Any marketing strategy must define the channels used to reach its target audience. When it comes to developers, this is one of the most common and important questions. Developers don’t like marketing, so how do you find the best channels to reach them?

First, understand where your potential customers are. Here are two ways to start:

No matter what channels you pick, I always recommend testing each one individually to measure how much traction you can actually build.

Here are a few channels you can use, and why they matter:

Word of mouth is probably the strongest channel you can have. I’ve worked with companies where it was so powerful that developers became not just users but vocal advocates. It’s not easy to reach that point, especially early on. But remember, developers trust their peers more than anyone else, for better or worse.

What can you do? Make sure your product solves a real problem. Make sure it solves that problem really well. And make sure it delivers a great developer experience while doing it.

Referrals are a way to boost and track word of mouth. Programs can benefit both the referrer and the referred through special pricing, discounts, extra usage, extended trials, and more. This approach leverages already acquired customers, helping reduce CAC and potentially increasing LTV. It's especially effective for recurring business models like subscriptions.

While traffic numbers are debated, Hacker News brings in millions of monthly visits from developers and tech professionals. It’s a place where they share, learn, and discuss about technical topics, making it an excellent (while tricky) channel to connect organically with your audience.

There are two main ways to leverage Hacker News:

The ideal situation? Someone outside your company mentions your brand first, maybe by posting your article or bringing up your product in the comments. Then you join in and keep the conversation going.

Reddit is home to deep discussions about your industry, product, and the problems you’re solving. Map out the relevant subreddits and monitor them. Use social listening tools to track keywords, product mentions, and category-specific conversations.

Jump into those conversations with a genuine desire to help. I’m talking here about organic engagement, not treating Reddit like an ad space. One great format for developer audiences is the AMA (Ask Me Anything). I’ve used this to let Redditors engage directly with our company’s engineers and developer advocates. The results were excellent.

SEO for technical products is tricky. Developers aren’t likely to read a 2,000-word keyword-stuffed blog post. Based on experience, I recommend focusing first on commercial keywords, especially product comparisons and technical overviews, before moving to top-of-funnel content like how-tos and tutorials. Deep technical content performs well when it involves complementary tools, contains working code, and solves real problems.

Engineering blogs blend SEO with thought leadership. This is where engineers talk to other engineers sharing best practices, tech decisions, lessons learned, and more. This channel is hard to scale. But if your brand is solving hard (or popular) problems and you’re willing to invest in quality content, it’s one of the best ways to earn developer trust. Since these posts aren’t always optimized for SEO, make sure to distribute them through other channels, including your newsletter, social media, or even as PR to newsletter aggregators.

Starting a YouTube channel as a company is challenging. It typically requires heavy involvement from your DevRel team and lots of trial and error to figure out what resonates.

I usually don’t recommend launching a company-branded channel from scratch. Developers do spend hours on YouTube, but mostly watching personal, independent channels. In many cases, your developer advocates will build their own personal channels and talk about your product naturally. That works much better than an official brand channel, which often feels inauthentic.

If you do go forward with YouTube, go all in. Respond to comments, publish consistently, and engage with the community. Formats I’ve seen work well include:

I’ve rarely seen official brand videos gain traction unless they build on top of individual creators’ trust.

Conferences are one of the best ways to engage developers in person. But just showing up with a booth isn’t enough. When attending events, your goal should be to win the event:

Still the gold standard for developer Q&A. Use it to help your users get value faster. Track your product, your category, and relevant keywords. Have your support engineers, advocates, or tech marketers answer open questions.

Keep the answers technical and helpful, not promotional. This is also a great place to collect feedback about your developer experience and bring it back to your product team.

Open source is a powerful trust builder in the developer world. I’m not just talking about open-sourcing your own product. There are other ways to get involved:

Twitter (X) has its ups and downs. It’s a great place to listen, engage, and offer support. Use it to share updates, run polls, and build a brand voice if it fits your strategy.

In my experience, Twitter has been best for support, webinar promotion, quick engagement, and as part of major product announcements.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Developers are everywhere, online and offline. Your job is to find where they are now, prioritize the right channels, test, validate, scale, and then move on to the next one.