Marketing Doesn't Work on Nerds
Software developers aren’t buying it
Good insights, and not just software developers, really. We don’t like ads, sensationalism, or anything reeking of bullshit. If we have to talk to someone to find out the price, the product may as well not exist.
developers want to read documentation
they won't look at any white papers
?!?!?!?!!
White papers are shit written by marketing people who try to make their little ad sound like something academic. In truth these white papers are in equal parts misunderstandings, wrong and full of useless fluff. They are AI slop, often completely without any AI involvement.
If someone is serious about the content, they call it a documentation, reference or datasheet.
Here's the thing... I want to be sold something. Not anything, but certain somethings. There was a brief time when Google AdSense was new that I was excited for the experience. (I now know how fucking stupid I was, but hey, I was young).
The idea that a new product aligned to my interests and designed with me in mind would be advertised to me instead of feminine hygiene products or mesothelioma lawsuit ads seemed awesome.
I do not want your bullshit hype machine alpha male inside club cool kid image peddled as the reason I should hand you my money. You've got the wrong guy. Tell me what it does with a side of what I can do with it. And the "what I can do with it" shouldn't be "get laid".
Bring back catalogs.
Who here remembers Computer Shopper?
When I want something, I'll come to you. Don't come to me.
I think McMaster still has a catalogue...
A-fucking-men
The idea that a new product aligned to my interests and designed with me in mind would be advertised to me instead of feminine hygiene products or mesothelioma lawsuit ads seemed awesome.
Broadly speaking, the problem with modern American advertisement isn't the content so much as the volume. Tried to watch a football game a few weeks back and I barely saw any football being played. Every millisecond of screen time and every pixel of screen space that wasn't a moving football was consumed by ads.
I was at an actual game a year ago, foolishly thinking being there was going to be a better experience. NOPE. Ads on the announcements. Ads at the endzones. Ads painted into the turf. I got solicited to buy shit as I was loading up my ticket and right inside the gate once I was scanned in. The whole interior of the stadium was a mall full of overpriced crap. Seats were branded. The food was branded. I was buying something and I was drowning in people trying to sell me more shit.
I don't care if every single item on offer is something I might actually want. I can't fucking breath for it all.
Volume is the biggest problem, sure. Content is a close second. I was flabbergasted last time I was in the USA. Ads have barely any relation to what they're selling.
A poster for shoes features a full-body shot of a half-naked model, the shoes barely visible with the whole poster within your visual field at once.
Ads for beer, travel agencies, clothes and antidepressant medicine, which should be illegal to advertise, by the way, are indistinguishable from each other: just a few happy 20-somethings in a nonspecific late afternoon outdoors setting.
A bunch of ads I saw I don't even know what they were for, they just had hot young people and logos for companies I never heard of. No text, no nothing.
Several ads purporting to sell an "experience" when they were for the most mundane, use-it-on-autopilot products you've ever heard of. The products were so forgettable I can't remember an actual example, but picture an ad selling you on the wonderful experience of using the new ad-supported monthly coat hanger subscription service and you've got it.
Ads for lawyers (something else that should be illegal) were on point though: "hey, do you want money you know you don't deserve at all but can be argued in bad faith that you do? Hit me up".
Oh, and everything is perpetually half-off, because the American consumer is apparently too stupid to realize that just means they're lying about the price.
I think a slightly more insidious side to targeting ads is that even when they have the "right" product for you, it's the shitier and overpriced one. The one that spent money on marketing instead of quality.
This... strikes me more as self-aggrandizing than informative.
Yes, many technical folks are put off by certain marketing tricks. Good marketers just use different techniques when targeting people in this market, when they bother to at all.
We're not immune to manipulation; and thinking that we are makes us more susceptible to it.
Agreed, it's tooting his own cohort's horn without acknowledging he is, inf act, susceptible to marketing. The actual topic at hand is marketing for software tools to software devs. Of course hand-waving marketing doesn't work, it's a technical field with technical products. The marketing he's blasting is emotion-based marketing. Guess what, there's plenty of other emotional decisions that will be affected by marketing in his life. Vacation destinations, artistic exhibitions, restaraunts, games, whatever. This article screams like it's from someone who loudly proclaims marketing is dumb because they weren't swayed to by women's deodorant because of a YouTube ad.
You are not immune to marketing.
But you need to remember that those targeted practices are very few in comparison to the volume of neuro-regular/non-technical folks.
So we arent peone to the same bullshit in regards to volume.
Maybe - but the marketing that won't affect you isn't what you need to worry about. It's the parts that do still work on you need to be careful of - and if you assume nothing will ever work on you, you won't even notice when something does take. Whether that's buying a trinket that doesn't actually make you happy, or joining a group that turns out to be a cult.
Always better to assume you can be manipulated, and check in with yourself periodically.
Bullshit
Funko pops. Lego. Star wars. Marvel
This article is about software tools, not those other things.
Yeah but OP decided to completely change the title which will inevitably result in comments like this since the majority of users don't read articles.
The phenomenon of fanboyism in Tech disproves that, IMHO.
Good marketing absolutely works on nerds. We will literally share cool ads (funny world best) with each other in the same way with memes, which is part of "viral marketing".
At the same time though, those lame ads using low-grade, overused memes (usually the comic ones) trying to be edgy pretty much make me want to pass on a product. Crappy AI-gen ads are even worse.
But next time I go to Japan, I absolutely still want to try a Sakaeru gummy because THAT marketing campaign was just brilliant and entertaining
( https://youtu.be/LQsMp4Oo6xM )
I've also seen a few cool tech things in ads that I've looked into. Generally nothing I'll grab right away but they often end up in a list of things that I potentially buy later when I've some free cash or the need. Aliexpress is pretty good with this as it tends to suggest neat tech things that are a cheap to add and fill that "free shipping" gap.
What DOESN'T work is cheap/lame broadside marketing with little to no product details. I don't want a video as an ad - especially not one from an influencer who has no clue but looks pretty - but I'm happy to look up an actual product demo that includes key features/points.
Honestly though, the best thing is if the product demonstratibly works. This is especially true for FOSS-based products that have stuff I can try for free at home (personal use) or ones where the main product is usable for limited seats etc and has a commercial/premium license with value-add like AD/SAML group integrations or SSO/MFA.
That said, any asshole who cold-calls me pretending an existing business relationship to setup a marketing meeting is going on "the list", and vendor "demos" that are just marketing slides aren't far off on that either
I liked the ads and saw the candy in a japanese speciality shop.
The small packs with 5 pieces has a very artificial grape flavor.
Not my cup of tea tbh.
Has anyone been to any kind of convention for nerdy things. Nerds are so captured by the marketing and products being sold that they let it take over their personality and they can’t stop buying junk.
Yeah, this is self-aggrandizement from a group of people who consistently believe they're smarter than everybody else, when in reality they just lack self-awareness. Nerds will smugly post in this thread using their overpriced mechanical keyboard as a wall of Funko pops and Star Wars slop looms behind them. I worked in marketing for a long time and I know damn well I'm not immune to it.
I believe that thinking you're immune to something makes you even more vulnerable, because it creates a cognitive blind spot. If you think you can't make mistakes, you don't stop to wonder if you are making one.
Pretty much, yeah.
The article points out how a bunch of specific techniques don't work on programmers. That's because they're aimed at project managers, not programmers. And yeah, they work. Hardly any programmers willingly chose Jira for their ticketing system, but project managers love that shit, and it's everywhere.
All it really means is that it takes a different set of marketing techniques to reach programmers. They generally don't bother, because programmers don't typically control the budget directly.
You just described Geeks. Geek and Nerd group labels can sometimes apply to the same people, but they are not synonymous, and a person can be one without the other.
I disagree, I don't fall into the category you stated. My walls are lined with 80s memorabilia and 3d printed things I have created. I reject anything advertised to me and will only purchase tech that I have sought out that meets my needs.
I got a curved, split, tented ortholinear monstrosity with a built in trackball and I'm finally done. I get that it's stupid and a waste of money but my hands feel so good typing all day on it
They're not nerds. They're posers.
I don’t have a single funko pop or Star Wars toy or whatever. I have a Keychron keyboard that cost me $70, while it is more costly than the average membrane I like mechanical ones. I never buy new if I can (usually this is a time constraint, I.e I broke my phone and I need to replace it quick one because my job relies it). I Adblock everywhere I possibly can to not see the ads but I genuinely believe I’m immune to advertising.
Then they ain't nerds, sorry.
Right? I've seen the walls of Funko Pops... nerds definitely are not immune to marketing.
do people actually buy those? I honestly thought they were some kind of money laundering thing. I've never once saw one sell.
They aren't fucking nerds then. Nerds don't buy Funko Pops.
I can name 3 or 4 people who own walls of Funko pops and I can tell you they wouldn't know an IDE from MS Word. None of them went to college either.
They're posers.
Posers. All of them.
Nerds enjoy a hobby, like tabletop games.
Posers buy Funkos and toys that they never open.
Nerds have fun. Posers try to look like they do.
Is that marketing or is it just finding stuff they want to own?
It's marketing making them think they want to own that stuff.
How do you think you "found" it? A whole supply chain of people, from branding to packaging to advertising, made it so that you can "find" things on websites that are themselves outright advertisements or at least funded by them.
It's marketing.
Marketing. It is very effective.
Nerds in arrested development over a franchize is not the same as seeing any ad and then that makes them want to buy a product.
Yeah but I don’t think that’s marketing, if you’re going to a con for something, you’re likely very passionate about it and passionate people love to scoop up everything they can that relates to their beloved hobby or franchise.
Also, nerds tend to have a good amount of disposable income on that stuff
The cons themselves are marketing. Heavy marketing. If you can't see that, I don't know what to say. Vendors (and even artists for crying out loud) are willing to pay top dollar for booths to sell stuff. On the surface, they are their namesake - conventions. Dig any deeper, and they are giant pop-up malls.
Spot on.
Yeah pretty much, i mean you cant just assume because someone is a developer that they have a brain but this sums up my relationship with all the sales people ive met in my career
Me: Hey i need information about your product
Sales: Hey id love to swing by and show you our product line. How many can we put you foen for? Can we schedule a call?
Me: finds a different vendor
I was always on the front lines of dealing with software vendors and I was just fine setting up a call. Now if the website wouldn't give me so much as basic info and pricing, denied.
Related, one night I spend an hour researching bulk sandbag prices. Found ONE site that displayed my cost, no "call for pricing".
Yeah I think sales people are so trained into being sales people that they dont actually know how to talk like a human being anymore.
Seriously, there is something about those guys. They just cant talk normally. Not everyone. I have met some of them that just talk normally. and are aware of their products pros and cons in relation to what you need. Those are useful.
On the other hands, nerds can have their own little annoying habits too. Sometimes they have no social skills at all and act like machines.
*down
Nah. Foen is salesspeak.
Nice try. This is just trying to get us to lower our guard and become complacent!
Or it's brewing up excuses for declining sales.
I am sympathetic to the frustration with and resistance to feeling marketed to, but this person just seems to lack self-awareness... And lack of awareness in general. Not a good look.
I won't assume he's representative of large swathes of developers 👀👀👀
You are not immune to propaganda
Nearly everyone thinks that they are immune, but we're not, we just recognize some that probably wasn't targeted at us. As far as I am concerned, the only way to not be influenced by propaganda would be to completely avoid it and be some sort of hermit.
Exactly. Blocking out ads wherever possible is the only way to not be influenced by advertising. At least it helps to know that one isn't immune to it. That helps to counteract the effects somewhat, but don't count on it if you aren't actively keeping your defenses up.
I bet there are hermit influencers who post videos where they hold the latest chamberpot up to the camera and extol its virtues. Then they post a shelfie that shows their latest book haul about transcendental meditation and bushcrafting.
Yeah, the thing about propaganda is that it works, and if it doesn't work, then the propagandists will come up with something else that does work. The thing is that they're constantly thinking about how to exploit you, while you're thinking about other stuff.
So for example, I hate feeling like I receive a hard sell. So, if I am at a store and somebody tries to sell me something, I will not buy it, and in fact, I'll probably assume the product is so shoddy that it can't be sold without pressure. Same goes for popup ads online.
But if a marketer knows this about me, then they can definitely manipulate me. They just have to do it in a way that I don't realize is marketing. And there are all sorts of campaigns like that.
True, and having the hubris to think otherwise makes you even less immune.
Maybe some are. You may have fallen for some propaganda here.
Which is why developers don’t want to talk to a salesperson and would rather just try the tool.
Yes, that is the generalization that the article pushed. It's not true, because developers are not homogeneous. The point of my statement is "if you are a developer, ignore this because it is not true. You don't have some sort of power that makes you immune to marketing. You're just as susceptible as the rest of us, just in a different way. Ya know, like everyone else is"
Hey everybody, 'member "I just shipped my pants."
I've had a theory for a while that most marketing is targeted at neurotypical people, and that it is therefore far less effective on some neurodivergent people. People love to act like neurodivergent people are immune to marketing and propaganda. Maybe the detail-oriented ness of someone with ASD does ruin a narrative, but I feel that it's mostly just that people and companies aren't used to targeting these demographics.
There probably were some ads in the past that might've (probably unintentionally) targeted people on the spectrum. The IBM Selectric ad from the 60's instead of bullshitting about changing your lifestyle (like today's car ads do) focuses on the product's technological prowess.
Now I want one of those type elements as decoration
As someone who works in marketing. We are not ignorant to how people operate and how to get in front of them. Go to the sentence that "Management makes most of the decisions". We'll be aiming for the people who actually buy things. Unfortunately in B2B sales that is usually the CEO/CFO/VP who has very little time to read and learn and would rather someone call and explain everything to make a problem go away. Typically they are of an older generation and hate digital media and wouldn't be caught dead on Reddit.
That said, I always say honestly sells itself. Embellishing the truth or straight up lies will only get you so far and it's typically short term gains.
Agency's love scummy marketing tactics. This because it's good numbers to them and they could give a fuck what it does to the client. They just want them to see that the graph goes up sharply for the first month and than silently bleed them dry as it flattens out and they can push more tricks or services to make graph go up again.
Inhouse teams (like me) can't shit where they eat, so have a more genuine strategy for the long term. We are vested in the well-being of our company.
Seems to me the difference between ethical and unethical marketing is the difference between trying to inform vs. influence your potential customer.
Products need a way to find customers, and customers need a way to find products - this is the problem marketing should be solving. Instead I see businesses hiring people trying everything but just informing customers.
As a System Admin, I totally feel this. I fucking hate vendors and their bullshit marketing. In generally during the times that I have to deal, I will usually hear them out. But if the rep is annoying I will start the Q&A with questions that are designed to destroy their presentations or expose how little they know about their products. Good sales reps know how to react but bad ones just dig it in deeper and it becomes a show.
I'd love some example questions for this.
it's situation dependent for sure but I listen for junk jargon most of the time and then do root cause analysis like questions on it. like trying to find the answers to asking why to everything they say. why does it work like that? Does it support xyz? why? why.... . Gotta do it right so your coworkers are in on it. there's a uncomfortable laugh when you know you hit the mark.
Good insights, and not just software developers, really. We don’t like ads, sensationalism, or anything reeking of bullshit
Its a big list of major assumptions by someone who never bothered to verify if they're even true. He's mad he had to work with a heavily marketed product that his boss liked, and wrote this about it. Check out this quote from the article;
And the really fun part is that “astroturfing” a thread about your product on Hacker News or Reddit is just about impossible. If you go to the places where developers hang out and try to promote your product, you will be shot down faster than Mark Zuckerberg at a privacy conference.
Dude. Reddit is practically more bot than person at this point, and its impossible to know by how much, because of how good they are at fooling everyone. https://www.clrn.org/how-much-of-reddit-is-bots/
Yeah, there was a time when that was true, but Reddit's been heavily compromised for...I dunno, at least a decade now. Pretty much every public forum becomes compromised after it reaches a certain size, and now with The Power of AI, it's economical to compromise smaller and smaller forums, too, and it's harder and harder to properly calibrate your bullshit detector. yayy....
There are still some great specialized nerd forums out there though. Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1603/
Marketing absolutely works on Nerds, what a ridiculous statement. Just because certain types marketing will push us away doesn't mean all marketing is pointless. Be honest, let me know what your product does, give me a proper datasheet and a price, and I'll explore it. Try to shove some hyperbolic BS down by throat while hiding the things I actually care about and I'll never buy from your company.
I think there's a substantial difference between "supplying information about a product without shoving it in people's face", and what most people associate with "marketing".
If a company putting up neutral, verifiable information about their product on their own webpage where I can find it by searching for something I'm looking for after reflexively scrolling past the ads counts as marketing, then yes, I "fall for marketing" all the time. However, what I typically associate with "marketing" involves me somehow being fed information about a product without seeking it out. Usually when that happens, I'll actively look somewhere else.
I'll just add that a white paper with technical information about how the product works is actually valuable. A white paper that reads like an ad in the form of an infographic is a waste of time.
The way I've always looked at it, a good product/service can typically stand on it's reputation. If a company needs to spend millions on advertising to move their stuff, they're probably not all that good or are overpriced. Someone is paying for all that advertising and it always ends up being the consumer.
You can't really have a "reputation" in this day and age without marketing. The fact that things like Stardew valley exist really only prove the point.
I don't know about that. Tiktok, Lamborghini, Tesla, Krispy Kreme, The Dollar Shave Club, Tupperware, Rolls Royce, Costco, Trader Joe's, Go Pro etc all do little to no traditional advertising and do just fine.
Not that there's anything wrong with some advertising to get the word out, but when you're getting spammed with ads from every angle, that company starts feeling a little scummy to me.
Really? Then why is Apple so popular among a subset of developers?
Because Windows fucking sucks and Linux is a can of worms not everyone wants to deal with?
Apple isn't free of sin, but it's the simplest way to get a system that doesn't actively work against you.
As much as I hate it, Apple has good products. And it's enough for enough people to have active development community. By that point it's catch 22.
Have you ever tried to setup a development environment in Windows? Windows fucking sucks for development unless you're committed to handing over wads of cash for a VS license, and even then it's really only good if your okay using a bunch of proprietary MS stuff.
Actually yes, I do cross platform development on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Mac is by far the most work and breaks constantly.
Because it’s a Unix machine with support for business software.
This headline could be amended to be more accurate as “experts in a given field not swayed by marketing that does not respect their expertise”. I’m sure there are bullshit claims on fertilizers that landscapers laugh at. I’m sure automotive engineers aren’t impressed by most features in a new car brochure. Trying to market a software solution to software engineers with bullshit claims it’s just a bad marketing strategy.
If you want to sell software with bullshit claims, market it to the executives!
At work sure, at home my ever growing pile of e-waste disagrees.
Developers rarely control the tools budget; their managers do.
So this whole article is a moot point
Developers detest marketing. If you want to sell them a tool, make it easy for them to find the information they need and leave them alone to try out your tool.
So marketing does work, just not "traditional" or "mainstream" marketing. We've had shareware since the beginning times, which was the ultimate try before you buy. Now we have the subscription model (fbow).
Yeah I'd like to think I'm better than marketing, but really, it just takes the right marketing, and I'm putty in their hands.
Fair point. The title should be something more like “Normie Marketing Doesn’t Work in Nerds”.
A website with pricing, extensive documentation, and a download button effectively IS marketing.
The fundamental difference to me, which makes me not see "a website with extensive docs and a download button" as marketing, is whether you need to seek it out or not.
If I need to seek it out myself, it's not marketing, it's simply "providing solid information" and "making your product accessible", which is a whole different ballgame from "shoving your shit into peoples face in the hope that they'll give you money".
Nobody is immune to all bias all of the time, you just have to know what the right bias is to push in your marketing. It's what makes advertising propaganda so insidious, it's like the flu everyone is susceptible.
I dunno, a lotta devs have bought into the AI hype train it seems.
No it just takes a different approach
I've always assumed the more a brand needs to advertise, the shittier their product is. It's a rule that holds most accurately to alcohol brands. (Bottom shelf plastic handles of liquor being the exception.)
I learned about an expensive headset brand today. Their website was fun, their product is exactly what I want, and they have a 5-year warranty. The headsets come with spare ear pads. Never heard about them before today. I somehow trust they're worth the price.
(Still ended up just buying new foam pads for my current $30 headset, but I was tempted.)
DUH
Which is why they hate us
This is also true for other people.
But I'm a nerd and marketing works on me...
Time to hand in your nerd badge at the front desk 😄
I hate to admit how much FOMO works on me. I'm glad I got a switch 2 to play BOTW again... Of course I have cemu, but I need to buy this other bullshit for some reason. Fuck Nintendo. What were we talking about again?
Marketing doesn't target nerds. It targets their boss who is likely to enforce usage of the tool.
Ahem…. Star Wars.
"hype-reactive"
Not all software developers are Nerds, and if this was true we wouldn't be programming in yet another spin of JavaScript that another language solved 20 years ago or tied to stacks because the 90s senior knows the dell guy.
Warum sieht er aus wie kalkofen?
the rampant consumerism in nerd spaces seems to disprove the Lemmy title in the large, even if this specific example indicates the opposite wrt marketing by software firms aimed at developers.