Author Topic: General marketing ideas & thoughts  (Read 14831 times)

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Offline mf-tzo

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A marketing idea would be someone to crate university lists and allocate a couple of unis to forum members. Forum members go to the respective web sites and het the emails of professors, students etc. All these emails are organized in a google spreadsheet and once all mailing lists are extracted you send them a professional presentation of bitshares. Make some bounties to people who extract the addresses to finish the list quickly..

another is to give ofcourse a small amount of bitshares to download the client and register.

finally you can give away bitshares to people who register and donate their other altcoins to a donation list that you approve. Stellar will do that for xrp so I expect xrp to no longer exist by next year..

merockstar

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One question: Are we really expecting a real life business (albeit a techy one) like Overstock.com to try to run their business on BitShares?  In my view, this is highly unlikely.  I think it is far more likely that people will want to use BitShares to start some sort of business or fund some sort of new project.

Nah, BitShares will be the collateral backing bitUSD. That's what we're expecting them to try to run their business on :P

They could just use Bitcoin for now if they wanted a crypto more like BitShares, although that won't really scale.

Quote

Also, I think the token creation aspect is HUGE and should really be the focal point of any Bitcoin 2.0 efforts. The asset creation tool enabled by CounterParty, for example, is going to be mind-blowingly powerful and it is also relatively simple to understand and use.  Does BitShares provide a similar asset creation/exchange tool, and if so, should it not also be part of the main benefits presented in the marketing plan?

It's called BitShares ME. It's a separate DAC (although I think it's going to be implemented inside BitShares X if I understand correctly) and it's coming soon :)

Offline Captain_Picard

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I've picked out a few favorites from the slogans you have all thrown out, but first, can anyone point me to a summary/video that will explain to me why BitShares is a good investment in less than 2 minutes of my time? 

If you have less than 2 minutes see this:
http://youtu.be/XaY_KIsouTY

If you have more try this:  ;)
http://youtu.be/5BV55IrZi7g

Thanks.  The short explainer video is actually not bad.  The slogan used is "BitShares Does For Business What Bitcoin Does For Money", which again is not bad, unless we want to distance ourselves from Bitcoin, which is a very interesting conversation all on its own.  I still think most of the BitShares buyers will be Bitcoin holders, because they understand the technology and some of them are still sitting on oodles of Bitcoin looking to diversify into other projects.  I am guessing most of Ethereum's fund raising is coming from Bitcoin holders.

One question: Are we really expecting a real life business (albeit a techy one) like Overstock.com to try to run their business on BitShares?  In my view, this is highly unlikely.  I think it is far more likely that people will want to use BitShares to start some sort of business or fund some sort of new project.

I see two main benefits of BitShares - efficiency for running a business and flexibility for starting/funding a business.  Again I think it is hard to imagine an existing business moving some or all of their functions over to a blockchain.  Instead, I see a whole new breed of businesses that begin on a blockchain.  So maybe BitShares is the easiest way to start a business or fund a new project.  At the end of the day, BitShares' value will be based on how many people use it.  "BitShares - Powering A Whole New Breed Of Business" comes to mind.

Also, I think the token creation aspect is HUGE and should really be the focal point of any Bitcoin 2.0 efforts. The asset creation tool enabled by CounterParty, for example, is going to be mind-blowingly powerful and it is also relatively simple to understand and use.  Does BitShares provide a similar asset creation/exchange tool, and if so, should it not also be part of the main benefits presented in the marketing plan?

I am still undecided on my vote for the slogan, but very interested in the community's thoughts on the above.

Offline GaltReport

...

Problem You Are Solving
Market Size
Sales and Profit Estimates

...

I would like to know this.



Offline Akado

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One of the things I think we should emphasize is the ''Why?''. What makes it different from the rest. I mean, I've looked around and when I see a new project or altcoin, most of the time they don't explain this. What makes their project unique. Why should I give my time and effort to this? Why one should choose them over the others? And what happens when someone cannot explain this to you? You loose interest, you don't care because its just another project or alt with no concrete purpose.


As for the slogan, I dont think anything related to ''get money'' sounds attractive. Why? Because that's the objective of every other project or business. People will only look at it and not give it any importance because they have heard the same thing over and over again from other people trying to promote their own projects or coins or whatever. Again, I think we should emphasize on ''Why choose us'' or ''What makes us different'' and have a slogan related to that. That is something that will catch someone's attention. A slogan's objective should be to promote a product and catch peoples attention but giving them something they have already seen over and over again on a daily basis wont do any difference.
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Offline Shentist

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What should be done about Marketing?

i would say everything you can think about. it is still early, so when the trading is possible then we should get the thing rolling. maybe some good point in the future will be the risk you have in trading when you broker trades against you or get bankrupt and you get nothing back. in my opionen i get the same adavantages in the future if i trade via bitshares X as i use bitcoin.

Advantage against old business model:

1. no trust in 3 party needed. so if i keep my privatkeys save i will not get loose my money because my broker is broke.
2. trading fees should be much cheaper then by the central exchanges

so maybe in the begining we should focus to 2. and when the next market crisis ocurres we will hit hard with 1.

just my 5 cents

Offline Geneko

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I've picked out a few favorites from the slogans you have all thrown out, but first, can anyone point me to a summary/video that will explain to me why BitShares is a good investment in less than 2 minutes of my time? 


I think Jean Luc tried to point out to USP (Unique selling Proposition)
This is one of “ tools“ in marketing similar to those in coding if I may say so..
It is serious work and it should be done by profesionals.

Many people tried to point out that marketing effort should become more serious.
As Peter Drucker , one of the best-known bussiness guru said, all successfull business are based on two things
Inovation and Marketing
You have your Inovation – it is DACs. How about Marketing?

I strongly suggest we don't discuss:
What should be done about Marketing?
, rather
How to find best people to do this job for the community?
« Last Edit: July 26, 2014, 08:07:04 pm by Geneko »

Offline CLains

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Team Background and Past Success
Problem You Are Solving
Market Size
Sales and Profit Estimates

...busy professionals and investors will NEVER spend the time to weed through a large forum like this to learn about an investment.  They want someone that sounds (and has proven to be) trustworthy to tell them why they should wire funds in five minutes or less, preferably two.

You are completely right that we need this. We have a lot of information on the wikinow, so we need to repackage it for different purposes.

Currently we have one about BitShares X as a product http://bitshares-x.info/about.php
Why Chose BitShares (vs other products)? http://wiki.bitshares.org/index.php/Why_choose_Bitshares%3F
And general introduction to BitShares, http://wiki.bitshares.org/index.php/What_is_BitShares%3F

One of the issues with getting people to put money into the system is that we must avoid legal entanglements.. There is no outright deal where they put money in and BitShares can guarantee a share in this or that. With that said, I think the idea to package something like this,

Team Background and Past Success
Problem You Are Solving
Market Size
Sales and Profit Estimates

.. is a very good idea. At some point BitShares will need to focus hard on upping their valuation. We are currently under the illusion (?) that it will sort of catch on and pollinate the earth with the wind currents.

Offline liondani

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I've picked out a few favorites from the slogans you have all thrown out, but first, can anyone point me to a summary/video that will explain to me why BitShares is a good investment in less than 2 minutes of my time? 

If you have less than 2 minutes see this:
http://youtu.be/XaY_KIsouTY

If you have more try this:  ;)
http://youtu.be/5BV55IrZi7g

Offline Captain_Picard

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Great discussion guys. I have a marketing background and understand the traditional investor's perspective pretty well.  I am just trying to get caught up on what BitShares has been up to over the last few months so I am the perfect guinea pig for your marketing efforts. 

I've picked out a few favorites from the slogans you have all thrown out, but first, can anyone point me to a summary/video that will explain to me why BitShares is a good investment in less than 2 minutes of my time? 

From there, I think it might help us narrow our slogan selection and give us a better idea who our target market is and what our consistent message should be.  At least in my case, it is just not enough to say "amazing technology" or "very profitable DACs".  I'd like to see a concise summary that presents the relevant points that every investor will want to consider before making an investment in BitShares.

The standard VC wants to know the following at a glance:

Team Background and Past Success
Problem You Are Solving
Market Size
Sales and Profit Estimates

I know these points might be hard to quantify, and we are dealing with a totally different animal in crypto, but at the end of the day, we can't expect many people to just throw money on pure price speculation (worked well for awhile with a lot of newly minted Bit zillionaires but there is a lot of competition now). 

I am sure an investor's summary/new user intro to BitShares is probably available on this forum somewhere,  but again, busy professionals and investors will NEVER spend the time to weed through a large forum like this to learn about an investment.  They want someone that sounds (and has proven to be) trustworthy to tell them why they should wire funds in five minutes or less, preferably two.

Offline Empirical1

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Empirical, we don't have them on the homepage, because there's nothing to link to yet.  The sites are still under construction (bitsharesX, DACS unlimited, etc). When they're ready, I'd be happy to add them.  Bitshares.org will serve as a directory type of site, with links to specific DAC sites. B

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Offline MktDirector

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Empirical, we don't have them on the homepage, because there's nothing to link to yet.  The sites are still under construction (bitsharesX, DACS unlimited, etc). When they're ready, I'd be happy to add them.  Bitshares.org will serve as a directory type of site, with links to specific DAC sites. B

Offline liondani

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Paraphrasing some business quotes...



“There's no luck in business. There's only BitShares"

“If I love you, what BitShares-DAC is it of yours?”

“The best way to predict your future is to distribute on bitshares_toolkit”

“Price is what you pay. BitShares is what you get.”

“In the midst of chaos, there is also BitShares”

“Practice does not make BitShares. BitShares practice makes perfect.”

“BitShares builds trust.”

“The purpose of BitShares is to create and keep a customer.”

“You can’t tax BitShares. BitShares doesn’t pay taxes. It collects taxes.”   :P

“I'm not a businessman, I'm BitShares, man!”



The original's here:
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/business?page=1

Offline Empirical1

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use following slogan ( i am a chinese )

BTS, Be The Star! to the moon :-*

why do you think this forum has a lot of Chinese guys?

They know that they can't "Free their Money" with bitcoin. But they see this potential with Bitshares.


I don't know if 'Free your Money' says enough about Bitshares because you can say that about Bitcoin (even though it has flaws.) Why do you say they can't free their money with Bitcoin?

I agree with you about the Chinese guys though they are basically driving Bitshares volume at the moment.

BTC/PTS volume is only like $3000 daily, so basically on life support.
CNY/PTS is $14 000

So we should definitely put the slogans to the Chinese audience or ask them to come up with one that they feel speaks to them the most.

Hmm... Sounds good, but not great in English. Even though I suggested it, I guess we'd need a Chinese site really. Which I don't think is on the agenda for now.

Other marketing thoughts:

1. Counterparty seems to be having some of the same marketing problems, so even though I'd like to see Brian a lot more active on this forum and others, both getting involved in understanding and promoting Bitshares better, it is perhaps not as much as a Bitshares specific crisis as I initially supposed. (I think the main target market in the development stage is a small subset of the alt-coin investor market, if you don't appreciate Crypto-currency and haven't made the effort to invest in anything more than Bitcoin, then you're unlikely to understand and make the effort to get into Bitshares at this stage, so I still think they should be our target more than the mainstream at this stage.) 

2. Having a look at all the suggestions we came up with I have to admit, Brian's suggestion was my favourite and except for the Bitcoin reference, his initial

'Doing for business what Bitcoin is doing for money' isn't that bad. Maybe 'Doing for business what crypto-currency is doing for money.'?

The thing I wanted to solve was communicating Bitshares is an angel fund that gets you a stake in a lot of future DAC's, but if there are some DAC/Industry icons on the homepage/web advert that should do the job.

Question: Brian is the reason we don't have any DAC/Industry icons on the homepage at the moment because you don't think it's a good idea (which is fine) or for legal reasons? 
« Last Edit: June 23, 2014, 11:08:34 pm by Empirical1 »

Offline sfinder

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use following slogan ( i am a chinese )

BTS, Be The Star! to the moon :-*

why do you think this forum has a lot of Chinese guys?

They know that they can't "Free their Money" with bitcoin. But they see this potential with Bitshares.


I don't know if 'Free your Money' says enough about Bitshares because you can say that about Bitcoin (even though it has flaws.) Why do you say they can't free their money with Bitcoin?

I agree with you about the Chinese guys though they are basically driving Bitshares volume at the moment.

BTC/PTS volume is only like $3000 daily, so basically on life support.
CNY/PTS is $14 000

So we should definitely put the slogans to the Chinese audience or ask them to come up with one that they feel speaks to them the most.
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