Marketing and open source

Before everyone runs away at the title of this post, yes, you need to do ‘marketing’ if you’d like to expand your open source community. Marketing = telling people your project exists.

Having your project’s positioning clarified first will make your marketing more effective and also easier to plan. Because:

  • You’ll know how to describe your project and what boxes to put it in

  • You’ll know who you need to be talking to — either literally, at an event, or metaphorically, in a blog post

  • You’ll know what to talk about — which pain points your project solves, what ideal users are likely comparing it to, what is unique about your project

As an added bonus, this will make your ‘marketing’ not seem like marketing, either to you or your target market. It will be so targeted to their needs and goals that it won’t seem sleazy at at. The truth about marketing is that it only seems sleazy and spammy when it’s not targeted and not done well. Speak directly to the unique needs of a very specific group, and you’re just trying to help them.

Curious about how to go about positioning your open source project and setting the foundation for all your marketing? Join my webinar today at 9am PT! Here’s the registration link.

Emily Omier