Can you be THE place?

About an hour outside Portland is a small town that is—to my great surprise—a symbol of how you can reach more developers.

Clatskanie (CLAT-scan-eye) was founded in 1891 and barely has 2,000 residents. The downtown is cute and only a few blocks long.

But that’s where I noticed an interesting pattern…

The sign outside the restaurant simply said “RESTAURANT.” The bar said “TAVERN” and the convenience store said “MARKET.”

In addition to a large label of a sign, most also had an actual name, though some just included the town in front of it, like “Clatskanie Market.”

My favorite was this salon with a simple name:

Where do you get your hair cut? The hair place.

What’s it called?

The Hair Place!

That might fly ironically in Portland. In Clatskanie? It may be literally THE hair place.

And that’s where we can find a lesson for your work with developers…

It’s easy to stand out in a small town. How can you become THE place for a small population of developers?

Essentially, we’re talking about what marketers call positioning. If you know what makes you unique, you also have a good idea of who has the problem you solve. This narrative often gets lost in content… which is where our Technical Content Checklists can help.

Make sure you focus on each piece of content so you keep the right developer in mind.

When you buy the checklists, you also get almost 40 minutes of training from me where I show exactly how I use the checklists on real technical content.