Summary:
This proposal is a modification of SCP-123 to continue the funding of the Marketing workstream from February 1, 2023, to August 1, 2023. The Marketing Workstream will continue to focus on creating, implementing, and optimizing marketing and growth initiatives for the ShapeShift DAO. This proposal designates two full-time contributors
Hpayne; Marketing Workstream Leader; Partnerships, Copywriter, Product coordinator
Twells; Social Media Manager, and Grant Opportunities
The proposal integrates specific community feedback to fund essential services and tools the workstream requires to deliver bare-bones marketing for the DAO and its associated product suite.
The new proposed budget for the next six months is $129,505 with $91,320 in USDC (a 47.4% decrease from the original proposal). The average monthly cost in USDC will be $15,220 (reduced from $28,810, a 47.2% reduction ), and the average cost in FOX would be $6,364 (reduced from $10,635, a 40.1% reduction).
The budget includes these paid services and tools:
Sprout Social. The workstream uses this tool routinely to manage all social channels.
Discord Nitro (costs amortized over 12 months). Nitro allows us to engage with minimal friction and maximum efficacy.
Dappback. Continuing to develop a FOX reward and onboarding program for ShapeShift and integration with current grant proposals.
Our marketing Bounty page. To take care of one-off marketing tasks as needed. Share is a free platform and there is budget to bounty one-off marketing tasks.
Abstract
As a product- and community-centric DAO, the Marketing Workstream is vital to our visibility and continued growth as a community, economy, and platform. This workstream is accountable for activities critical to the DAO’s ability to acquire and retain users and grow the ShapeShift DAO and FOX ecosystem's mindshare. This proposal continues to fund the Marketing Workstream’s anticipated budget from February 1 - August 1, 2023.
Motivation
Continuing to fund this workstream will ensure that the ShapeShift DAO can have a minimally viable marketing presence that the prior Marketing Workstream has developed and refined this past term.
By supporting the Marketing Workstream, the DAO can continue rolling out new features and be assured they won’t fall on deaf ears. Rather, new features will be rolled out to excited new users eager to experience the decentralized ecosystem that ShapeShift is curating.
Specification:
There were broad, unfocused goals in the original Marketing Workstream proposal and the proposals since SCP-75 (SCP-91). They were not created by observing historical data patterns or projections internally or across the industry, nor were they targeting appropriate metrics to measure our success as a marketing team. Here is a breakdown of those original goals (and pivoted goals) and our benchmarks against them:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GjNP37LN0Unnegw6YSFj08YxYgwlTIEjN3-Nr-w4ueo/edit?usp=sharing
Now that we have a way to measure and quantify data and use that to drive direction and decisions in place, this proposal has identified high-level measurable goals and KPIs outlined.
KPI’s and Activities
Social Media:
Twitter Targets
Follower count: 150k followers by the end of Q2 (~3.5k/mo; ~8.6% growth over 5 months; comparable to Erik V’s Twitter growth as well as other accounts that were identified by the community as highly effective accounts)
Posting Cadence
1-2 native content posts/day
1-3 RTs/day
Maintain engagement rate of 3-5%
YouTube Targets
Subscriber count: 7.5k by the end of Q2 (~650/mo)
Maintain average watch time over 60%
Content:
Press Releases (maximum 1 PR per quarter, earning 200-300 pickups)
Native blogs (2 product blogs quarterly)
Emails (send at least one email per week, reach 20% open rate per email, increase CTR to an average of 1.5%-2%)
Monthly Newsletters and Governance newsletters will be discontinued
Partnerships:
THORchain (cross-workstream goal)
Swaps:
Good: Increase in-app trade volume by 35% by the end of Q1
Better: Increase in-app trade volume by 65% by the end of Q1
Best: Increase in-app trade volume by 100% by the end of Q1
Savers: 30% of vault TVL via our interface by six months after deployment.
By May 2023, we will source $15,000 from partnership sponsorship and co-marketing activities by curating opportunities for partners to further intertwine their brand with the ShapeShift platform via co-marketing in-person events and digital product promotion opportunities.
Native Sites (parallelling Product Workstream’s proposals goals一important to note that marketing bandwidth has been cut in half; making these lofty goals):
Increase Monthly Active Users to 56,713 by the end of August 2023
March Minimum MAUs 22,500
August Minimum MAUs 27,000
March optimistic MAUs 27,616
August optimistic MAUs: 56,713
Increase our WAU/MAU stickiness metric to a minimum of 30%.
Increase ARPU (average revenue per user) from $0.25 to $0.35.
These three KPIs are intertwined as changes in MAU and ARPU are synergistic. The revenue graph goes nonlinear when both change simultaneously, so I believe it is critical that we focus on scaling users, ARPU, and basket size. The current ARPU is $0.20 (on the high side, depending on if we exclude whale activity). An increase of 25% would be a very significant movement of the needle (which is the lower bound of our goal). I think this number is meaningful in that it is a balance of realistic and ambitious in terms of our capacity to monetize and capture users with our existing product and marketing resources.
Activities
We will continue to:
Support shapeshift.com and app.shapeshift.com through funnel design, metrics monitoring, copy support, and creating bespoke marketing materials and initiatives to support product launches and feature updates.
Dig into new revenue streams via partnerships and co-marketing initiatives
Represent the ShapeShift DAO’s product and partner suite by developing bespoke and creative marketing and messaging campaigns.
Monitor user flows and identify areas of improvement to increase conversions alongside the product workstream.
Ensure the marketing of prioritized features in a timely and relevant manner.
Create engaging content aligned with the brand of ShapeShift DAO while tying in relevant macro events.
Communicate ideas, create materials to educate current and future ShapeShift users, and spearhead creative design and strategy to develop and launch marketing campaigns while expanding the mindshare of ShapeShift to the broader Web3 space.
Assist with grant opportunities as appropriate.
Budget
Since SCP 116’s recent re-adjustments of Marketing contributor's salaries and job descriptions due to the departure of Tyler as interim leader, there are some minor adjustments and optimizations to the budget from the amended proposal. View the changes here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Pdkqb4o6Uju-ynIl2j8nn4smlM4QqDrDEywfK1CvAJU/edit?usp=sharing
If we extrapolate the monthly spend under Tyler to a 6-month spend, our “budget” for the last round of 6 months was: $246,600 (with $174,000 of that in USDC).
Our new proposed budget for the next 6 months is $129,505 with only $91,320 being requested in USDC (a 47.4% decrease from the previously proposed proposal). The average monthly cost in USDC would be $15,220 (reduced from $28,810, a 47.2% reduction ), and the average cost in FOX would be $6,364 (reduced from $10,635; a 40.1% reduction).
There is one month of severance budgeted into this proposal for contributors from the past workstream in order to assist with their transition to new roles outside of the DAO.
View the detailed budget here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-lrysFysVDO1nkQZJs9YJH8dgCzfOrxpB_KMga41st8/edit?usp=sharing
If this proposal passes, this budget will be distributed in USDC and FOX as outlined above. The equivalent amount of USDC & FOX will be transferred from the DAO’s treasury to the Marketing Workstream on Colony monthly. All unused funds will be returned to the DAO or rolled over to the next budget cycle.
The marketing workstream will be in the position to sell promotional and sponsorship space on the different ShapeShift platforms or through marketing initiatives on behalf of ShapeShift through leveraging co-marketing initiatives. Any funds accumulated from those activations will be transparently accounted for and used to roll back into marketing spend. Additionally, the marketing workstream will be responsible for managing and allocating any grant funding received by the DAO that is earmarked for user-incentives, such as the in-progress grant application with Optimism.
Benefits
If this proposal passes, the DAO will continue to receive basic marketing services:
• The design and execution of bespoke limited marketing roadmaps and campaigns spanning most products of the DAO that drive user growth or revenue.
• Maintain and accelerate growth and participation within the epicenter of crypto conversation in the “Crypto-Twitter-Sphere”.
• Provide integrated partner marketing support and onboarding support for new and existing partners一potentially driving additional revenue to be used on marketing initiatives or given back to the DAO
• Assistance with front-end copywriting, SEO optimization, and user flows.
• Brand-focused written content一advocating through product-motivated messaging for the DAO’s bespoke products and values.
Drawbacks
The main potential risk is whether the ShapeShift community believes that the KPI’s and marketing strategy outlined above and its associated costs + benefits will be worth it AND achievable in the 6-month timeline. There is an elephant in the room that is important to address regarding the prior volatility of the marketing workstream and its ability to deliver and communicate effectively across the DAO一especially with the reduction of staffing. As the Web3 industry grows, so do the competition and density of other platforms in the space. It is important that you can trust the skills and abilities this team has and independently evaluate whether you think it is the right blend for what the DAO needs right now. To mitigate exposure risk, only six months of funding are being requested. The funds will be managed on Colony and can be revoked by the DAO via another governance motion.
Vote
FOR: A vote “FOR” indicates support for funding the Marketing Workstream and the anticipated budget for the next 6 months
AGAINST: A vote “AGAINST” indicates that you do not support funding the proposed Marketing Workstream
