Presented at Open Source 101 2023 - Charlotte Presented by Swarna Podila Title: The Mystical Nature of Open Source Marketing Abstract: Marketing, in general, is probably an enigmatic function for most folks who are not familiar with the function. While one may misconstrue that the Marketing team handles conferences and/or events, let us take a moment to recognize that that is not all that the Marketing team is responsible for. The marketing team is like a beautiful layer cake that has multiple functions within, with each team having a unique responsibility for creating, generating, and nurturing awareness and demand for the company and company’s product portfolio in the relevant markets. And if you think that was nuanced, wait until you hear about the elaborate and orchestrated coordination that is required in “Open Source Marketing”. In this session, I will talk about the fundamental differences in traditional B2B (business-to-business) marketing approaches and open source marketing approaches. The audience will understand the importance of the differences in approaches and will walk away with a better understanding of Open Source Marketing.

1. skpodila@mstdn.social
The Mystical Nature of
Open Source Marketing
Swarna Podila

2. skpodila@mstdn.social
Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash
Photo by James A. Molnar on Unsplash
Photo by Carlos de Toro @carlosdetoro on Unsplash
A Collaborative World

3. skpodila@mstdn.social
Source:
https://bonkersworld.net/organizati
onal-charts

4. skpodila@mstdn.social
Typical Enterprise Teams
Engineering
Research
Product
DevRel /
Community
Marketing
Post-Sales /
Customer
Support
Pre-Sales /
Sales
05
01
02 03
04

5. skpodila@mstdn.social
Typical Enterprise Teams
Engineering
Research
Product
DevRel /
Community
Marketing
Post-Sales /
Customer
Support
Pre-Sales /
Sales
05
01
02 03
04

6. skpodila@mstdn.social
Enterprise Marketing Funnel
Awareness
(Top of the Funnel)
Consideration
(Middle of the Funnel)
Purchase
(Bottom of the
Funnel)
Reference

7. skpodila@mstdn.social
Enterprise Marketing Journey
Awareness
Consideration
Purchase
Reference
Product Marketing
Technical Marketing
Field / Regional Marketing
Growth / Revenue Marketing
Technical Marketing
Customer Experience
Customer Marketing
Product Marketing

8. skpodila@mstdn.social
Enterprise Marketing Journey
Awareness
Consideration
Purchase
Field Marketing
Regional Marketing
Growth / Revenue Marketing
Events
Product Marketing
Technical Marketing
Analyst Relations
Press Relations
Marketing Ops
Demand Generation
Brand
Creative Design
Web
Digital
Social Media
Customer Marketing
Reference

9. skpodila@mstdn.social
Enterprise Marketing Journey
Awareness
Consideration
Purchase
Reference
Product / Solution Web Pages, Use
Cases, Case Studies, Tutorials, etc.
Documentation, Reference Docs,
Benchmarks, etc.
Field / Regional Events, Landing Pages,
Webinars, Workshops, Meetups, etc.
Case Studies, Analyst / Media /
Peer-to-Peer References

10. skpodila@mstdn.social
Open Source Marketing Journey
Awareness
Consideration
Adoption
Advocacy

11. skpodila@mstdn.social
Open Source Marketing Journey
Awareness
Consideration
Adoption
Advocacy
Developer Advocacy
Education / Docs
Developer Advocacy
Community Management
Developer Advocacy
Technical Community Support
Developer Advocacy
Community Programs
Certifications

12. skpodila@mstdn.social
Open Source Marketing Journey
Awareness
Consideration
Adoption
Community Management
Developer Advocacy
Education and Docs
Product Marketing
Technical Marketing
Technical Community Support
Technical Writers
Events
Regional Marketing
Demand Generation
Marketing Ops
Creative Design
Brand
Digital
Social Media
Advocacy

13. skpodila@mstdn.social
Open Source Marketing Journey
Awareness
Consideration
Adoption
Advocacy
Comparative Overview, Best Practices,
Use Cases, Architectural Overview,
Intro-level tutorials, Downloads
Guides: Implementation, Getting
Started, Troubleshooting, Upgrades,
and Migration, Office Hours
Project Web Pages, GitHub ReadMe,
Docs, Events, Livestreams, AMAs
Champion / Ambassador programs,
Conference talks, Speaker programs,
Certifications and Badges

14. skpodila@mstdn.social
Marketing Strategy: Be Clear.
● What is your priority?
○ Open Source success? Enterprise success?
● Open source success:
○ Focus your marketing activities to drive community and project growth.
○ Build + Grow your Community!
● Enterprise success:
○ Focus your marketing activities on growing and supporting sales.
○ Contribute to Revenue!

15. skpodila@mstdn.social
Marketing Goals: Open Source vs.Enterprise
Enterprise Marketing
focuses on
● Product awareness/sales
● Lead generation
● Brand awareness
● Customer acquisition,
expansion, references
● Marketing nurture
● Sales
Open Source Marketing
focuses on
● Project adoption
● Community growth
● Community contributions
● Project awareness and
education
● Community nurture
● Education

16. skpodila@mstdn.social
Open Source to Enterprise Journey
● Open Source efforts can feed into the Marketing Funnel.
Caution! Do not “bait and switch” your open source audience.
● Build a compelling user/customer journey based on the starting point.
● Iterate based on engagement metrics and content performance.
● When the time is right, assess steering open source audience towards an
enterprise journey:
○ Use metrics to determine the right transition points and pathways.

17. skpodila@mstdn.social
Enterprise Marketing
● Lead Lifecycle (generated ->
followed up / nurtured ->
MQLs -> SQLs)
● Length of Sales Cycle
● Revenue Contribution
● Web visits and interactions
● Content performance
● Funnel -> Sales Pipeline
conversion
Open Source Marketing
● OSS Downloads
● GitHub Stars
● Tutorials access
● Certifications completed
● Engagement metrics (active
users, returning users, video
views, interactions on docs
sites, livestream attendance,
etc.)
Define Success Metrics

18. skpodila@mstdn.social
Collaboration => Success