Introducing a new form of Drupal sprints: Drupal Marketing Sprints

At DrupalCon Vienna One Shoe will host the very first Drupal Marketing Sprint on Thursday, 28 September 2017. The goal is for Drupal businesses and agencies to work together to create marketing materials that promote Drupal as a whole. Come prepared with examples of Drupal marketing material that has caught your attention so you can start the sprint with something to work with. Read more in the following blog from Michel van Velde, One Shoe CEO.

Community code sprints are a vital part of the open source ecosystem. Developers come together to develop new features, solve issues or write translations. But there are more ways to contribute to the success of Drupal. Michel van Velde introduces the first ‘Drupal Marketing Sprint’ at DrupalCon Vienna on Thursday, 28 September 2017.

As Drupal is open source, it has no dedicated marketing team, like closed source solutions as Adobe and Sitecore. In order to promote Drupal, agencies rely on their own public relations and marketing efforts and the work of the Drupal Association. In order to increase the outreach and PR Marketing Value of Drupal, Michel van Velde, CEO of One Shoe came up with a new form of Sprints: Drupal Marketing Sprints. This Sprint takes place for the very first time at DrupalCon Vienna.

Good marketing is critical for Drupal

Michel van Velde: “Drupal has seen little news coverage in the Netherlands and Germany. I guess this is the case everywhere around the globe. I came up with the idea of Drupal Marketing Sprints when I attended DrupalCamp Frankfurt last year. As with other DrupalCamps, DrupalCons and other Drupal related events, it was mostly visited by developers. Developers love to code and often join code sprints during these events. The delivered code is beneficial to Drupal itself but it has no news value for the media. I strongly believe that good marketing is critical to Drupal businesses and organizations all over the world. Unknown equals unwanted, after all.”

The Drupal Marketing Sprint

During Drupal Marketing Sprints people from different Drupal business and agencies work together for a set amount of time to discuss and create Drupal related content. The goal is to produce whitepapers, blogs, infographics or other marketing materials that can promote Drupal as a whole, and that can be used by the whole community. Anyone who likes to discuss, brainstorm, write or design can attend a Drupal Marketing Sprint. Also, developers who like to share their expertise on subjects.

Creating valuable Drupal content

“By organizing a Drupal Marketing Sprint, we sit down with people from different Drupal agencies and businesses to discuss and create valuable Drupal content. We then start writing materials such as press releases and white papers. Challenge of the Drupal Marketing Sprint is to deliver an X amount of content pieces (depending on the time given for the Sprint). Examples could be: ‘X reasons why Drupal is beneficial for…” “Everything you want to know about this new Drupal update”, “What should I do with my Drupal 6 website” and so on. “More publicity for Drupal attracts new clients, new projects and new developers to the community (and thus more contribution to Drupal). It brings pride to those who are working with Drupal.”

First international Drupal Marketing Sprint takes place at DrupalCon Vienna

DrupalCon Vienna will be the first event where a Marketing Sprint will take place, but Michel van Velde encourages other people to start organizing more Drupal Marketing Sprints. “I want to make an appeal to national Drupal communities and local agencies to start working together and organize a local Drupal Marketing Sprints themselves. A large number of organizations and developers out there have no understanding of what Drupal has to offer them. Let’s combine our cooperative effort with creating Drupal content. I have a step-by-step guide available for those who want to organize Drupal Marketing Sprints themselves.

Join the DrupalCon Vienna Marketing Sprint on Thursday, 28 September 2017! You can send an email to Michel@oneshoe.com.

About the Author: Michel van Velde – CEO One Shoe

Michel van Velde has been working in the digital landscape for more than 15 years. He's the founder of advertising and digital agency One Shoe, one of the leading Drupal agencies in The Netherlands and Germany. His clients include organizations such as DHL, Sanofi Genzyme, LeasePlan International, the Dutch Government and many others. Michel van Velde is a renowned speaker at digital conferences around the world and is the initiator of many international Drupal community initiatives, like Drupal CEO network, CXO days, Dutch Drupal Business Foundation, German Drupal Business Foundation, Drupal CEO dinner etc.