2 Channels for Targeting Tech Personas, Part 1/2

By Win Salyards, Marketing Consultant at Heinz Marketing

B2B marketers targeting tech personas know well at this point that they make attribution frustratingly tricky. We know where to reach them, but they’re notoriously skeptical and private. So, how do we make attributions or capture leads when a potential tech contact is moving through your content like a ghost? I find it near impossible. That’s why you need to employ other strategies and channels. Two channels I see as being particularly promising are Stack Overflow and Reddit. To me, these two channels hold the potential for approaching complex tech personas, building trust, and potentially having them self-identify. This will be a two-part blog post. Later this month, I will be covering Reddit.

Stack Overflow

It’s the premier technical question board online, and 80% of software engineers visit Stack at least once weekly. Stack knows the value of its audience and knows them well; because of this, utilizing Stack is expensive. They work exclusively through account reps and don’t have a self-serve option. They also have strict guidelines for ad design. However, it is all to stay true to the preferences of their audience and why they come to Stack in the first place. For knowledge.

Stack works to maintain the trust they’ve built with software engineers over the years and makes clear to its advertising customers that. And because of that trust Stack has built with users, some fraction is transferred to advertisers on the site. Building trust is key to a tech audience.

Finally, Stack likes to focus on View-Through Rate rather than CTR (Click Through Rate). They’ve found engineers are far more likely to go off and research a company or product on their own after seeing an ad rather than clicking. Tech personas do a lot of research, and tracking that process helps gauge interest more than other metrics for this persona. Understand the decision-making process of your tech personas.

Stack Overflow is a promising channel for targeting tech personas, though it is expensive compared to other traditional B2B channels such as LinkedIn. But it may be a worthy investment for companies that target software engineers and have content to back it up.