In April 2018 at DrupalCon Nashville, Dries and then-Executive Director of the Drupal Association Megan Sanicki announced the launch of an initiative to help promote Drupal in the marketplace. This initiative was designed for agencies worldwide, offering marketing and sales support that unifies the Drupal brand and provides standardized materials that can be customized to each user's needs.
The fundraising goal for this initiative was $100,000, and we committed to starting work once we hit the $75,000 mark. In summer 2018 we reached $76,000 in funding and outlined the first phases of work we would complete with these funds. That funding was utilized and those first phases completed in Spring of 2019. We’ll talk about what was accomplished here, and what comes next for the Promote Drupal program.
Purpose (as stated in previous posts)
One of the Drupal Association goals is to grow adoption of Drupal. The audience for Drupal is broad and varied, as are the decision-makers choosing to adopt Drupal, as well as the people and agencies selling Drupal services.
Our enterprise market competition has deep pockets for product marketing and heavy sales support. Even our mid-market open source competition’s marketing is heavily backed by corporate funding.
So how can the Drupal Association help grow adoption of the product, across such a diverse market, with our limited budget? It won’t be easy, and it won’t be perfect for everyone, but an ideal outcome will create a source for standardized Drupal materials and stories that the worldwide community can use in their own regions to promote Drupal to new audiences and grow adoption.
To that end, this initiative is focused on creating materials targeted to the decision-makers who choose to adopt Drupal for business; specifically, for marketing decision-makers—the audience most underserved in current materials.
What we've accomplished
The Promote Drupal Initiative was designed in four phases:
- Phase 1: Update Drupal's brand and strategic messaging to connect with new decision-makers and influencers
- Phase 2: Provide sales and marketing materials that everyone can use (and translate!)
- Phase 3: Coordinate PR campaigns
- Phase 4: Create "marketing campaigns in a box" to support localized ad and industry event marketing
This fundraising campaign supported Phase 1 & 2.
In the past 10 months, we've moved forward on the following deliverables:
Phase I
Create Drupal brand book | Complete | Found here |
| Building an open source marketing infrastructure for collaborative projects - and governance to guide its use. | Complete | You can join here |
| Create a "Why Drupal?" Video for widespread use | Complete | Video here |
Distributing press releases as they come up - sharing finished releases with international regional associations for translating and sharing in their own communities | Complete | Found here |
| Create Drupal Pitch Deck: More about it—and how you can use it | Complete | Found here |
Redesigning the submission process and template for case studies and how they are selected as Drupal business case studies—and using these for general Drupal brand collateral | Near completion | This is in final development and will be launched in August. |
Phase II
| Set a roadmap for the most-needed marketing and sales materials in the community | Complete | Work found here |
Begin implementing that roadmap through the online community interface | Complete | Work found here |
| Redesign home page of drupal.org to be persona-focused | Complete | https://www.drupal.org/home |
Continue pushing press releases and media recognition | Complete | Found here |
| Have "Why Drupal" Video available in different languages | German translation complete | Here |
| Complete a Competitive Comparison Chart | In Progress | Work found here |
| Drupal in the Enterprise: Integration with other Digital tools/solutions | In Progress | Work found here |
| Infographic(s): Number of sites using Drupal, other stats about Drupal usage | In Progress | Work found here |
| Drupal and Future Technologies: Drupal integration with AI, data science, etc. | Not yet launched | Idea found here |
| Video interviews of companies using Drupal | Not yet launched | Idea found here |
This work is important
We see this initiative as an important way to support agencies in building new business, and creating a unified brand for Drupal worldwide. By understanding Drupal and its capabilities - particularly as the shift to Drupal 9 will be happening in 2020 - we aim to educate the curious regarding the vast ecosystem of Drupal's digital marketing technology and other business applications.
Funding & moving forward
The idea of the initiative was to be a combination of self-sustaining community contribution - much like the code developed for Drupal - and partially an ongoing program supported by the Drupal Association, assuming funding to pay staff to support the work.
Now that the initial funding is done, the Association plans to continue hosting Promote Drupal meetings, and to help guide the process for those participating until a plan is in place for future funding of this work.
Promote Drupal needs your support
In order for the work to continue we are asking for community support.
If you own an agency, please consider allocating some of your marketing team's time toward the Promote Drupal Initiative to move it forward. You do not need to reach out to Drupal Association staff directly for this to happen - you can simply have your team members join the meetings and participate in the work. We invite you to view projects in progress and see where you can lend your expertise and time.
One element of work that would be particularly useful is to have the "Try Drupal" video translated into languages beyond English and German. Likewise, the additional materials listed above would have further reach worldwide if translated.
Another opportunity is to add your materials to the Promote Drupal Pitch Deck (a.k.a. "Drupal in the Wild"); see the process here.
Thank you!
On behalf of the Drupal Association, we extend a big thanks to the original sponsors of the Promote Drupal Project—more than 50 agencies, as seen here. We also have a shout out to individual contributors; thanks to all 54 Team Members.
It is our hope that the community engages in this initiative in a way that helps sustain its momentum and continue producing meaningful content for the Drupal community.