DevRel & Marketing Insights from AWS re:Invent 2024
As one of the largest cloud computing conferences globally, AWS re:Invent 2024 draws tens of thousands of professionals eager to explore the latest innovations or showcase their companies. This time, Clayton Kast, Draft.dev’s Account Director and I had a chance to experience the event in personand interview our clients and friends in the DevRel and technical marketing space.
In this post, I’ll share the takeaways from our conversations, focusing on the key themes that came up in our conversations.
Content Marketing Remains Essential
Content marketing continues to be the foundation of successful DevRel and technical marketing strategies for most companies that we interviewed. Creating valuable, educational content that addresses developers’ pain points and helps them solve technical problems is essential for building trust and driving organic growth. Although product-centric marketing campaigns have their place, a consistent flow of helpful content is the best way to drive product adoption.
Blogs, in particular, were highlighted as the main channel for delivering this valuable content and driving traffic to company websites.
“If you really want to do a good job of getting developers to adopt your services, the main thing is just helping them do their jobs better.” –Randall Degges, Head of Developer Relations and Community, Snyk
Community Engagement Drives Organic Growth
Engaging and nurturing your developer community was another recurring theme at re:Invent. Open-source initiatives, in particular, can be a powerful way to connect with developers and demonstrate a commitment to the broader ecosystem you operate in.
For example, Spacelift’s sponsorship of OpenTofu, an open-source infrastructure project, showcases their support for the community.
Another example is ConsoleConnect, which found success by fostering a community around their open-source API mapping project, Kraken. They’ve nurtured a community around the project, and it has become a core part of their developer relations strategy.
Human Connection Drives DevRel Success
Developers value genuine, sincere communication and are often turned off by overly transactional or marketing-heavy tactics. Taking a human approach, understanding their struggles, and offering practical advice goes a lot further. Sharing relatable stories and real-world experiences is a great way to build that connection.
“Sincerity is the key. When you are telling a story about a problem and the person has a visceral reaction of ‘oh my God that was me last week how did you know,’ that’s really what matters.” –Leon Adato, Principal Technical Evangelist, Kentik
Developer Enablement Drives Adoption
Providing developers with the resources they need to be successful–things like enablement programs, workshops, and educational materials–is a key driver of product adoption. This demonstrates a commitment to developer success and helps them to effectively use your products and services. This is particularly valuable for enterprise companies, where developer readiness is essential for a smooth integration. Slack, for example, recognizes this and makes enablement a core component of their developer relations strategy.
“We’re really pushing a lot into enablement, things that are taking people from idea to value.” –Kurtis Kemple, Sr. Director of Developer Relations, Slack
Direct Feedback Is Invaluable
In-person events like AWS re:Invent provide a great opportunity to gather direct feedback from developers. These interactions allow companies to gain a deeper understanding of user needs, identify pain points, and validate product direction. This real-time feedback loop can significantly inform product development and improve the overall developer experience.
“We’re getting a lot of people coming up saying that I’ve been using Retool for years and here are the two or three things that I feel like you guys can improve. It’s great for us to be able to get that feedback in person.” –Keanan Koppenhaver, Technical Product Marketing Manager, Retool
Developers Find Practical Uses for AI
While the hype around AI remains strong, the focus is shifting towards practical applications and tangible use cases. Developers are interested in how AI can be integrated into existing workflows and tools to enhance productivity and solve real-world problems. The emphasis is on leveraging AI as a tool within existing products and services, rather than building entirely new AI-centric solutions.
Cost Optimization Is a Priority
Cost optimization continues to be a top priority for developers and businesses. Managing cloud infrastructure expenses, reducing egress fees, and finding efficient ways to utilize resources are key concerns. Solutions that address these cost challenges are highly sought after.
“Egress fees are often a real problem for a lot of companies…we’ve been able to help a lot of people lower their egress fees.” –Trent Blakely, AVP Product Marketing, ConsoleConnect
In-Person Events Matter
While the majority of our communication today is done online, in-person events offer unique benefits in the technical marketing space. Face-to-face interaction helps to get real-time feedback and build relationships, which are important for long-term product success. For example, Retool leverages re:Invent to gather direct user feedback, gaining insights that are difficult to capture online. Slack, while embracing online engagement, also recognizes the importance of in-person events for hands-on experiences and connection. The networking opportunities at these events help build genuine relationships with technical leaders in your space, and fostering trust within that community is essential for long-term success.
Final Thoughts
Overall, AWS re:Invent 2024 was a great opportunity to learn more about what’s happening in the cloud computing world and it was inspiring to see so many talented people building impressive solutions. One of the biggest takeaways for me was the importance of genuine human connection in technical marketing. Whether it’s getting feedback or building a community, those relationships and the trust you build are essential.
I also noticed how much the way technical professionals consume content is changing. From blog posts and webinars to podcasts and videos, they use different formats for different purposes. Understanding these preferences–whether it is for learning, troubleshooting, or entertainment–and adapting your content for that purpose is key.
If you’d like to dive deeper into the conversations we had at re:Invent, you can watch the full interview series here:
For more DevRel and developer marketing insights, check out a similar post with key takeaways from KubeCon North America 2024.
By Annika Puura
Annika is an Operations Manager here at Draft. With a background in international business, finance, and education, she is fluent in Estonian, English, and Spanish. When not at work, she enjoys running, dancing, and doing HIIT workouts.
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