General marketing ideas & thoughts

[bitcoinba]

Great Job.

[Empirical1]

Weekly update thread/show

Casual investors are easily lost with the amount of information scattered around and goings on in Bithshares, including myself. I would estimate that there are probably only +- 25 forum members that are up to date with most of the activites.

The weekly update could be a cliff note summary of the interesting & relevant things that have been happening in the Bitshares ecosystem during the week. Even better if it was webcam delivered max 10 minutes and is at a consistent time.

Basically something that allows a busy professional to keep up to speed at one location with what's been going on in the Bitshares ecosystem with only 10-15 min of his time per week. 


Promotion Team Thread

There might be something like this already, but basically the idea is a thread to act as a central hub for co-ordinating, managing Bitshares threads on various other sites. 

When there is an opportunity to promote Bitshares in a popular thread on another site then any member can post a link to it on the Promotion Team thread  hopefully some of the team, as well as other available forum members will go over and promote and educate people in the discussion on Bitshares & its advantages.

Example: If a popular thread/discussion on Bitcoin's centralised mining vulnerability is happening on Reddit, that may be a great place to bring up Bitshares & DPOS. 

If a couple of forum members and marketing (In their free time)  made a few posts educating people on Bitshares on threads like these, it would have a lot more impact than most forms of paid advertising imo. 

Key Marketing Graphics

A picture says a thousand words.

1. A good infographic explaining how Bitshares works that we can post on various social media

This is an infographic explaining how Kickstarter works as an example
http://www.alleywatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/kickstarter-the-science-of-crowdfunding_50290aa03d26e.jpg

2. A graphic updated every two months or so showing the current structure of the Bitshares Ecosystem and parts under construction would be good too.

Consistent Monthly/Quarterly Snapshot Dates

Rather than investors having to worry about keeping their Bitshares in their wallet and not on an exchange all the time. If you had a consistent specified monthly/quartely date on which snapshots regularly took place it could make things a lot simpler.

[Empirical1]

DAC groupings and roadmap

Is Bitshares a Jack of all DAC's but a master of none?

Bitshares Core   

Even before we've started releasing DAC's I think the whole Bitshares experience, as well as it's been laid out in the forum (I like it) is confusing, overwhelming and hard to value for the casual mainstream investor. Personally I think investors maybe even I3 need something to clearly focus & hang their valuation hat on...

The Big Five (The top 4/5 DAC's BM & team think have the most potential.)

'At Bitshares we're creating a foundation for a wide range of profitable DAC's as we transition into what we believe will be an entirely new age for business. As one of our slogans says - 'may a million DAC's blossom!' However in the coming 18 months we are also focusing our team on going further with five of the DAC's that we think have the most potential to really shake up the world and become market leaders in their respective industries in a short space of time.

They are...

So as a Bitshares holder not only will you get equity in potentially hundreds of exciting DAC's in the coming years but you will also get premium equity (If you purchase before a DAC's respective snapshot date) in what we think are going to be some of the biggest and most successful digital companies of the future. These DAC's will not only be created by us but will also receive significant additional support and marketing assistance so that they stand the best chance of achieving a first mover, market dominant position. 

Take a look at our Big Five page to learn more about these DAC's and to view current expected snapshot dates as well as their up to date development timelines.'  (Here we list those top 5 DAC's of which I think Bitshares X is definitely one. We can then really direct our focus and perhaps even the mainstream forum onto these ones as well as from a marketing resources perspective as well.)

Bitshares Partner

I think it's even important to create some focus among non I3 DAC's.

I3 and the community can't effectively help market a slew of random DAC's, it's just going to get incredibly unclear and cloudy imo. As I said I think even now, I think the forum would seem slightly overwhelming to the casual investor.

I would suggest aiming to promote & establish only 1 main partner DAC a month.

The partner DAC would be promoted on the website for that month with the countdown to it's snapshot.
Our graphics guy would also create a Graphic Advert as well as an infographic for the partner DAC that could be posted on various social media and used to market the launch. The advert could just be something creative and catchy while the infographic could also contain market information about the market that DAC is targeting and attempting to disrupt etc.

Ideally we will build up relationships with a couple of websites and we can try help get some initial press for the DAC too. (If we choose our partner DAC's carefully, then after a few successful launches, I could even see the likes of Coindesk running a Bitshares monthly DAC type feature.) I can even see other DAC's we didn't create requesting to receive the coveted monthly spot because we do such a good job of focusing on and helping to launch that one DAC during that month.

After the Snapshot Date the marketing then becomes mainly the responsibility of the partner in charge of that DAC and hopefully our community who will support it.

Bitshare Friend

These are DAC's that wish to honour Bitshares holders. However for whatever reason we can merely list them on the forum and encourage the community to get behind them but are unable to direct many additional resources from the marketing team to their promotion.

[Empirical1]

I was complaining last week that the marketing was a weak point & I said I would try put together any thoughts and ideas I had that were marketing related, hopefully there will be one or two things in here that could be useful,

Homepage & Branding suggestions

I think people visiting the homepage should say - 'Oh, OK that's what Bitshares are, that sounds exciting!'

At the moment I think it's vague and unclear, you have very little idea about what Bitshares is when looking at the homepage.
 
Slogan: 'Doing for business what Bitcoin is doing for money' -It's actually not bad and kind of enticing, but it's pretty vague, You wouldn't know what Bitshares is from the slogan.   (Laymen already link Bitshares to Bitcoin and the slogan makes it sound even more like we may be some type of offshoot imo.)

Maybe something like, Bitshares 'Get your stake in all the DAC's we help create!' or even the one I've seen used 'Creating the foundation for profitable DAC's' (Or you can use 'Digital Companies' in place of DAC's.) At least it would be simpler & clearer what Bitshares is.
 
Visuals:  Man on computer, Woman or computer, two people looking at a view? Again incredibly vague, You wouldn't know what Bitshares is from the visuals. As some have suggested it looks more like a dating than a business site.

If you were just going to use a photo, the startjoin mainpage of boy with wings on his back about to take off is the kind of thing that makes a lot more sense... https://www.startjoin.com/
Their main slogan 'Crowdfunding with crypto currencies' also clearly explains the concept which is then followed by their 'revolutionary ideas powered by revolutionary technology' slogan which has the same feel as our  'Doing for Business what Bitcoin is doing for money' but at least they've explained the concept clearly first. 

& if you were going to fade to anything, fade to a group picture of the staff imo. 

Personally as the homepage I would have a graphic clearly showing owning Bitshares makes you part of a family of DAC's.
Either the Bitshares logo with the upcoming DAC's creatively grouped around it, or somehow showing completed DAC's as branded buildings on a skyline and future ones under construction. (Even like the image at 0.57 on the Bitshares video but where the Bank has the BitsharesX branding etc.)

Video: The video is actually pretty good in that it gives you more of an idea of what a Bitshare is. But you are still not clear as to the opportunity or reason for buying Bitshares specifically.
 
This is rough but perhaps it could use something like this on the end of the video -
 
 'We believe that these digital companies will soon rival the largest banks, exchanges, insurance & media companies in the world as we transition into what we believe will be an entirely new age for business. At Bitshares we are developing some of the most promising key digital companies ourselves as well as providing our cutting edge technology & expertise to others in exchange for equity.

As a Bitshares holder you get a stake in every DAC we help create! Why don't you take a look at our countdown page to learn about some of the digital companies that are being launched soon & which buying Bitshares now would make you a part of!'

Other:

For the actual individual customer facing companies yes, we will want to go mainstream but Bitshares is an angel investment fund. Your first stage audience is going to be crypto savvy younger investors, 70%+ male 20-38 & then if you get the marketing right and/or have a success perhaps some older higher net worth sophisticated investors/funds - again predominately male. I think that demographic wants to be pitched the opportunity in a clear concise & exciting way.

Other homepage suggestions

- A 'Buy Bitshares' link on homepage

- A Tracker showing current Bitshares price on homepage

-  A Tracker that shows what $1000 of Bitshares purchased on 1/1/14 would be worth today. (By adding the current Bitshares price to the current value of shares that stake would have got you in  Bitshares DAC's.)   - Probably better to include after Bitshares X launch.