Hey Lions, When I started writing this post it was about one thing, and then it went another direction, and another, and wasn't what I started at all. I started to 2nd guess posting the post at all.. But what the hell, this is where my mind went when thinking about discussing Khal's recent marketing efforts! LOL.
Recently Khal has been making the rounds on Crypto Pod Casts and Interviews and many other initiatives and it's great when a project begins to get name and brand recognition, but how do companies evaluate the effectiveness of Marketing projects, and how they often lead future company goals.
Let's define which elements of marketing we are talking about for the sake of this post. Marketing is everything from Packaging (logos, fonts and UIs) to evaluating potential markets and target markets, competitive pricing and a lot more.
Everyone's favorite idea of Marketing though is PR and Advertising and that's what I want to talk about today.
Many will say things like, "Marketing Doesn't Work" and they will explain this by saying things like. When I see a McDonald's commercial, I don't run out and buy a Big Mac. They are probably right, because marketing is more subtle than that.
Brand Awareness
Our brain literally behaves differently when it sees something familiar versus something unknown. It's an evolutionary response, which keeps us alive, we subconsciously separate things we don't know and things that are a threat and things that are not threatening to our survival, no amount of "thinking" can rewire this initial response.
For most humans something becomes familiar after hearing or seeing it 4 to 7 times. In marketing they call this Brand Awareness and it lowers the level of resistance our brains have to foreign ideas, products and concepts. (think now of scrolling down twitter and seeing PolyCub mentioned 4 to 8 times, and you get a concept of the point) Brand Awareness is difficult to judge effectiveness without spending a lot of money evaluating how people feel about your product, where they saw it, etc.
"Call To Action" Campaigns
Many marketing and PR campaigns also include a "Call to Action" directly or indirectly. A Call to Action is when you include an instruction like: Go Sign Up, or Check out our Site, Buy One of These .. etc. You are literally asking your audience to do something. This type of marketing is the easiest to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign. Did the Audience do the Thing?
Many advertisers believe once you have created a reasonable amount of brand awareness, all future marketing initiatives should have a specific "Call To Action" so one can judge and evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign.
With a young product in a young space, Brand Awareness is an important first step and usually takes some time to show any impact, as people see and respond to the Brand over time.
However, already with Khal out and about we are seeing some increased sign ups and once a user has signed up, they move out of the marketing umbrella.
Once a campaign leads to a sign up, the game changes, and as someone I knew used to say, Marketing and Sales can bring people to the table, it's customer service that keeps them there. That's right, if the marketing works, let's say the "Call to Action" is to make an account, from there the job is handed off to the community.
With an increased focus on getting people to sign up the goal now changes from attracting people to retaining people. Which means to create a positive experience.
People Enjoy Doing What They Feel Good At, and What is Fun!
At this point the job of turning sign ups into loyal community members belongs to the community, and means being welcoming, teaching, helping and engaging with the users who come here to learn, earn and grow.
Many in our community have been around and learned so many things they forget the strange set of Hive Rules are not published anywhere, so when people arrive they treat it like social media as they have been told, so be thoughtful and encouraging in correcting people who misuse tags and share posts they found interesting.
Seek out some new users and educate, encourage and engage!
Disclaimer
So, as I said, this post started out with some thoughts on what we should expect to see from increased marketing, PR efforts and went several directions, seemingly related to the life-cycle of a potential users. lol. I'm just going to stop writing it now.
