As a marketer and a full-functioning developer “evangelist” for Infusionsoft, I find myself full of ideas and solutions to help them increase customer acquisition. I know developers are better writers, er, content producers, than they feel, so I offer encouragement to just try and they’ll win.
Ask any developer today and they’ll tell you having a great product is the most important. You and I both know that. Since the rise of the “App Store” and Marketplaces all around, the competition increases. It’s no longer enough just to make a great app. You need remarkable marketing to attract and engage new users.
I’m not suggesting you need to drop thousands of dollars on a media buy and “pay” your way to the top of a marketplace. (While there are apps and brands that do this, they need to do this so they stand out. It’s not something I endorse.) There are literally hundreds of other cost-free, organic opportunities to raise awareness for your solution. If you know your target user, you should know what media they consume and what their pains are —so you aren’t wasting time churning out content that users aren’t willing to consume.
35 Blog Ideas for App Developers
Here are some reasonable assumptions you can make: Your audience wants to know you, your team, your ideas, product benefits, product uses, what you’re doing to improve the product and what your vision for the future is. You don’t have to be as polished as the Google, but you should put in enough effort to demonstrate that you genuinely care. At all times, your posts should be beneficial to users.
It can be a bit daunting to author blog posts about your product. I get it. To help, I’ve compiled 35 blog post “prompts” that you can address with your product blog.
- [X] is substituted for your product or service. Example: “Infusionsoft”
- [persona] means the title or otherwise easily-described attribute to your audience. Example: “Small business owners”
- [industry/market] means the semi-specific category of the market you operate in. Example: “marketing automation”
- [benefit] means the reason why someone would use a feature. Example: “Generate Leads”
- [feature] means the means/activity required to achieve the benefit.
- Why we made [X]
- Who makes [X]
- What one problem with [Market/Industry]?
- How to fix [problem] with [X]?
- How to get more value from [X]
- Not happy with [competitor]? Here’s an alternative!
- [X] introduces new features to help you do [benefit]
- How we design and develop features for [X]
- FAQ: How to reset your [X] password
- What’s new with [X] pricing?
- How [user persona] can solve their [pain] with [X]
- 5 clever ways to outsmart [oppressor] with [X]
- The complete [industry/market] guide to [benefit]
- An honest truth about [industry/market].
- An open letter to [competitor/oppressor].
- Meet the customer who increased sales by 43%
- What others have said about [X]
- We’re going to [name] conference — come join us!
- 10 reasons why you should try [X]
- Here’s how [feature] helps you accomplish [benefit]
- See why we’re so excited about [X’s] [feature]
- Watch this short video explaining how we can help you [benefit]
- Discover what is coming soon with [X]
- 2-week test drive: Try [X] at no charge.
- Why every [persona] is doing [action] wrong (and what you can do about it.)
- A day-in-the-life of a [persona]
- Why [influencer] chose [X]
- Users: Take the [X] challenge and win a free account for life.
- Tips and advice from [X] support department.
- An insider’s guide to mastering [X]
- How [influencer] was able to cut costs and grow sales with [X]
- 5 reasons why [topic] matters
- Here are some very useful stats about you, [X] users.
- [X]: Year in review
- Here is why [topic] matters to [persona] and why [X] cares about it.
Why Blogging?
Blogging is one of the most meaningful activities that a developer can do to drive awareness to their solution. Consider for a moment how much traffic is driven by search and social across the web. Blog posts serve as evergreen pages that provide long-lasting value as long as the topic is interesting and beneficial for users.
Blogging isn’t as mundane of an activity as it sounds. Put aside the visions of someone stressing to get a post out “on deadline.” Blogging is a useful marketing activity that you control. You decide when the post is beneficial or helpful for users and when you hit publish. I’m here to tell you that it’s okay to hit publish more often. There is no state of “perfection” that you’ll achieve, so get comfortable being imperfect.
In short, blogging gives you the ability to share ideas position your product in front of an audience who is often searching for solutions that you can solve. At the very minimum, you’ll increase search engine visibility and at the very most, it’ll become a critical piece of of your customer acquisition strategy.
You won’t know if you don’t try.
