What are the key differences when positioning a product for developers (who have a different buyers journey) vs normal saas products for business buyers?

While it's important to highlight the values of your product, it's crucial to make it clear what your product solves when positioning to developers. Instead of using mainstream marketing power words to evoke emotion, often used to grab attention from business buyers (which can come off as "fluffy" to developers), use words that detail how and what your product and its features do.

The main difference I've noticed is the information that the audience wants at each step of the buyers journey. More technical audiences, like developers, tend to want to get to the heart of the benefits and features faster than other audiences that are less technical (think marketers or HR execs) In short – they don't want the marketing spin, they just want the features and hard facts about the benefits they'll drive. You'll want to be able to deliver hard proof on each point with things like case studies, data points, etc. 

Hi,

I think you answered your own question here: With developers, you have a different buyer persona and a different buyer journey. (Although developers are "normal" too!!!!)

The positioning steps are still the same:

• Buyer research to understand their needs, perceptions of your product and competitors/ alternatives, and the journey they take to find solutions to their problems
• Competitive analysis to find the unique capabilities by which you differ from the competition and which your buyers value
• Developing positioning and messaging that speaks to buyer needs and your unique value
• Testing and validation of that messaging with internal stakeholders and external sources

Developers have a reputation of being more cynical buyers that are harder to reach with marketing messages. That's true. But I think all SaaS buyers have become more like developers. So take the time to understand them, their language, and their information sources/ influencers, and use the same marketing skills that you would apply to any other SaaS product.