Three whales
The first experiments of cooperation with YouTube bloggers gave us rather mediocre results, which spurred us to figure out how this platform works and start using it effectively. We knew for sure that our target audience was there: does someone watch this huge number of programming tutorials?
But bad luck - we want to tell the world about such a thing as static code analysis. A very useful thing that will make life easier for programmers, save them nerves and time. And most importantly, it will improve the quality of the code. And if you also use a special promotional code that we usually give, then you can appreciate the beauty of his work for free. It would seem, what else is needed? But things didn't go as smoothly as we wanted.
Before that, we mainly worked only with ad inserts - people went to our site, but there were no requests, let alone downloads. There were both large and small channels, English-speaking and Russian-speaking, but the results of work with neither the first nor the second did not meet our expectations. The realization came to us that it was time to change something - you wonโt go far with inserts alone.
We started thinking about possible storytelling about our product in order to experiment and compare the results. We used the following as the main promotion formats:
- good old ad insert,
- video review,
- a new area for us - interviews.
We will tell about each of these "three whales" just below.
Use our promo code
Before moving on to the main one, I would like to tell you about the traffic tracking system. As before, we actively use promotional codes and thanks to this we see the number of trials requested.
I think there is no need to explain how this system works. It's just that for each channel we come up with a code word that is somehow related to it (name, blogger name, video topic) and insert it into the links we need. Recently, we began to mask them, but not in order to hide something, but simply for beauty and ease of perception.
In addition, we ask bloggers to mention the promotional code itself. This helps the viewer to pay attention to the action itself and the description to the video, where, in fact, the links and the necessary information are located. Depending on the type of content, we direct users to the product page, download page and, if necessary, to an article to complement the topic discussed in the video.
Promotional codes make it possible to track targeted actions and, as a result, evaluate the effectiveness of an advertising campaign. In addition, they encourage users to try the product absolutely free of charge, so that in the future, they may already buy it. That is, we can say that this is a kind of sales promotion.
We track all statistics for each campaign in Google Analytics and in the CRM we have written. What indicators do we primarily assess? Usually these are clicks to the analyzer download page and trial requests. We do not encourage you to buy our product, but only suggest downloading it using the extended trial version and checking your project.
Video review
Not everyone agrees to this format, because it requires a deeper immersion in the product and takes a lot of time and effort. But for us, he is always a priority and this is the first thing that we offer the blogger when we contact him.
What does the video review look like in our case? The whole process of working with the analyzer is shown: from downloading and installing to checking the code. Here the feed and comments of the blogger are important, who ideally should tell about the product itself and mention the action.
One of those who agreed to this was Yan Chernikov, for which many thanks to him! With his channel The Chernowe already had a few collaborations and at some point he grew noticeably, which is definitely a good sign. This means that the channel is active and the blogger invests in it. So we decided to try again. I want to note that first of all we consider the blogger's proposals, since he knows his audience better and, in general, usually he already has some kind of intended content plan.
Ian suggested making a video on static analysis for C ++. All that was needed from us was to agree on a topic and send the necessary links, a promo code and a key for the analyzer for the required period. We provide each blogger with the opportunity to use the analyzer for free for the time necessary to record a video. The rest of the work is done entirely by himself.
After some time, Jan sent us the result for approval, and the video was published. Apparently, the topic turned out to be very relevant and caused a response that we definitely did not expect. In addition to her, of course, it is worth noting the visual component of Yan's video, and his advertising presentation - it looks quite native. You look and think: "I believe!"
At that time, getting such a result meant only one thing - we are moving in the right direction and we need to continue looking for such bloggers.
Campaign result for 7 months
Views: 39 497
Site visits: 946
Trial requests: 169
CTR: 2.40%
Other video reviews
- How to REALLY learn C ++
- COMMON C++ QUESTIONS โ How to detect errors in code with PVS Studio? Explaining Memory Leaks in C++
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This is a fallback in case the blogger does not agree to a video review for some reason. Usually bloggers prepare texts themselves, but there are times when they ask to send them. But it is better not to demand to read the text exactly - let it be more like a reference point.
Spins can be at the beginning, middle, or end of a video. We usually choose either the first or the second option. I think it's obvious why - it is more likely that more people will view it and decide to use our offer.
An example that I want to tell you about is working with the Tamil Hacks 2.0 channel ... Here everything turned out smoothly as never before, and just all the stars converged. We had an idea to do Bug Bounty-themed ad inserts. In short, this is the general name for various programs in which website and software developers offer monetary rewards for finding bugs and vulnerabilities. By the way, we wrote about this in more detail in our blog , so I will not focus on this.
With this proposal, we turned to several bloggers, including Tamil. He, surprisingly, immediately agreed. As it turned out later, he already had videos on this topic, and he shot them a couple of weeks before we contacted him. Coincidence? We were very happy about such a fortunate coincidence and agreed to cooperate. Literally a week later, the video with our ad insert was already published.
Unaccustomed to such an ideal and fast course of events, we have already begun to doubt and wait for a catch. We had no illusions or hopes about the results of the campaign, so we just watched the analytics. But even here everything exceeded our expectations - the audience was very interested in the topic. And it seems that until now, after a few months, people come to our site from this video.
Campaign results for 4 months
Views:
20,761 Site visits: 653
Trial requests: 75
CTR: 3.15%
Other ad inserts
- Spring Framework. Lesson 19: GET Request Parameters. @RequestParam annotation .
- Spring Framework. Lesson 21: CRUD, REST, DAO (Data Access Object) Pattern .
- Safe programmnig. MISRA C \ C ++ ruleset
pros
- Doesn't require a lot of time and costs;
- You can send your advertising text;
- You can redeem a series of inserts at once and link them together.
Minuses
- The insert does not look native - there is a high probability that it will simply be rewound.
Interview
Podcasts are hugely popular these days, and we have had a period when our developers actively participated in interviews with some podcasters. We tried ourselves both in podcasts in Russian and in English. It was an interesting experience, but quite energy-consuming for our guys. We were not always provided with a list of questions - only approximate topics that we wanted to touch on. Therefore, it was not clear what to prepare for. Most of it was improvisation.
Why interview? This format makes it possible to tell not only about the product, but also about the company and the people behind its implementation. It is definitely also work on increasing loyalty to the company - we share our inner cuisine. So, in a way, it's also useful from an HR point of view. We kill two birds with one stone.
Perhaps the most memorable collaboration was with the Senior Software Vlogger podcast . We contacted the host of the podcast, discussed the topic, and arranged an interview with one of our C ++ programmers. Having prepared the equipment and sent him the necessary materials, we got to work.
After the interview was over, the host contacted us with some pretty good news. It turned out that they got into a conversation so enthusiastically that there was more content than they originally wanted. Therefore, we were already waiting for not one, but two videos.
The first turned out to be more general, introductory, so to speak, and formal. Our C ++ team lead Phil told about himself and his work. The guys mainly discussed the C ++ language, its features and news related to it.
The second turned out to be more narrowly focused and informal - there is only about C ++. Not for nothing is it called "Tales about C ++: C - Standardization"?
Campaign results for 6 months
Views: 27,139
Site
visits : 193 Trial requests: 7
CTR: 0.71%
Not very impressive numbers, although, judging by the views, both videos generated interest. But for some reason, it did not come to downloading the analyzer. Perhaps because the main focus of such videos is the person with whom they communicate, and not the product. And in order to become interested in it, a person must first go to the site, read the blog, think about everything well. And then, after some time, proceed to downloading the analyzer. So a cumulative effect is quite possible here.
Other interviews with our developers
pros
- There is an opportunity to tell not only about the product, but also about the company and its internal cuisine;
- One of those who takes part in its development tells about the product - plus 100 to loyalty.
Minuses
- The focus is most often on the storyteller rather than the product;
- The speaker is not given the opportunity to prepare for the questions in advance (but perhaps it is better to discuss this point with the blogger in advance).
What's better?
It's hard to say for sure - what works well on one channel may absolutely not bring any results on another. All marketing work is built on hypotheses that constantly need to be tested.
Better, of course, to combine all this. But if you still have to choose, you can go through this checklist:
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There is also an alternative - start filming your own video. Sooner or later, everyone seems to come to this, because this is another good channel for broadcasting and promoting your product and the company as a whole. True, this format of work is much more energy-intensive than the previous three. Why? I'll tell you about our example.
At some point, we realized that just ads from bloggers are not enough for us. We thought: "What if we shoot our own videos about static analysis and analyzer?"
We recruited a group of interested programmers and marketers, organized a trip out of town and settled there for five whole days. The plan and goal were simple - to shoot as many videos as possible for further promotion. Here, of course, there were some pitfalls. I won't describe everything in detail, because that's another story . I'll just tell you what it took:
- Find speakers who, in addition to Russian, also speak English;
- Buy equipment (camera, light, microphones);
- Equip the shooting location;
- Control the filming process.
And that's just what was obvious to me as a participant. I'm sure the organizers of this event have a much longer list. But we achieved our goal - the output was pretty high-quality videos, recorded in both Russian and English. We publish these videos on our YouTube channels. Yes, we now have two of them - for the Russian-speaking and English-speaking audience. You can see how the video marathon went here .
By the way, I myself recently tried on the role of a blogger - I took part in the recording of one video for our English-language channel.
As they say, with whom you will lead ... It seems to have turned out well and now, most likely, I will periodically appear on our English-language channel. So stop by - I'll wait for you there!
pros
- You have complete control over the content of the video;
- Product information is served from the original source;
- This is a good way to promote yourself as a company.
Minuses
- Requires special equipment and location (camera, microphone);
- It is necessary to involve several people (operator, announcer, editor, editor, translator).
Conclusion
Of course, the described strategy is not ideal, but in our case it has not given serious failures yet. We are constantly looking for new ways to promote our product. For example, at the moment we are working on a series of advertising integrations on different channels. The main thing in this business is not to be afraid to experiment and record successful results.
If you have experience working with bloggers and display advertising, we will be glad to read your cases as well. And if you are a blogger and are ready to cooperate, then feel free to write to us ! We cover the following topics: C, C ++, C #, Java, DevOps, Embedded, compilers, game development, testing, security and code quality.