[Consensus Check] Grant SFI to Expand Marketing Strategy

Previous Proposal
Previous Temperature Check

PROPOSAL

Saffron Finance - Expanded Marketing Strategy

210 SFI per quarter from the Treasury…

  • for additional personnel,
  • for international marketing, and
  • for domestic marketing.

ADDED STIPULATIONS

  • This proposal amount is subject to a quarterly review and renewal by the community (The community will revisit this proposal and decide whether we want to renew or modify it the week leading up to July 1st, 2021)
  • 25% of the quarterly allotment will be locked up until December 27, 2021

INTRODUCTION

A strong marketing budget encouraging more broad acceptance of Saffron is critical to the success and long term health of the protocol. Long term investors, institutions, and power users of DeFi typically recognize the benefits of Saffron but don’t necessarily know about it or how it works. Similarly, the complicated nature of this specific protocol can make average retail investors skittish. We have begun to employ our 2021 rollout strategy through creating the Academy - an accessible repository of educational information about Saffron and DeFi that is being built out to feature a wide range of multimedia content - and last month have started the process of expanding into international markets and territories - as recently seen at our event in Hangzhou.

Saffron’s marketing direction and scope are rapidly expanding (with the inclusion of the new Saffron Academy website, Saffron Academy Podcast, additional content for our international markets) and it necessitates onboarding additional marketing personnel - both domestic and international. These additional personnel will help take some of the workload off the original team and helps keep us at a healthy expansion rate. The core team has devoted a lot of time and effort into Saffron Academy and will continue to in the coming months, but again, this is only one facet of our marketing strategy and focus.

The items listed below are a combination of current responsibilities and Q2 goals for the marketing team. Meeting these deliverables will help give the community the ability to track the marketing team’s progress and effectiveness should this proposal be accepted.

TASKS AND GOALS

  • Saffron Academy (2 videos per week minimum)
  • Saffron Podcast (1 episode per week)
  • Creating/Managing Saffron Academy website
  • Coordinating with International marketing and bizdev teams (Working with our partners overseas)
  • Managing Saffron main homepage and educational materials
  • Communicating Saffron statistics via saffron.vision (info site similar to uniswap.info)
  • Managing in-person office
  • Managing governance: Discourse forum and Snapshot page
  • Managing Discord, Telegram, YouTube, and Twitter
  • Writing Saffron Academy and Saffron Medium articles
  • Collaborating with protocol partners for announcements and updates on new features and tech (Chainlink)
  • Collaborating with strategic partners on marketing materials and co-marketing events (APWine)
  • Collecting feedback and organizing user responses and critiques into effective decision-making facts for dev team to act on
  • Managing active relationships with investors, partners, guests, and academic research targets
  • Conducting market research and producing reports on focused topics relevant to the protocol’s success
  • Transcribing all relevant material for distribution to regional partners
  • Working with media outlets on public relations and press releases
  • Other marketing duties as assigned

STIPULATIONS

  • All Saffron project relevant data stored in a cloud location with redundant access in case of emergency or unforeseen circumstance.
  • All Academy content, deliverables, and anything else made by the marketing team for the expressed purpose of Saffron is considered open source and free to use and redistribute.
  • All marketing employees report directly to psykeeper every week with a log of their hours and duties performed.

WIP



Psykeeper’s Additions:

8_2

  1. A description of how the 210 SFI would be divided among the tasks and milestones described in Tasks and Goals

If I were to break it down then it would look something like this:

  • 50 SFI per quarter for personnel (existing and new hires)
  • 100 SFI per quarter for external marketing (exchanges, writers, and community builders)
  • 60 SFI per quarter for ongoing costs (everything outlined in “Tasks and Goals” and more)

One example of a cost which we forgot to mention is that Dingo is managing a physical office which serves as a headquarters for Saffron as well as a location for filming Saffron Academy videos and Saffron Podcast episodes. The office is a great value, for $600 a month we get:

  • Filming on-location in professional setting
  • 24/7 access to office facilities
  • Incredibly fast and stable business wi-fi for uploading content
  • Convenient location nearby local production companies
  • Meeting areas for potential clients
  • Business address for mailing (required for many of our partners)

I think the only SFI that would be immediately sent away would be the 100 SFI per quarter for external marketing and some small part of the 60 SFI per quarter for costs. External marketing firms and partners generally need some skin in the game to make their contributions meaningful. The majority of these 210 SFI would be held by personnel and liquid in the treasury for spending when needed.

Closing Thoughts

We have added two new stipulations (quarterly review and fund lockup) to the proposal, as that seems to be two common suggestions based on feedback from the previous two topics. Please vote in the Snapshot poll here:

https://snapshot.org/#/saffronfinance.eth/proposal/QmQ1ooGhdHXCMsq9FQ9xjkvLvfbeZXceojdDJznRtt3owU

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On the importance of marketing:

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