Proposal “DCG-Marketing-Dec-Feb“ (Completed)Back

Title:DCG Marketing Dec 2021 - Feb 2022
Owner:glennaustin
Monthly amount: 321 DASH (12556 USD)
Completed payments: 3 totaling in 963 DASH (0 month remaining)
Payment start/end: 2021-11-11 / 2022-02-09 (added on 2021-11-07)
Votes: 856 Yes / 217 No / 1 Abstain

Proposal description

Dash Core Group November 26th Funding Proposals
DCG is submitting 3 funding proposals for the budget cycle that pays out November 26th:
1) DCG Compensation: 2,324 Dash per month (currently in month 1/3)
2) DCG Business Development: 321 Dash (currently in month 1/3)
3) DCG Marketing: 321 Dash (currently in month 1/3)

This proposal requests funding for DCG marketing and communications expenses.

With the upcoming marketing efforts aligned with Platform release to mainnet launch, ongoing website design and backend work, consumer product launches and corresponding media campaigns, convention attendance, new marketing campaign tests, and a plan to reintroduce professional public relations support for Dash and DCG, we have come a long way towards establishing the infrastructure necessary to push outbound marketing and public relations campaigns. Since reestablishing marketing staff in the spring, it has taken substantial effort to get us to a point where we can now measure the impact of marketing efforts, so that DCG can manage marketing expenditures efficiently.

Funds spent until this point have been focused on hiring the right team of contractors, tools, and service providers necessary to operate campaigns efficiently. DCG has recently signed agreements with several best-in-class marketing platforms and tools and integrated them into our own marketing assets. We have also returned to representing Dash through our attendance at industry conferences and events, most recently through our attendance at Money20/20 in Las Vegas (a separate report will be coming shortly on the outcomes from that event). We are also in the midst of launching our first outdoor marketing campaign in years, with a goal of targeting the Miami market with both DashDirect and Dash messaging. The Miami campaign will launch on November 12, 2022, and we will have the ability to measure impressions and actions resulting from the campaign, where we will test several potential messages for future campaigns.

It is essential that we continue to allocate significant funding toward both new and ongoing marketing activities. While we make a point to primarily utilize free marketing options, other marketing tactics require full funding in order to test and learn if we are to identify successful approaches to onboarding new users and investors to our community. All contracts are responsibly negotiated to ensure we have signed at the best price possible. We will need to perform many tests and collect many learnings to identify our most effective combination of marketing channels, target profiles, and messaging. Right now, we plan to focus on targeting people already familiar with crypto with the budget provided by this round of funding. It is easier to introduce the Dash payments case to individuals with some existing familiarity with digital assets than the much more difficult task of pulling in completely new customers. 

Use Of Funds From Previous Proposal
Approximately $100,000 of the already collected funds are allocated and spent since the first marketing proposal earlier this year. Some platforms and efforts to date include the following (please note this is not an exhaustive list):

  1. Hubspot CRM & Marketing Automation tool - This allows us to send out community or business-focused newsletters, follow up with new B2B contacts and pursue customized marketing efforts. This tool also allows the marketing team to nurture leads to keep Dash top of mind and is designed to work in conjunction with business development outreach for a two-pronged approach to sales funnel process wins. We also have a HubSpot team to help with the heavy lifting and to set up new functionality like drip campaigns and chatbots. They also design our templates and code them. Because some of the marketing is partner-based the community should not expect to see all HubSpot marketing efforts, but know we are using the tool to its fullest capacity.
  2. The website and Firebase tagging is complete (for now) and with the addition of a few more data platforms, the potential Dash user journey is much more clear. With these learnings, the website will be updated accordingly to move people along to the information they are looking for with a goal of one click for the majority of users. We will be removing all roadblocks that may keep people from easily acquiring Dash and our wallet.
  3. We have partnered with a media monitoring vendor, Meltwater. Meltwater is the first step to alert us to marketing trends and Dash mentions in social media and traditional media. We keep track of these flagged items to build a media outreach database which will be utilized when we have a PR plan in place (to come this quarter in advance of Platform).
  4. Conference booths are generally expensive and we are often at the mercy of the event organizers to pay the asking price. While pricey, having a strong presence at industry events often leads directly to incremental integrations and/or distribution channels for the Dash currency. Dash is well on the way to re-introducing ourselves to the world and Money20/20 was the perfect venue for us to represent Dash as a payments use case solution. Being part of the consideration for payment companies expanding their services to include crypto is critical, and we will proactively work to ensure we remain top-of-mind with conference attendees in the crypto and payments industries.
  5. A webdev/graphic designer who has contributed greatly to new pages on the site, logo additions, animation for the Miami car toppers and is a very important part of the marketing team. She has been able to free up time from the infrastructure team to have them work on higher involvement projects and keeps our marketing looking fresh. For an example of her work, please visit dash.org/dashdirect. 
  6. Evergreen content. Now that we have a revamped blog and news section on our website, we plan to use it to our advantage. We have a pipeline of three months worth of blogs, downloadable assets and articles which will all be hosted on the site to help with SEO efforts. More of this will continue into the next year.
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Use Of Funds From This Proposal

Proposed use of funds from this proposal:
  1. Combined market test with Doral/Weston/Miami (largest Venezuelan and LatAm concentration in the US) and concurrently in Caracas and Valencia in Venezuela - Plans for these geographies will be comprised of guerilla and grassroots marketing efforts, media, public relations and other Dash-related marketing efforts. The goal is to further penetrate ex-pat LatAm communities and introduce Dash to those already familiar with crypto, but maybe not familiar with Dash. These campaigns will be set up in a manner that will enable us to measure the resulting traffic. Miami is a perfect target for us because it is a crypto-friendly part of the country, we can market Dash for remittances and demonstrate to residents that they can also use Dash to shop. It is helpful on multiple levels and we will position ourselves as a problem solver. Our strategy is to lead with DashDirect and then introduce consumers to Dash benefits beyond shopping. From the results of this primary test, we will have benchmarks and learnings to help inform upcoming marketing tactics.
  2. Brand work - Brand work is expensive, but the cost to establish a brand far outweighs the opportunity cost of not standing out within the industry. We are in a situation where marketing was on the backburner due to necessity and, as a result, we are now playing catch-up to introduce Dash and its key differentiators to new audiences. It is not a secret that we need to attract new enthusiasts to the project. This can only be done once people know what Dash stands for and they need to be able to identify us through a consistent voice and tone. While many may believe we already have a brand, they are partially correct. We have brand guidelines for a visual identity, but we do not have an actual brand. We need a phrase and concept that we will then focus marketing efforts and conversations around. We plan to hire outside of DCG to work on the Dash and DCG brands so as to bring fresh eyes to the project. This will require research, consumer testing, and measurement, which will have an associated cost. The community will be an active participant in this process via town hall meetings and votes that will be happening in November and December. This is not DCG’s decision to make alone, it is just to facilitate the process and lend experience to this effort.
  3. We will need to invest in building consistency - across all touchpoints as Dash grows up and moves toward a leadership role in the industry. Dash brand awareness will be the focus for the next quarter or two (calendar time, not fiscal). We also will involve ourselves in initiatives that establish DCG as thought leaders in the crypto space. This will also allow us to reach new audiences and users. We need high-quality professionally-produced assets such as brand videos, instructional videos, AMA’s, tv spots, display ads, etc.
  4. Valkyrie - presents us with the best opportunity to enter the New York market and introduce ourselves to a new segment of users. The Valkyrie Dash Trust offers many benefits and opportunities that are similar to masternodes, but with a much lower buy-in, lower technical barrier, and more formal reporting opportunities. Entering this market will require partnering with Valkyrie on media campaigns, materials and an online presence we have not had before. We are very excited for the opportunities the Valkyrie partnership will bring to us.

We have outdoor marketing plans that were presented on the quarterly call. The GANTT chart of marketing plans presented on the Q3 call slide is pasted below for reference.

  1. Sponsorships - a lot of research has already been done to find partners that represent our brand values (freedom) and help us reach new, crypto-friendly audiences. A few proposed partnerships are ready to move to a more formal stage, but will require a budget to be spent to operate here.
  2. Events for Platform - separate from conferences, we will need to be top of mind for developers as Platform comes to life. We would like to sponsor in-person events such as hackathons to have an excited base in place before Platform moves to mainnet. We will not have a second opportunity to market the Platform launch (name TBD) and this needs to be done thoroughly, carefully and strategically. It would be unfortunate to be limited by funds to do marketing needed to capture mindshare of developers when Platform launches.
  3. PR firm - we must begin working with a professional full-function PR firm as soon as possible to begin to develop a strategy for Platform and laying the groundwork to build relationships with the right influencers and media personalities and outlets. PR doesn’t just mean an article in the Wall Street Journal. PR can be media training, press release development and pitching, help with message positioning and much, much more. We now see what it looks like to have a PR vacuum and we do not do ourselves any favors by allowing this lack of support to continue.
If you have any questions, please direct them to Arden Goldstein in this post to ensure we are notified of your request.  Ernesto Contreras might post replies on her behalf as she resolves her comment access to DashCentral.

Requested funding is as follows for the December through February budget cycles:
·   319.33 Dash for Marketing per month ($60,500 USD @ $190 per Dash)
·       1.66 Dash / per month proposal reimbursement 
Total: 321 Dash per month

Please note, if any resources remain past the budget cycle request, they will be applied to upcoming marketing efforts.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/2-Jld6HWqjmAlplZq0p6k7-iWSgLh7l4yq5noHYHgW5vXxIAZeBMe8K2qCEw00Ib9HfrarJM4qDAF7GnRMc2yELxoBo2JS1so4w16Nlbr_HPmuZZ5abO20aCZ7Vzdb2bLi5Me4uo

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Discussion: Should we fund this proposal?

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0 points,2 years ago
Has @rango whitelisted an account for Arden yet?
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0 points,2 years ago
<crickets>
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5 points,2 years ago
"PR firm - we must begin working with a professional full-function PR firm as soon as possible to begin to develop a strategy for Platform and laying the groundwork to build relationships with the right influencers and media personalities and outlets. PR doesn’t just mean an article in the Wall Street Journal. PR can be media training, press release development and pitching, help with message positioning and much, much more. We now see what it looks like to have a PR vacuum and we do not do ourselves any favors by allowing this lack of support to continue."

Everything you mentioned here already has been done in the past with Dash Press and can continue to be performed at the highest level but this resource is not being utilized by DCG, clearly. Bringing back Wachsman or similar expensive & bureaucratic PR firms will not make things better, if we remember our history. I'm afraid we haven't learned anything :-(
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1 point,2 years ago
Agnew brings up a good point here. That we should hold PR firms directly accountable as well for their performance like we had in the past, instead of just adding it as a bullet point in this proposal and having the umbrella protection of the DCG name.

Without direct accountability, this is easy money for anyone that's appointed to do external PR work.

This was posted in the Dash Discord:

"For those who were not around then. Please see results and performance of previous external PR Firms:

Shift PR - https://dashwatch.org/proposals?search=shift

Only report available - https://reports.dashwatch.org/JUL19/dash-pr-proposal-1-of-2---shift-communications.pdf

Wachsman PR Results - Only results published on Dash Forum:

https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/wachsman-pr-february-2018-project-update.31532/
https://dashpay.atlassian.net/wiki/download/attachments/43778137/Attachment%202%20-%20Dash%20February%202018%20Coverage%20Report.pdf?api=v2
https://dashpay.atlassian.net/wiki/download/attachments/43778137/Dash%20March%202018%20Coverage%20Report.pdf?api=v2

Summary -
Most of Shift's results included Dash News articles. Not earned media.
Wachsman results were lackluster at best and their reports included any article that mentions 'Dash' which included a lot of negative articles. Not earned media.

This ultimately led to both previous PR firms being defunded by the network."

The rebuttal is that this time it's different because there's another external PR firm we could and that the current DCG Marketing has experience in this field.

Even if that bears fruit, we should still post external PR funding in a separate proposal given the history. We can't go backwards on this as a network.
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1 point,2 years ago
Now that I am doing some further reading of the Marketing PO, I see hiring PR is not an actionable item yet, I apologize for getting triggered.
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0 points,2 years ago
OK, ya, they updated the description on this proposal, just seeing PR Firm now. Why are we turning away in house help from Mark Mason and looking to hire externally again?
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2 points,2 years ago
I would be the only one who could update the description of the proposal. I did not do so - therefore the proposal language is exactly the same as originally posted.
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1 point,2 years ago
Glenn, I apologize for my comment in the DC chat after reading Agnew's comment. I overreacted on that part and unintentionally questioned your personal integrity by making that comment (or without thinking of what I was directly implying with your being the PO). And thank you for being classy about the whole situation as I have said to you in private.
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1 point,2 years ago
Hilawe, thank you for your comment - much appreciated! Apology accepted.
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1 point,2 years ago
Thanks Glenn and the Waybackmachine does support this too as archived versions of this page read the same. #MandelaEffect.
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-1 point,2 years ago
I do not think I would have missed something like this, I will give you the benefit of the doubt, can you reply to the actual question, is this proposal seeking to hire an outside PR Firm under this Omnibus Marketing budget PO and what are the expected costs? Why was hiring a PR Firm not given its own proposal as in the past?
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0 points,2 years ago
Can I get a ballpark budget for the Valkyrie partnership? I think that is an important partnership and want to make sure we aren't giving it short shrift, I am still keeping an eye on the Dash Trust filings, helping Valkyrie get accredited investors is important if we want to see a ticker soon for the trust.
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1 point,2 years ago
Thank you for another great question. We look forward to working toward our own ticker which is very possible and within reach once there is $5M AUM within the fund. A specific budget has not yet been assigned as there is a good deal of no-cost marketing that will be happening in the next couple of months.

As Valkyrie represents our only access to the NY market at this time, we want to spend in a targeted and effective manner. It represents an enormous opportunity for us in a virtually untapped market. Once we have data back from efforts such as enhancing our website to feature the Trust, social post interactions, mutual blog postings, AMA's with the Valkyrie team, fact sheet distribution to home offices, and other planned activities, we will move forward with media buys in specific affluent and financially-educated communities within the NY area. We are grateful to Valkyrie that they have offered us the use of their proprietary customer lists to market to which will allow us to defray costs in some paid activities.

Outdoor media buys, provided they still make sense at the time, will be expensive because of the demographics we want to reach and the level of repetition needed to make an impression. I am looking for a six figure spend when we get there. My philosophy is to always use free or low cost methods first to test and then to expand to paid channels once we have some data. Decisions about whether and to what extent we invest in media buys will be dependent on the effectiveness of the tests and the data we receive from them.

I hope this helps!

(posted on behalf of Arden... she has requested post access from Rango, but hasn't yet received access to post)
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0 points,2 years ago
Thanks, what I wanted to hear, I nitpick a bit, but this is a substantial part of the Treasury budget, I want to see some more granularity.
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3 points,2 years ago
Wow, this is encouraging to see. One of the few proposals I have read in full. Starting to make the long long wait feel worthwhile. Turn these plans into reality, good luck!
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2 points,2 years ago
Please see my suggestion to rename Dash Platform to Dash Re:vo

https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/ladies-and-gentlemen-i-present-to-you-the-new-name-for-dash-platform.52301/

I would of tagged Arden but she's quite elusive for a marketing person.
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0 points,2 years ago
Thanks, the message has been shared and read by Arden!

(Written on behalf of Arden)
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1 point,2 years ago
321 Lift off! Let's get this proposal funded !
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1 point,2 years ago
Thanks!

(Written on behalf of Arden)
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0 points,2 years ago
Brand work is indeed expensive, can you give a specific breakdown on expected costs?
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1 point,2 years ago
Thank you for asking for clarification.
I am currently evaluate a handful of partners to work with us on key brand work. Logo work will not be included. I am using a placeholder of $25 - $30k in the time it takes to get the definite quotes as I need work for both Dash and Platform.

Thanks!

(Written on behalf of Arden)
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0 points,2 years ago
Thanks much, glad to see you have a placeholder for this until you can get some bids in, I don't expect the community will be voting on the bids themselves, but will we get to pick out designs submitted in a governance proposal?
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