Oleh Hlovatskyi
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Sebastian Ewak

Why Do Open Source Projects Need Integrated Marketing?

Engineers like to think that their code speaks for itself. And it is not the way it always works. Most developers think that the only thing that matters is beautiful code. They believe that a well-made product sells itself, but this is a serious mistake.

MARKETING FOR ANY PRODUCT

In any case, it is bad if you just sit back and wait for someone to notice your new open source project. Developers (and companies) that hope to make their projects famous can simply start with marketing. 

Linux, Docker, Kubernetes are the most popular open-source projects that have some things in common. They have a million-dollar support from other companies! Linux wasn’t successful until IBM pledged $ 1 billion to promote its business. And a huge chunk of that money was spent for marketing.

Docker, on the other hand, has more than 20 small investor. And Kubernetes developers invested own funds from the proceeds from which the project developed.

PRACTICAL ADVICE

1. A marketer should follow the next steps to create an awesome project:
2. create a separate support site and social networks pages;
3. update them regularly to attract users;
4. cooperate with other interested developers (but not project participants);
5. create automatic news mailing that is related to the project and industry;
6. perform personally at specialized events and exhibitions;
7. spend some money on online advertising;

And most importantly, you simply have to conduct a continuous search for investors. They don’t care about the beauty of the code so forget about it. Show practical benefits, social significance, the importance to the community or make an emphasis on a huge profit potential when creating a commercial offer. 

Remember, successful code is not only about beauty and functionality. It is also about the economic and social resources that you can get.

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