This post is not the DHF marketing proposal post! I will be sharing all the information on the marketing agency campaign created for us in the discord channel, link below, and i will be asking for community feedback before i create the final proposal.
BACKGROUND:
I have been working with a number of marketing agencies in these last 2 months to create a suitable marketing proposal for HIVE. Marketing has been a big talking point for years now with no solid efforts to bring it to HIVE (or STEEM). Instead we had to satisfy ourselves with the ages old „if you build it they will come. Forgetting that „if no one hears about it, no one will come.“
That is why i find this proposal essential.
There were plenty of obstacles along the way during these last few month while discussing HIVE with a number of these agencies. I overestimated my abilities a bit by thinking i would be able to deliver in a week what hasnt been done in 5 years. It took me a little under 2 months and i consider ourselves lucky with the strict crypto advertising requirements still in place.
Some agencies were interested initially until i started mentioning that we are „an alternative free-speech platform“.
Some were interested until i mentioned cryptocurrencies.
Some were interested completely to the level i was feeling i was talking to an answering machine instead of a person due to their overwhelming positive attitude void of any concern.
Some had too many projects per individual employee so i turned them down...
Some simply didnt understand what HIVE was....etc.
After going through about a dozen of them i think i found the perfect match for HIVE. „Ignite Visibility“.
This agency seems professional, experienced, is open to new tech, has a number of crypto enthusiast employees (some familiar with STEEM) and has a number of high class clients, off the top of my head, Oprah, Tony Robbins.
THE FOCUS i decided on for the campaign initially (can be adjusted through feedback) was introducing the HIVE ecosystem, its censorship resistance aspect, high ROI, potential to earn cryptocurrencies for content creators just for creating; through Hive.io and Hiveonboard.com, email and influencer marketing to investors (open to risk taking and new tech), users (content creators, gamers) and developers (social media, gaming) while monitoring on chain statistics and click through towards exchange and dapp links.
I decided against promoting individual dapps directly and instead promoting them as a part of the whole due to limits of the budget and the fairness aspect of using “everyones funds to only promote a part of HIVE”.
There are ofc some very successful dapps on HIVE that are self-sustaining with booming communities which is why ive left it as a possibility for them to join this campaign individually with a lower than mandatory minimum budget for this agency. We would simply add them to this campaign.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Because the DHF has gotten so much criticism already over wasteful spending, I want to make it clear, this proposal is something im doing for HIVE because ive been here for years and because HIVE/STEEM gave me and taught me so much already.
I will not ask for any compensation myself but will instead leave it to the community vote of those providing feedback to decide the level of compensation, if any. Also, if in any way there is lack of trust for my side in handling the proposal payments, which would in turn affect the chances of this proposal passing, i will be more than willing to make one of the larger, more trusted accounts like
or 
be the recepient of the funds and make them responsible for making payments towards the agency themselves, if any of them is willing.
HIVE needs marketing. HIVE needs a team of experienced professionals. This is it.
All the information on the campaign will be provided in the discord channel.
Im looking forward to your feedback.