Once your open source project is onboarded into the .NET Foundation, there is a set of marketing activities that the Marketing committee can help you with to raise awareness about your project.
If you are the lead maintainer of a .NET open source project and have not started the application process yet, please see: New Project Onboarding. Once your project is accepted and the onboarding process is in motion, you can start the GTM checklist & activities below.
Please let us know how we can help by contacting us in the Marketing team discussion or emailing marketing@dotnetfoundation.org.
Depending on how much support and awareness you want to drive with your community of contributors and users, there are some things to consider besides just the project repository health. Think about the assets you need/have for launch.
Do you need a name for your project?
- Is your project a new project that is coming into the world for the first time? If so, you'll want to engage the marketing committee early so we can help you with trademark and internet searches so you name isn't already used in the same technology space or someone already has a trademark registered.
Do you need a logo/image for your project?
- This is most likely true if you answer yes to above. Although we don't currently have a designer on staff, we can help you by soliciting artistic volunteers. There are also free/low cost sites that can help (and we can help pay for if you need):
- https://www.freelogodesign.org/
- https://logomakr.com/
- https://www.canva.com/tools/logo-maker-q1/
- https://www.brandcrowd.com/maker
Do you need a website or is your project readme enough?
- Do you have the need for more than just the repository for content like value props, documentation, how to get involved, social handles, forums, community links, etc.? The answer might be "not right now" or you may opt to just have a GitHub.io page generated from your repository. If the answer is yes, can you register the domain you need or already own it?
What social channels do you have or need?
- Much of the .NET audience is on Twitter so we recommend having at least a project Twitter handle if you plan on having project release announcements, blog posts, support, or anything users of your project may not see if they aren't active contributors to the repo. Let us know and we'll add your handles to the @dotnetfdn projects list.
What is your target launch / announce date?
- Depending on your answers above you'll need to select a date when everything you need is ready. Contact us and and we'll coordinate a date. Often times we announce multiple projects joining at the same time. We can help you determine what's best for your project based on how much visibility you need/want at the time of joining. We can always make splashes again when a release or a big moment happens.
Once a date is locked, there are a set of activities we execute together.
- Blog post announcement. If your project is not a secret (most joining the .NET Foundation already exist) simply file an issue in the content repository and select the new content issue template. This will help us vet the copy for the announcement that we will put on the .NET Foundation blog and newsletter.
- Newsletter. The newsletter is typically sent bi-monthly based on our news plate and is also part of the blog process. Once you submit the content for your announcement we can tee it up into the newsletter as well for you.
- Social amplification. Once the announcement and newsletter is sent, we automatically amplify on our Facebook and Twitter social channels for you.
- .NET Foundation website update. This happens as part of the project onboarding process where your project is listed in the /projects section of our website.
- Project Spotlight. The Project Spotlight is a great way to introduce your project to the community. It's an interview that we put on our website and host on our YouTube channel. If you are interested in doing this, please let us know by filing a Project Spotlight request.
- YouTube / Virtual Meetups. The outreach committee has a Virtual Events team that can help you deliver a virtual meetup on YouTube. More information is here.
- Social amplification. If you have amplification or retweet requests, you can submit an amplification request in the content repo.
- Newsletter. To add content for the Newsletter like new releases, please submit a PR to this markdown page.
Again, please let us know early how we can help by contacting us in the Marketing team discussion or emailing marketing@dotnetfoundation.org.