Kong Inc. Captures Customers with Content and Community

Kong Inc. makes a very compelling proposition in one of its main YouTube promos: APIs run everything. Kong Runs APIs. 

Lest you think this is some exaggeration, one of its recent whitepapers reports that 80% of all web traffic runs through API calls. Application product interfaces (APIs) are essentially a layer of code that helps one software application talk to another. Whether you’re a marketer, programmer, or customer service rep—really anyone working through technology—you likely contribute to the over 400 billion API calls that Kong handles every day. 

So, while there’s lots of discussion surrounding how much APIs connect people to everything on the web, it’s important to note that there’s an equally enormous amount of software-to-software communication facilitated through these digital products.  

The extent of our collective reliance on API calls—in both our personal and professional lives—opens up Kong’s total addressable market to a massive swath of B2C and B2B companies. According to recent projections, the software niche could reach a nearly $50-billion valuation by 2032. 

In its journey to create a “unified, yet modular, API platform,” Kong has built up quite an impressive resume:

• $169.1M in total funding across six funding rounds

• An investor roster including a16z, Index Ventures, and Jeff Bezos

• A recognized G2 Leader across multiple product categories

• 600+ clients, including names like Nasdaq, Verifone, PayPal, Peloton, Volvo, and Moderna

• A strong, active user base including more than 160k community members

Today, we’ll take a closer look at the ways Kong Inc. supports its journey to become the API management tool of record for enterprise companies, specifically through its use of support content and community-building initiatives targeting its end-user base of developers.  

How Kong Drives Enterprise Adoption with Supportive Resource Center Content

While “API management” sounds like a technical niche within the broad SaaS market, Kong Inc. actually offers an array of cloud-native products, including: 

• Kong Gateway—an API gateway 
• Kong Mesh—a service mesh to secure and simplify experiences across environments
• Kong Ingress Controller—a control plane for API management in Kubernetes
• Kong Insomnia—a collaborative API development platform
• Kong Konnect—an API lifecycle management platform for building applications 
• Kong Enterprise—a scalable self-managed platform for managing APIs at the enterprise level 

With tools applicable at different layers of the enterprise tech stack, Kong Inc. has created an extensive product network rife with opportunities for cross-selling and upselling users. Just take a look for yourself: 

The only problem is that you need to win and extend these users before you can cross-sell and upsell to them. This is also complicated by the fact that there’s some stiff competition in the API management space. Between alternative solutions from IBM, Google, Salesforce, Microsoft, SAP, and Amazon, the Kong team needs to take every step possible to keep end users, and the key enterprise stakeholders they represent, happy. 

Here’s a glimpse of the current API management market from Gartner’s Magic Quadrant Report from September 2023: 

So, industry experts believe Kong Inc. has the completeness of vision and execution capabilities to run with the tech giants. Now, the question is, what can the rest of the team do to uplift this product team?

While users may initially be wowed by a strong brand, compelling sales pitch, or hype from tastemakers, they won’t continue to use it if they don’t get what they need out of the tool. The amount of time it takes for your product to meet or exceed customer expectations—the time to value (TTV)—is one of the crucial metrics for SaaS brands.

Support content is a key tactic that companies can use to decrease that TTV and move from freshly qualified leads to full-blown product users as soon as possible. It also helps capture, extend, and eventually expand users to enterprise accounts. 

Looking at the resources Kong dedicates to its developer resource and community hubs, it’s clear that this strategy is helping keep the company in the race with the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. 

According to SimilarWeb, Kong brings in more than 50% of its web traffic through organic search, with the next largest contributor being direct search at around 34%: 

Now, let’s dive into Kong’s library of resources to see how it uses support assets like API documentation, learning center posts, and developer resources to drive adoption among its developer end-users.

API Documentation

In the bustling realm of B2B SaaS marketing, API documentation emerges as a strategic powerhouse. Beyond mere technical details, it’s a beacon of clarity for developers, offering well-defined endpoints, parameters, and real-world use cases. A robust API documentation enhances user experience with its structured, interactive, and searchable content. 

As SaaS products evolve, versioning in documentation ensures developers keep up with updates and also establishes a feedback loop that fosters continuous improvement. Security takes center stage, with clear guidelines on authentication and best practices. Integration guides for SDKs and libraries simplify the developer’s journey, and test environments, like sandboxes, offer safe experimentation grounds. 

As for the business impact? Faster integrations, reduced support overheads, and a surge in API adoption. In essence, API documentation isn’t just a manual; it’s a strategic asset, bridging SaaS brands with a thriving developer community and driving growth, trust, and innovation.

With over 900 documentation pages for its suite of products, Kong brings in 2,500 visitors with content to support product use. 

With documentation for each product offering and version, these pages give Kong users everything they need to quickly extract value from the tools, including: 

• Control over the version history
• An introduction to the product and relevant concepts
• Documentation for various contexts where the product is deployed
• Step-by-step instructions complete with easy-to-copy code
• A list of related documents for troubleshooting, annotations, and capability 

These document pages also contain numerous CTAs and useful information pointing developers and admins towards a free trial for the Kong Enterprise service. 

Learning Center

The Kong Learning Center subfolder may only have 47 pages, but it’s one of the most important sections of the website. It provides high-level educational content covering key technical topics relevant to Kong products—topics that also happen to be high-value technical keywords:

• API Gateway
• Microservices
• Service Mesh 
• Cloud Connectivity
• API Management
• Kubernetes

This mixed bag of educational content brings in nearly 3,500 visitors to the Kong site every month—organic traffic that saves the company roughly $100,000 in ad spend over the course of a year.

Kong also has a “Learning” section of its site menu that includes the written learning center content as well as some more dynamic educational media like webinars and livestreams. 

Developer Resources

Kong Inc. prioritizes its developer community, offering exclusive resources to ensure they have the tools and knowledge they need. One of the standout initiatives is the Kong Contributor Program. Designed to foster knowledge-sharing among Kong’s vast user community, this program not only recognizes the invaluable contributions of developers by posting user-generated content in blogs and on social media, but it also gives them an opportunity for merch.

By contributing open-source content across various platforms like blogs, YouTube, Meetup, and live events, Kong users earn points. These points can be redeemed for exclusive Kong merchandise, allowing developers to showcase their affiliation and achievements with the brand. 

The program’s benefits extend beyond tangible rewards. Contributors have the opportunity to build their personal brand within their industry, gain visibility across Kong’s channels, and connect with thousands of peers—all while contributing valuable user-generated content for Kong to repurpose. 

Academy 

Kong’s dedication to user empowerment doesn’t stop at developers. The Kong Academy is another testament to its extensive commitment to user education. Through the academy, users can undertake exams and earn certifications that both enhance product knowledge and serve as a badge of credibility. 

For professionals, this can be a significant boost, helping them establish authority within their organizations and the broader industry. The academy’s message is clear: Kong is excited to facilitate learning and growth for its users.

How Kong Establishes and Empowers an Active User Community

In traditional business models, the relationship between a company and its customers is often transactional. However, in the SaaS world, where products are continuously evolving and user feedback can lead to real-time improvements, a deeper, more collaborative relationship is not just beneficial—it’s essential.

Why DevRel Matters in SaaS

This is where developer relations (DevRel) comes into the picture. 

The rise of developer relations in the SaaS industry is not just a trend; it’s a reflection of the evolving needs of the modern tech ecosystem. As software becomes increasingly integral to every facet of business and daily life, the bridge between those who create it and those who use it becomes all the more crucial. 

A recent State of DevRel Report reveals the quick growth happening in the industry: a whopping 70% of surveyed companies have adopted this program in the past five years, with 17% just starting in the last year. Here are the top five DevRel objectives highlighted by respondents:

• Drive Product Awareness and Adoption – 85%
• Developer Support and Education—80%
• Improve product usage rates—62%
• Gather user feedback on products and services—58%
• Increase Brand Awareness in the Developer Community—53% 

Developer relations is an essential practice for technical SaaS brands, and more companies are catching on by the year. Kong is well ahead of the curve on this front, boasting a developer community that’s over 160,000 members strong. 

We know Kong has used developer-focused support content to drive product awareness, adoption, education, and support—now, let’s look at how the company gets these activated users plugged into the Kong community. 

Kong’s Comprehensive Approach to Community Creation

Building a robust community around a product offers numerous benefits. For starters, it provides social proof, a crucial factor in driving upselling and cross-selling. 

A strong community also becomes a valuable source of product and feature recommendations, leading to improvements that resonate with users. Furthermore, user-generated content, when coming from a high-trust community, is invaluable. It’s authentic, relatable, and often more impactful than traditional marketing content.

The best community strategy:

Add more value than expected.

Did someone ask a question on a topic in that Slack group or subreddit that you’re an expert in?

Go above and beyond with your reply. Include links. Share a loom. Be tactical. Give away a template.

Win.

— Ross Simmonds (@TheCoolestCool) October 4, 2022

Kong’s community-based marketing strategy is multi-faceted, leveraging various platforms to engage and nurture its community—including social platforms like YouTube, GitHub, and Meetup, as well as in-person and virtual events. 

YouTube

While YouTube often seems to have shed its status as a social media platform, it’s still an important tool for bringing product users into a brand’s community. It often acts as a doorway, where introductory, educational content helps bring users into the fold and expose them to prominent members of the Kong Community.

Kong’s YouTube channel has nearly 6.8 thousand subscribers and has generated over 1.5 million views across just 456 videos. Once developers have gained more confidence with Kong products, they can explore more expert-level videos or move further down the community pipeline to platforms like GitHub.

GitHub

Kong’s commitment to empowering developers and creating an open-source network is also evident in its GitHub presence. The social platform for developers has long been used as a way to justify SaaS investment, but business leaders can’t lose sight of the fact that this platform provides a number of benefits to product users and creators: 

• Branched workflows
• Distributed development 
• Broad community reach
• Track and address issues

Kong’s GitHub page boasts more than 86,000 stars, an impressive number that underscores the value and trust the developer community places in Kong’s products.

Meetup

At first glance, Meetup, a platform to “Find Local Groups, Events, and Activities Near You,” might seem an unlikely choice for a SaaS company, especially in an era where remote-hybrid operations dominate. 

Kong is benefitting greatly from this platform, with 62 groups worldwide—from San Francisco to Dubai—and more than 15,000 members. These meetups, ranging from presentations on new features to discussions about industry trends, foster a sense of community and belonging among users.

Interestingly, both Meetup and GitHub provide Kong with more than just a way to strengthen the Kong community. These two high-authority platforms also provide an SEO boost, currently contributing nearly 800 backlinks to the API-management website.  

Kong Community Champions

Kong’s community page is more than just a hub; it’s a journey. Users are funneled through progressive stages, from contributors to community organizers and finally to the esteemed Kong Champions. This structured approach not only recognizes and rewards active members but also identifies potential evangelists who can further promote the brand.

Livestreams and Events

Beyond the digital realm, Kong understands the value of face-to-face interactions. The team organizes various livestreams and events, offering users a more personal and engaging experience. These events serve as platforms for knowledge sharing, networking, and deepening the bond between Kong and its community.

Learn from Kong—Create a Supportive, Community-Driven Brand

Kong’s success in establishing and empowering an active user community is no accident. It’s the result of a well-thought-out strategy, leveraging multiple platforms and always keeping the needs and interests of the community at its core. As the SaaS industry continues to evolve, companies would do well to take a leaf out of Kong’s book, recognizing the immense value of a strong, engaged, and empowered user community.