I’ve been reviewing some draft marketing proposals recently, and decided to publish a Marketing Proposal Guideline which we could discuss and establish as a community. Hopefully it helps content creators (with or without marketing experience) understand the many facets of a strong marketing proposal. I understand that many Pillar Operators might feel like there’s a pressing need for marketing, however we must be aware that ZNN/QSR funds are scarce, and the treasury should only be reserved for the highest standards.
I hope that seeing a sample proposal (at the bottom of this post), will help you identify the subtle differences between a proposal written with experience versus without.
The network is young, treasury funds are scarce and I bet that most Pillar Operators are not experts in marketing. The network cannot afford to take big gambles. When developers submit code, it can be tested and verified. In marketing, we must see a strong proposal prior to approval, and performance results on phase submission. The more you prove that you can deliver that intended result, the more likely you are to get funded. If a marketing proposal has holes, it is the community’s responsibility to unearth and question components so that Pillar Operators can make the best decisions.
If core components are missing, then one should work with other community contributors to develop a stronger, more whole proposal. Just because you have a skill i.e. content creation (without other abilities needed to develop a provable funnel), it doesn’t mean that it’s valuable to the network today. It is your responsibility as a Fund Requester to submit a whole proposal, which is as clear with its pros as it is with its cons.
Marketing Proposal Guideline:
- Goal
- Strategy
- Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
- Duration
- Reporting
- Budget
- Value Summary
Goals:
The content creator / marketer should select a network goal. The Zenon.Org website will work with community contributors to maintain and list an up-to-date list of goals. Each goal will also act as its own landing page / funnel. Here are some sample goals we’ll be listing on the Zenon.Org website (likely to be updated with the help of @cryptocheshire):
Goal #1: Solve problems / network needs:
- Interoperability: Atomic Swaps
- Interoperability: zBTC
- Interoperability: Cross-Chain Bridges
- Interoperability: Merge Mining
- zApps: SDK’s:
- Swift
- Java / Kotlin
- zApps: Smart Contract Runtime Implementation (WASM)
- zApps: New NFT Standard Implementation
- Decentralization: #NodeInvasion:
- Local Nodes
- Sentinels
- Pillars
- Accessibility: wZNN Liquidity
- Accessibility: wQSR BSC Bridge
- Accessibility: Docs GitBook Contributors
- Accessibility: CEX Listings
- Campaigning: #AtmosphericEntry:
- Traffic Drivers
- Influencers
- Link Indexing
Goal #2: Attract new participants:
- Community Developers (solving above problems and others)
- Pillar, Sentinel, Local Embedded Node Operators (SYRIUS installs)
- Liquidity Providers (wZNN / BNB pool)
- Pillar Delegators
- Stakers
Tip: Some goals are more easily attainable than others. Be smart with your selections and promises.
Strategy:
The strategy encompasses the entire funnel: Outbound/inbound distribution channels/methods, copy, landing page(s), flow, remarketing and measurement tooling/capabilities.
Tip: It’s often best to experiment with a strategy before proposing it for funding. It’s with experimentation that you’ll discover real capabilities, limitations and holes in your strategy. The investment of enriching yourself could only play in your favour.
Key Performance Indicators:
- Can you prove that your campaign delivered conversions?
- Do you require some measurement implementation(s)?
- Are the conversions worthwhile for the price spent?
- Do you iterate various components of your campaign as the campaign begins in order to optimize results?
Tip: Being clear about what you can/can’t measure can perhaps make you think twice about your entire strategy, funnel, distribution channel(s) / method(s), landing pages. Perhaps you’ll discover that your proposal won’t be provable, and instead will require more advanced implementation(s) to be properly measured. Why ask funding for an idea which can deliver 50%? Perhaps it’s best to hold off, and instead go back to the drawing board?
Duration:
- How long will your campaign last?
- What’s the attribution window and when do you stop measuring?
Reporting:
- How will you report your results?
- Will you make it easy to prove the value delivered?
- Will you provide exports of data?
Tip: A reporting strategy shows understanding of your own funnel, and creates an opportunity to validate your original assumptions vs. results delivered.
Budget:
- What’s the cost of the distribution channel/method?
- What’s the cost of the content creation, iteration, tooling which forms the strategy?
Tip: I would avoid requesting max sums if you’re just starting-off. Best to build rapport with the network by starting small and proving performance. You have one shot to do it right. Pillars are likely to be more forgiving for small failures.
Value Summary:
A short summary of what the network is paying-for, the value received. It’s important for everyone to see how you perceive your value vs. how others react to it.
Sample Proposal:
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Goal: Lead generation for SWIFT SDK developers using an outbound approach
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Strategy:
- Drive relevant traffic to the zenon.org /funding/need/sdk-developers landing page using a wrapped/shortened campaign link generated by mehowz’ attribute technology so that traffic driven could be tracked and I could be attributed visits/event triggers.
- Develop a list of hashtags relevant to #swift development on Twitter.
- Use TweetDeck / Phantombuster to like, capture and post a relevant, appealing and unique reply + link. Focusing on tweets posted by active and higher follower accounts. Tweet-reply automation could be explored once we gather metrics and discover what type of reply copy gets the most engagement.
- Once traffic clicks on the link, they land on the /funding/need/sdk-developers landing page where they’re shown the A-Z funding opportunity and asked to fill out their email / Twitter handle in order to be given access to the proposal checklist (to help fast-track them into an application on-chain).
- Retargeting pixels will be placed on the /funding/need/sdk-developers landing page, and visitors will be shown ads across various networks for 7 days that’ll offer them an opportunity to opt-in to the proposal checklist email form. Leads which entered the form will be opted into an automated email drip campaign (sent as mehowz for a personal touch), that’ll invite them to develop a proposal using the checklist (using various educational materials).
- Throughout the retargeting campaigns, leads will be asked for feedback and revalidated as leads. The responses will determine whether they’ll be redirected into another funnel.
- Eventually cross-tracking could be embedded into wallet(s), and the funnel could be optimized to measure which visitor stemming from which marketer, lead to a successful on-chain A-Z submission. In the above strategy, we lose sight of the user session before they submit on-chain.
- The strategy uses a cookie-based tracking, and therefore browsers who disable such tags by default i.e. Brave, will not have their sessions tracked.
- I assume that the success of the strategy lies within the hashtag selection and Tweet reply strategy. Various methods will be experimented-with i.e. direct linking to the landing page, versus warming up the traffic via a pre-lander using a Twitter thread as a reply. Other methods could be experimented i.e. using polls as a reply or videos to engage the user. The key is to get the traffic to engage in your copy without misleading them.
- The learnings from this manually campaigning could develop to an automation strategy, and can be adapted to an advertising based distribution.
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KPI’s:
- The number of impressions my Twitter replies received.
- The number of link clicks stemming from my Twitter replies. If I use a unique attribute campaign link for each reply, I will be able to determine which Twitter reply / hashtagged tweet generated the best results.
- The time visitors spend on the landing page.
- Video play rate on the landing page.
- The form submission conversion rate.
- The “Join Telegram Builder Channel” and “Join Forums” click rates.
- All other integrated events on the starting/retargeting landing page(s).
- Metrics will be provable using the public attribute.me dashboard.
- Cost to acquire each metric above.
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Duration: 30 days of listening/replying. The attribution window is set to 30 days post landing page visit, so the campaign will end after 60 days from the day it began (plus added days for retargeting schedule to complete). Data begins to show up on attribute 8-24 hours after the traffic clicks on the link and lands on the landing page. The community will be able to track my performance in real-time, and will not need to wait 60 days to get a final report (though recommended to not jump to conclusions as I experiment and optimize various copy strategies). With cost to acquire metrics, the network will be able to quantify the value driven for each ZNN/QSR spent.
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Reporting: A post-campaign report will be generated via the proposal thread in the forum. It will link to compiled attribute data (using a web-based sheet viewer), and provide steps for anyone to export data on attribute to validate the performance data. Links to all the tweet replies will be provided/compiled.
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Budget: 300 ZNN
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Value Summary: No automated copy writing systems can be as hyper-targeted as a human adapting itself to the tweet it’s replying-to. You’re 1) paying for tailored shills carefully placed in traffic channels optimized for solving the network goal, and 2) paying for funnel development.
Get what I meanz?
great copy ideas, and I agree that testimonials ie Uniswap story could work well across the entire campaign ie copy, landing page, drip campaign etc. Experimentation with various copy angles can help us determine what drives a dev to click on the link / get warmed up. Though if the hashtag / Tweet listening strategy includes crypto related hashtags on top of the swift ones, we can assume that the traffic flowing through those tweets may be web3 versed. Both audiences could work!