3 minutes reading time (678 words)

Joomla Project and Product Marketing. One Can Not Exist Without the Other!

Joomla Project and Product Marketing. One Can Not Exist Without the Other!

Finding my way around the maze of - Product vs Project, Market vs Community, Marketing vs human resources (HR) in the awesome Community Driven Software that is Joomla! Come explore the world of Joomla Marketing with me!

Working with a true community driven software like Joomla, you will usually realize that a strong undercurrent of 'community' is in everything that goes on. It's amazing how the community and the people's perspective creeps into every single thing that happens in Joomla! This is absolutely great and is the glue that binds the Joomla community.

But sometimes this can result in a loss of focus. A lot of times, our discussions in the Marketing group very easily veer off topic and get into community management discussions. I think the main reason for this is that somewhere deep down we think the 'Market' for Joomla is the community, and that the community and the market are one and the same.

The fact is that the community is just a small slice of the actual market.

What's the community ? What's the Market ?

We need to understand what our community is, what our market is and how they are related especially from a marketing perspective. Here’s my take on that:

  1. The community or the project powers and enriches the Product and takes care of the Supply. The community is enriched and enhanced by Project Marketing which is part of HR (Human Resource Management) in conventional corporations.
  2. The Market to consume and create demand. This is driven by Product Marketing.

In a typical corporation HR or Human resource management and Marketing are handled as separate functions with minimal overlap. This ensures that both areas will ensure our survival.

Joomla Marketing however will need to take on both these roles with the CLT & PLT’s guidance. The community and the market are interdependent, however their natures are quite different. Therefore, the strategies needed to nurture each of these need to be different.

The Circle of Growth & Success

The nature of Open Source ensures that some of the 'Market' will feed back enhancements to the ‘Product’ and join the community. A richer community will fuel a better Product generating demand. A larger demand and market will fuel a bigger supply and a bigger community.

All these components of this “circle of growth” are essential to the overall growth of Joomla!

To conclude, Joomla needs both the Project and the Product, and therefore both Project Marketing (to grow the supporting community) and Product Marketing (to grow the installed user base or the Market) are needed for effective growth of Joomla.

What is Project Marketing?

Project Marketing will focus on ‘internal marketing’ which will work to enrich and enlarge the Joomla community. It will encourage volunteers to come on board and contribute in various ways. The upcoming Volunteer Portal will also be a great driver in helping organise the project marketing effort.

What is Product Marketing?

Product marketing can work on the conventional marketing areas in order to expand our markets. Marketing identifies and nurtures the market. Marking the product helps increase the adoption. We’ll explore how I think we should go about it in the next article in this series.

Do you agree with this vision ? I am looking for the community's feedback and inputs on this! Please comment on this article or if you prefer to get in touch directly, email me on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Thanks to everyone in the Marketing Working Group, everyone who attended the Joomla Marketing presentation at the JoomlaDay Netherlands, as well as the Make it Happen session at J And Beyond 2014 for helping shape these thoughts into clearer strategy.

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