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DCW: Marketing Strategy and Structure




Introduction 

In the beginning of 2019 we (Dash Embassy D-A-CH) initiated Dash Co-Working (DCW) to share our experience in business development with other DFOs, work on common goals, share each others resources and thus mitigate inefficiencies resulting from the DAOs decentralization. The past year has shown that the whole Dash DAO is capable to achieve more integrations when we are working in a collaborative way. This is why we want to try something similar for creating a marketing strategy.

For further information regarding DCW please have a look at: https://t1p.de/ttb7

Building a strategy which is based on numbers instead of emotions and on market demands instead of our belief systems is a time consuming and intensive process. It means that we need to do tons of research, talk to professionals from attached industries and let the market tell us what’s needed instead of following our current convictions. 

From our point of view creating this strategy is a process that needs to be carried out by the DAO as a whole and not by one single entity. This is why we want to establish a Dash marketing board, which in the beginning consists of representatives of marketing related DFOs. In addition we want to invite you, the Masternode owners, to become part of the discussion. 

To do so we would like to offer you (MNOs) video calls on a regular basis. In these calls we will discuss the structure and responsibilities of the marketing board and take a look at the results of our research in regards to creating the actual strategy. The calls will follow a strict agenda. They will not be recorded. The exact dates will be published at least three days before the call together with all necessary information (Pre Reads) and links for each call. They will not last any longer than 60 minutes each.

We already had initial calls with Ryan Taylor (DCG), Robert Wiecko (DCG), Fernando Gutierrez (DCG), Mark Mason (DN), Joel Valenzuela (DN), Ash Francis (Dash Retail) and Felix Mago (Dash Next). All of them agreed to get involved in the process to a certain extent. We are happy to inform you that a first physical meeting between Jan Heinrich Meyer (DACH) and Robert Wiecko (DCG) already took place in Lübeck, Germany from 19th to 20th of December 2019. A follow-up meeting together with Fernando Gutierrez is planned for January 2020 to take place in Switzerland.


Why do we need a strategy for Dash?



All cryptocurrencies are struggling with the current bear market, but the bear market doesn’t seem to be the only problem that the market capitalisation of Dash is struggling with. Since March 2017 we moved from being a top 3 coin (93.63 USD / DASH) to being a top 30 coin (66.30 USD / DASH) in January 2020, while other projects (e.g. Litecoin) with less adoption and less development were able to stay in the top 10 and increased the price of a single coin over 10 times (2017: 4.06 USD / LTC 2020: 51.08 USD / LTC).

Historical Snapshot - 25 March 2017: https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20170326/
Historical Snapshot - 12 January 2020: https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20200112/




Compared to other blockchain projects the image and the position of Dash aren’t clear for outsiders. It’s hard to find out what Dash really is when you are searching for it on Google and take a look at the results for images or media outlets. The reasoning behind this might be the name of Dash itself, or the competitive advantage that Bitcoin and Ethereum are having because they were the first movers in their niche. Nevertheless Dash should be able to outperform European washing powder from the 1990’s and Amazon Dash Buttons, which aren’t available for purchase anymore. Dash needs to become recognized as Digital Cash - an emerging solution for global payments.



Besides the fact that Dash is not being recognized as a solution for payments it is definitely not being recognized as a future platform solution comparable to Ethereum or EOS. When things stay like they are right now then there won’t be any developers, companies or research institutes considering to build anything based on Dash Platform, because they will simply not know about it. The upcoming release of Dash Platform on mainnet is coming closer everyday. If we want people to use it and unleash the power of the masternode network, then we need to prepare ourselves BEFORE it is going live.

We believe that an overall strategy is needed to solve these problems. An overall strategy created in a transparent and comprehensible way by the DAO itself. A strategy on which all POs, DFOs and MNOs can agree on and which will allow all of us to look in the same direction and being focused on the most promising markets and opportunities. As mentioned above this process won’t be easy, because…


In a regular company strategy works like this



In a regular company the overall mission and strategy are being created by a centralized management team which takes care of all analyses, definitions, markets, priorities and key performance indicators. All teams in such a company are following this overall mission and achieve specific goals. This “top-down” approach has proven to be very efficient and is serving the overall success of the company. 


In a DAO it works like this


Decentralisation is key to secure a network, but it can cause a lot of problems for the management of a project. On the one hand this is because there is no single entity guiding the way by providing an overall strategy which all other entities will follow. On the other hand even if there is an overall strategy, which most entities are aligned on, decentralization in management can still lead to huge inefficiency and redundancy and by this to a tremendous waste of money. Therefore, the impact of using funds and resources in a more centralized way would lead to a higher impact compared to all of the decentralized activities combined.

We are happy to inform you that we already have been able to overcome some of these problems in DCW (Dash Co-Working) as we are sharing resources like presentations, contacts and employees, but the strategy issue still remains. 


The current situation in the Dash DAO



Even though most of the teams in Dash are somehow aligned with the overall mission that Dash is digital cash and by this will provide financial freedom for its users, most teams are following different strategies in business development and marketing. If different teams are following different strategies, they will start different activities to address specific target groups in several regions using different kinds of materials and messages at the same time. Due to a lack of collaboration these teams will neither be able to benefit from each others learnings nor create a picture of Dash for the public that is really representing what Dash is. It’s very unlikely that this scattered approach will enable Dash to succeed in one specific market (e.g. remittance) on a global scale. In addition to all the different activities that we are having in the DAO right now, each new team will start building its own strategy from scratch. 


How can we organize ourselves in a more efficient way and create one overall mission for the DAO? 


The idea we are suggesting to address the problems mentioned above is to implement a Dash marketing board, which together with all marketing related DFOs could work on creating an overall strategy, define goals and take care of the implementation. This “bottom-up” approach would allow all DFOs to learn from each other and create one overall strategy while working on the same goals and using each others resources. 

Example: Let’s say there is an upcoming release for mainnet (e.g. DashPay) by DCG. The marketing board gets informed and decides to promote this with a press release, a blog post and on social media. The head of PR of the marketing board creates a briefing for the designer of one DFO to create the graphics and the copywriter of another DFO to create the text. When the release is done all other DFOs translate it. Same for the resulting blog post and the resulting social media post. When everything is ready to go the head of PR sends out the release to all media contacts of all DFOs, all DFOs publish their version of the blogpost and share it via social media by following a posting plan, organized by the head of social media of the marketing board. After that each DFO reports the results to the marketing board. 

The Dash marketing board would be able to merge all the learnings from every single DFO to a bigger picture and improve the overall strategy. Even though this would bring some kind of centralization to the DAO it would keep each team independent, but more important: this would unleash the power of the DAO.

Of course the same would work for any other kind of content, channels or materials like videos, pos-materials, websites and so on and so far.

Potential Problems: This structure will only work if we can find the right people for the marketing board and if all marketing related DFOs open up for collaboration and agree on the overall strategy created in collaboration with the marketing board, even if it might not be the strategy they personally are in favour for.

The responsibilities and the legal structure of the marketing board need to be discussed. At some point in time it might make sense to create a company for this, which owns all social media channels and websites etc. of the DAO and could be owned by the Dash DAO Trust. For now we believe that it is more important to receive input from masternode owners and get the collaboration started rather setting up another legal entity or company.


Why do we need research to build a strategy?



Even though it might be common sense for most members of the Dash community, we think it’s important to underline that doing research for creating a strategy is fundamental. 

In the beginning of Dash Embassy D-A-CH we were convinced that educating businesses about the advantages that Dash has to offer compared to fiat would lead to success in merchant adoption. While onboarding merchants we did a survey and realized that the majority of them were using Crypto-PSPs to accept crypto payments. By doing so these merchants never touched crypto at all. We always believed that those early adopters would follow the same ideology we do. It turned out that this wasn’t the case. It broke our hearts, but this research helped us to understand their needs, improve our strategy and become one of the most successful DFOs when it comes to business development and made Europe the region with the highest number of Dash accepting merchants worldwide.

Take away: Research might hurt, because it could reveal a truth that contradicts our  convictions, but it is needed to improve our efforts. 


Will we as a DAO be able to build the strategy all on our own?



All of us have been in crypto for a long time now. Some of us are working for Dash for several years. We went down the rabbit hole and are professionals in this industry. Even though this is a huge benefit in general the perspective from inside of the rabbit hole might block our view on potential opportunities outside of the cryptoverse. This is why we believe that at some point in time we will need consultancy from the outside to create a strategy that not only applies for people in the crypto-community, but also for private persons, companies and institutions from outside of our bubble. 


What could the process of creating a strategy look like?



To get things started we believe it will make sense that one single DFO (operational management) works on a first draft of the strategy based on the research for a specific region under constant supervision of the Dash marketing board. Once this is done this initial strategy can be adjusted based on the research made by other DFOs and the Dash marketing board itself. 

The first step for this would be to create a working document including a definition of what Dash is, a market analyses (payment, crypto, remittance, investment, wallets, …), competitor analysis (fiat, crypto, wallets, …), SWOT analysis, goals, target groups and so on. We already started this for the DACH region. You can follow the progress here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gUMKOD8FbtgQtkQh6YKJY4RlW3_zE8BGa0UWvJ2WwnI/edit?usp=sharing 

In the next step this document could be shared with at least three agencies to explain to them what it is that we are looking for. Only with a briefing like this they will be able to create their pitches. Based on these pitches the operational management and the Dash marketing board decides with which of those agencies they want to move forward. It might be the case that it’s not only one agency, because the target groups we want to address might be very different from each other (e.g. Average Joe and institutional investors).

When the election is done - both, the operational management team and the agency, will be working on the “first draft of the strategy” (first paragraph of this chapter) under constant supervision of the marketing board.  As soon as this is done the strategy can be adjusted together with other DFOs.

After this implementation starts.

Notice: the Operational Management shown in the illustration above is an already existing DFO. It takes the lead on creating the strategy but is not the final decision maker.


Which team will start the process?



Because of our achievements in business development, the changes in regulatory framework and the overall movement of the market in Europe we feel a strong need to start marketing activities in our region (DACH and other parts of Europe). This is why we would like to put ourselves forward and become the team, which starts the process of creating a marketing strategy for Dash. Jan Heinrich Meyer (@essra) used to work as a marketing manager for one of the biggest music festivals in Germany and as a new business manager and a business development manager for a marketing agency, before he started working for Dash. His past jobs included the creation and planning of marketing activities for several products and target groups. Because of his knowledge about the crypto-market and the payment industry and his experience in marketing he feels well suited to start the process together with all of you.


What are our goals for Dash?

Of course we already have some goals in mind, but as said during the whole proposal we want to create the strategy as a DAO. This means that after doing the analyses of the market and our competitors we need to agree on our main goals together.

This approach might be a bit unusual, but we really feel that this is the way to go.


What are the next steps?




Budget



Important: As this proposal does not pay Dash Embassy DACH itself, we will only be able to work on this, if our Business Development proposal passes. If this proposal fails, we will start to work on our own marketing strategy. 


Let’s go!

We are looking forward to a fruitful discussion and hope that all of you are interested in making this happen under the collaborative approach we have described. As said the whole process might become nerve-racking for all of us, but we strongly believe that the outcome will be worth it. We will keep you updated on DashCentral, DashNexus and on Discord.

Let’s make this happen - we hope for your vote!