And this is chapter seven: Tools and Tools as Marketing. I think when people see this at first, it's kind of confusing. Like what? What do you even mean by a tool? And maybe even you think your product is clearly the tool and that is where you'll be able to, get usage from developers, but using tools as marketing is different than having a great product, which developers want to use, which is of course also really important.

But, you really want to have something that is smaller or as more of an entry point to that maybe the next step is using your product. And what happens is these small tools are really functional for developers. And so you will find that they want to share them. They want to link to them. And so it's a great way to be able to get awareness and not only awareness from developers in general but from the right types of developers who might go on to use your product.

And in the book, I talk about how Runscope did this and John Sheehan, the founder of Runscope had three rules that go along with using these tools for marketing. They were, first of all:

1. Don't require a sign-up

That means it's also going to be much more likely to be used. If a developer can just use it without having to sign up and raise skepticism. So don't require a sign up.

2. Do one thing well
3. Make it free

That third one again is, how this is different from your product. Because while you might have a free trial or even a free version, both of which provide a great developer experience, eventually with your product, you want them to use it enough to be willing to pay for it or have their company pay for it.

And I add two rules onto this, in this chapter, in the book. And that is:

4. Give it its own home
5. (And this is important for the part where your product is actually used later): Keep it relevant to your product

So you can imagine having this developer tool, which attracts a bunch of developers and has them sharing it.

But if there's no next step to actually use your product, then it doesn't make that much sense for you to attract those developers.

So those five rules, which you can find in the book are:

1. Don't require a sign-up
2. Do one thing well
3. Make it free
4. Give it its own home
5. Keep it relevant to your product

And you can find more what I call the Runscope playbook and how John Sheehan and team used that in the book and that is chapter seven Tools as Marketing of Developer Marketing Does Not Exist.