Challenge

Lenses is a productivity tool that helps software engineers operate data on a chasm-crossing open-source technology called Apache Kafka. Once they have Kafka up and running and realize it is a pain to use, people who try out Lenses get hooked.

No Apache Kafka? No Lenses.

Insights

Like any new technology on the cusp of mass adoption, deciding how to host Kafka, what to consider when moving to the cloud, and then later which managed service to go for, was a tough process and a greenfield for content.

It just so happens that Lenses plays well with any permutation of the technology and partners with all Kafka service providers. It’s their competitive differentiator.

Solution

So we created an interactive guide to help Kafka project leads to pick the right managed service.

We worked with the Lenses Demand Gen and Partner Marketing teams, approaching the project with a few things in mind:

• Technical teams care about real stuff. They tend to prioritize meaning and straight talk over your typical “thought leadership” content. They tend to prize usefulness and function over artistic ingenuity.
• No one likes unnecessary form fills. Especially engineers. Although this was a high-value resource by an unbiased source, we didn’t gate it.
• One cohesive story, several stepping stones. We supplemented the comparison guide with a handy blog about cloud migration considerations, as well as a series of cloud solution pages, an email series, and an adset for retargeting.