How Should You Be Talking to Them?

People are people. Devs are people too. And your target market is made up of real humans.

So how are you planning to talk to them? What's your approach? What lingo will you use?

Will you go formal? Get highly technical? Take a fun or funny approach? Keep it simple and down-to-earth? Go buzzword-heavy? Or something else entirely?

It depends on your audience, of course. But you need to sit with this for more than a minute: figure out what motivates them, then adapt your message type accordingly.

And even once you have the right message, one that clearly points to the pain and the end gain, you still need to think about the approach they'd actually be open to.

Formal might give them the professional feel they respond to. Simple and direct might be exactly what resonates. Or their work lives are so technical, dry, and rigid that a few funny lines and a little humor sprinkled on their pain would grab their full attention and be the only way to go.

Similar to walking in their shoes, you need to figure out which approach will grab their eyeballs, their attention, and get them to take action.

Heck, they may not be wearing any shoes at all, which could itself be a signal.

Worst case: experiment with a few approaches, read the signals, and adapt accordingly.