Millions of talented developers type their fingers to the bone to glue technologies (as well as social media and services, etc.) together with the help of APIs every day. With innovations accelerating, it has become a common thing to build businesses around an API and even make it a core product. As competition arises, there appears a necessity to win a place in the sun. This article teaches what NOT to do to end up with your API being widely adopted.
Do without a Partner Page
It is no secret that conversion is what you aim at, and a partner page is what is supposed to help to turn visitors into API consumers. Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is a useful concept you should have in mind while writing the text that would undertake such an important mission. It implies meeting the three criteria:
- Less puffery, more benefits for the client.
- The unique proposition that your competitors cannot put or have not put though could.
- The proposition is persuasive and powerful enough to attract and convert new customers.
Out of these fundamental principles the following questions can be formed to help you form a killer statement to instantly catch the attention of your target customers:
- What makes your API different?
- What is the primary reason for its existence?
- Why should they start using it right now?
One more noteworthy aspect is the emotional connection with the desired audience. You can create it with the help of copyright magic. See the power of Apiary’s USP: “Build beautiful APIs”. Who does not want their API to be beautiful?
Having grasped a potential customer’s attention, you need to warm them by providing the special benefits they can get from consuming your API. A full list of features is far not as persuasive as a number of advantages. And a combo would make a perfect match.
Do not forget about a Call to Action to close the deal. To write a perfect one, ask yourself, what you would like your clients to do and what benefit they would get from it. Would you go for such an offer yourself?
Forget about Referral Marketing
According to Nielsen's support, people are four times more likely to use, buy, and perform when referred by a friend. This is the charm of referral marketing; a good word spread works better than traditional advertising.
You do not have to go far to get the word. Developers tend to hang around with other developers, which means that one converted coder might become a source of the best promotion you could find.
Here we can also mention “making friends”. Getting out of the office may be luck to both see if your ideas have legs and build steady business relationships. A good occasion to break the tendency of being cooped up indoors is an industry-oriented meeting or event. Some of API ones are APIdays, Endpointcon, Gluecon, Nordic APIs tours and events, APIStrat, REST Fest, API World, and I ⥠APIs.
Neglect Email Marketing
The thing is, email marketing is one of the most powerful ways to stay in touch with your customers. It enables you to send highly personalized messages, news, and valuable updates right into their inbox. Plus, it is a working means of learning more about them by tracking who opens what kind of emails and thus detect the biggest fans of your API.
Ignore A/B Testing
The chance that the first idea will resonate best with your target audience is very slight. A/B testing comes as a fine method of determining the weak points so that you could fix them. All you need to do to make this work is to perform a randomized experiment with variant A and variant B, the first one being the test group and the second one being the control group. A tip here would be to test one element at a time not to mess up with which change brought which results.
APIs are a part of the fast-evolving tech world. The number of companies offering their APIs is increasing exponentially, which means that API marketing is growing in importance as well. You have been given some of the basic marketing nuances that will stand in good stead to making your API into a known-about and desirable-to-consume product.
If you have any questions concerning API marketing, ask them in the comment section below. Also, do not hesitate to schedule a call to find out how integration with 40+ popular shopping platforms can skyrocket your business.
