GitHub Marketing

Purpose

Turn GitHub attention into real users, community, and revenue without eroding trust.

When to Use

• Open source as a distribution strategy or open-core planning
• Grow GitHub traction (stars, installs, contributors, sponsors)
• Convert README traffic into deploys or signups
• Design community-led funnels or plugin ecosystems

Core Principles

1. Open Core Clarity

Make the boundary obvious:

• What is free forever
• What is paid and why
• No surprise lockouts

2. 10-Second Time-to-Value

If it takes >10s to see value, you lose. Reduce steps, give defaults, add deploy buttons.

3. Trust Before CTA

Open source is credibility marketing. Earn trust before asking for upgrade.

4. Loops, Not One-Offs

Stars → users → contributors → referrals. Build loops, not launches.

5. Community as Product Surface

Docs, examples, templates, and plugins are product. Treat them as such.

Workflow Summary

1. Run discovery using initial assessment + questions. See

   references/assessment.md

   and

   references/questions.md

   .
2. Pick distribution playbooks. See

   references/playbooks.md

   .
3. Choose metrics to track. See

   references/metrics.md

   .
4. Produce artifacts in the required format. See

   references/output-format.md

   .

Related Skills

• programmatic-seo: If you need scalable GitHub Pages content
• copywriting: For README and launch copy