Streamr’s Marketing: The road ahead
Streamr’s marketing strategy has been a hot topic within our community for many months. Since joining the project in mid-November, I have spent a lot of time reviewing our past and present marketing efforts and developed a better understanding of what we need to be promoting and when.
Despite the bear market, many token holders would like to see us focus on increasing the value of our DATA token by promoting DATA more aggressively. But many other community members also understand that “shilling” tokens is a very poor goal which, while it may appear to provide short term benefits, is likely to waste resources and do real reputational damage in the mid-to-long term.
Based on the market and audience research we have carried out, it’s also clear that any promotional and outreach activity for Streamr must recognise our mission — to radically change the way real-time data is managed and utilised, and help decentralized builders to unlock their real potential. DATA is not a product we are trying to offload; it’s a part of our movement.
In order to truly place power and value back into the hands of data owners, and reach a place where Streamr starts making a genuine change in the world:
- Our tech must be seamless
- Individual liberty and communal cooperation must thrive on our platform.
This means that any marketing efforts must commence at the right time. In 2019, our focus must be developing and growing the user base of the products we are rolling out, and creating a fully decentralized platform that works.
We do not want to utilise hype, and pay-for-play tactics, that are common in the crypto space. We want to invite users with the clear call-to-action (CTA) that the platform warrants their engagement. This CTA is dependent on the tech being user-friendly and the right fit for people’s needs and demands.
The fact remains; there is still work to be done on the technical side. We are still in the process of building out our Marketplace, Editor, and Network. We are reviewing and deciding on which features will make the platform fully fit for purpose, for example, user feedback asked for easier onboarding and invoicing features on the Marketplace. We are building the platform to be the best it can be for users, and our marketing must reflect that.
When users build and thrive in our Streamr ecosystem, our brand story will write itself. The right projects and innovators will not only make the Streamr engine run smoothly, they can make it sing. We will develop use cases with practical application in the real world. This is where our existing (not yet decentralized) tech becomes newsworthy.
Show don’t tell
The literary rule ‘show don’t tell’ refers to the idea that an author must leave room for their reader’s imagination to flourish and build on the subtle ideas planted in the text, and this principle can also be applied to marketing. Nobody wants to feel like they are being sold something. We need to be able to provide useful and interesting information about how we solve potential problems for users, and show users how these solutions are supported by our tech.
We have done a lot of ‘telling’ and we will continue to do so at key industry events, in our literature, on our website, and during interviews. This type of marketing is invaluable. However, ‘showing’ is an equally important core principle of marketing for Streamr; we must let the stack speak for itself through engaged users who are building, developing, and inventing dApps that shift public perceptions of what realtime data can achieve. We are already showing how we have created solutions for problems like payment scaling, which is what we presented at ETHDenver last week.
This year, we have already seen some great examples of our community showing what can be done with our stack, such as the Fitbit app, and the air quality data project. With more tangible use cases built by a passionate community (and sometimes supported by direct grants) we will have a much stronger story to take into the world. Radical applications of our technology set us apart, and from these USPs, Marketplace traction will follow. This is why we must make sure our registered users are empowered to thrive on the Streamr stack.
So, in 2019 our highest marketing priorities will be to grow and engage our user base, and the plan below reflects these aims.
How will we grow and engage our user base through marketing?
We will activate our thousands of registered users and reach out to new developer communities in the following ways:
- Product launches — new products on the Marketplace will be taken to market as full campaigns that incorporate multichannel marketing, including social media, PR, and advertising. Multichannel marketing will enable these unique propositions to reach a larger audience of potential users. This is different to what we have done in the past, because the tangible products and technology (not just the idea) will be revolutionary and gain attention for this reason.
- Website — Our Design team has been working hard on our upcoming website refresh, and we will be rolling out the new site in around a month’s time. More help and user guides will be immediately accessible for existing and new users, empowering them to use our tech more effectively. New users will be able to gain in-depth insight into the Streamr stack and we anticipate that these resources will help them be more confident trying the Editor for the first time.
- SEO — After the refresh, our website will be optimised for SEO, to ensure anyone with an interest in our consolidated real-time data offering and decentralization mission can find us organically, use our Network, Editor or Marketplace, learn our story, and join our community.
- Tools — We are enhancing our tools to facilitate a better UI on the platform, and will promote these enhancements every step of the way. The DevRel team is also working on a robust user education programme to help on-board new users to the Editor and Network.
- Community Products — We will create awareness of this new and innovative Marketplace feature. We will ensure our community interacts with it, tests it and provides feedback. Then we will ensure that feedback is implemented to make this feature seamless. Because we aim to facilitate C2B transactions (what we’re calling Crowdselling) for the first time in the data economy, there is a lot to shout about with this launch, and we are excited to amplify this story as much as possible in the market. We anticipate this launch will ignite new interest in the Streamr project as an industry game-changer.
- Monthly newsletter — Our Transmission videos have been replaced by a monthly newsletter for our community, Packet Switch. The first issue was sent yesterday! The newsletter is a great piece of content, which will provide our 10,000 strong subscriber base with a regular update on Streamr news, product updates, upcoming events and our industry insights. It also contains a CTA to try the Editor and you are invited to share it with your networks!
- Events — We will continue to make sure new developers and potential partners discover us through events and all associated PR. We are speaking at ETHCC in March, Paris Blockchain week in April, and are already signed up to events well into Q4.
- Community Fund — This is your project too, and we want to hear your ideas. With this exciting initiative, elected administrators will be supported with funds to promote the Streamr message. The first cycle is currently underway and thriving, and we’ve suggested some ways for you to get involved.
- Developer Bounties — Our DevRel team will support existing and new developers, especially within the Web3/Ethereum space, to continue to interact with the Streamr stack. Developers will also be supported with funds to bring their best ideas to life.
In conjunction with these focused efforts to engage and build our user base, we will continue to promote our overall vision and amplify brand awareness in the following ways:
- Thought leadership — We will continue to promote our digital ethics relating to decentralization and associate ourselves with the Ethereum community through opinion pieces, speaking slots and networking
- Promotion of the Streamr stack as a unified real-time data platform — When the Marketplace, Editor and Network are integrated seamlessly, we will have a truly unique proposition in the data industry, and this will make for a compelling campaign that we will promote comprehensively.
- B2B adoption — Our partnership team are consistently working on our B2B propositions, and there is exciting news in the pipeline. We will have a B2B use case integrated to the Marketplace by the start of Q3. We will promote any key partnerships in conjunction with our partners’ own marketing efforts, meaning the news will reach a very broad network and show our capabilities to future partners, investors and users.
To conclude, there is a lot going on with marketing in Streamr. Even if the results are not always immediate, I hope that with this overview, our rationale is clear. There’s a lot coming up too, and we’re excited to head into the next phase of spreading the word!
Catch up with me on Friday 1 March on our main Telegram Channel where I’ll be answering any questions you have.
