Best API Marketing Strategies
More companies are opening up their web solutions to third-party developers through the use of APIs. This is the reason why developing web solutions is quite easy today compared to years back. However, creating an API might be an easy thing for a good developer, but how does such a developer convince other developers to use his or her API and integrate it into their applications?
Image Source: pexels
Does marketing go hand in hand with integrations? Well, integrations play a major role in helping a business to grow. For instance, let us assume that you are developing a cloud solution that competes with Google Drive. I am sure you have used an application that has a built-in Google Drive support to create backups or access your files. There are millions of other users like you who have. This means that every time someone is using that particular application and wants to access their files or create a backup, your competing service will be presented as one of the other alternatives. If you are able to get integrations in 100 applications each with 50,000 users, you will have the potential of reaching five million users. Therefore, API integrations are a perfect marketing channel for developers.
However, how does a developer open up their API? This is an easy task especially because of applications such as APITransform that allow one to convert their Postman collection to OpenAPI. All you need to do is simply upload your Postman collection and then sit back and let them do everything else for you.
API Marketing Basics
Here are some important basics that every API developer should pay attention to if they want to reach as many people as possible and encourage integrations.
1. Documentation
Good documentation that includes potential error messages and all features of the API offers developers a way to quickly understand your API. One key mistake that organizations make is letting the API developers write the documentation for the API. This is not right because developers hate writing and create a lot of assumptions in that they think people know what they themselves know. This leads to poor documentation that might not help other developers. It is advisable for one to look at documents from other companies such as Google that have done it right. Also, remember to update the documentation when there are changes to your API to keep it up to date.
2. Developer Support
You might come up with perfect documentation. However, some developers will still have questions when they face problems. This calls for the implementation of a proper and responsive support system. You can come up with a forum for developers or even a chat system where you can answer all their questions.
3. Code Samples
Did you know that most developers prefer starting their work with a running example even when they are provided with good documentation? This tells you that it is important to give them code snippets and full project samples for their use and testing. This is because most developers use these snippets to start their work then modify them to match their requirements.
4. API Standards
It is important to make sure that you follow accepted standards when developing your API. For instance, a good developer will work with OAuth2 without any issues. However, if you modify this, they will go through a lot before they can understand your API.
Finally, since SDKs are platform-specific, make sure that you have covered all the major programming languages. This will speed up the time developers take when using your API since they will not have to code HTTP calls manually. Following all these points will make it easy for developers to consume your API, increasing your sales potential.
