this expertise is not appreciated as it should be, and it is strongly believed that it is a function of not honestly understanding the nature of specific roles.
Developers and programmers are known to reduce marketers to a kind of "second-hand vehicle salesman" stereotype as a way to render their arguments useless. Similarly, we have certainly seen marketing departments that consider their developers as robots without understanding the nature of humans.
None of this is true, and simply studying and understanding more of what makes a marketing department fit can go a long way in finding a middle ground. Developers who can do this add much more value to their company.
It Fosters Flexibility
It is safe to say that the SaaS era is no longer "what is to come," but the current reality. Not coincidentally, monstrous companies like Apple have pivoted on "services" as a major revenue model in the future. Selling a single piece of software or an application at once is enjoyable, but selling a service creates a continuous revenue stream with infinite potential.
This paradigm shift means that developers need to learn to wear more hats than before. We no longer have to live in dark rooms with bright screens, living from our Matrix fantasies. It is increasingly expected that a developer will not understand but will also help in other areas, such as marketing, integration, customer service, and regular product support.
The absolute best way to gain the team's flexibility and camaraderie is to understand the jobs your colleagues are doing and the goals they are trying to achieve. As many successful SaaS stores are small teams or even single developer stores, the ability to understand marketing becomes even more paramount. That killer app won't go far without proper exposure and marketing.
Final Thoughts
Most developers and programmers spend a lot of time educating themselves to keep up with the latest ever-evolving technology. Take just a little of this time to study and learn some of the principles that guide your marketing department. Have lunch with a team member and ask relevant questions about what they do and, most critically, why. You'll be stunned at how quickly it can help you streamline your keyboard efforts and ultimately create a better, more powerful, and more marketable product.
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