I feel that the 'official' markting team has actually been doing business development activities (forging relationships and partnerships with potential business partners), and not as much 'marketing'.
This was the biggest, most delightful surprise to me when I learned that the Four Marketeers were potent business developers not just clever communicators. (Not that there is anything wrong with being a clever communicator.)
These guys don't just communicate our message - they help
shape it.
But that's not all they do!
Better than that, they provide
feedback to our development process to change our product to make it more marketable - so that they can shape an even better message and communicate
that.
But that's not all they do!
They then engineer automated marketing tools (funnels) to help lead potential customers to take some action that moves them one step at a time closer to being one of us. These are not static web pages, they are loaded with
stuff that does stuff to help make the sale.
But that's not all they do!
They are creating tons of content and educational materials and news releases to help people understand what we have to offer. You've seen a few samples of Max's videos and there are at least 9 more (that I know about) in his queue.
But that's not all they do!
At the flick of a switch they can reach out and touch hundreds of thousands of email contacts with the specific message targeted to each individuals' demographic group(s) in a way that will lead them into the web of funnels they are constructing.
But that's not all they do!
Then they've gone out and develop key partnerships with other companies that have skills and resources to provide a full service experience to newcomers. We are building core technologies. They are literally wiring up the ecosystem around us.
That might be all they do, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Obviously, you don't start driving the herd into your web of funnels until everything is ready to receive them.
Otherwise, you are not just wasting ammo, you are wasting targets.
As for the alleged "secrecy", there's really no secret - there's just respect for the other partners they have been lining up and negotiating deals with. Anybody who's done this knows that you don't talk about a deal until its signed - and then you let your partners choose when they are ready to announce it.
Given that you have agreed to respect that, you can't really talk much about all the other activities that leverage those deals and partnerships and promotions. You just have to work away behind the scenes on all the moving parts while the engineering team works at changing everything they prototyped from geek-ready to consumer-ready.
And pray that Bytemaster doesn't have another Invictus innovation in the mean time.