Bitcoin needs a marketeer

[jim618]

I have been talking to my family over Christmas and have come to the realisation that we really need a marketing professional to help us promote Bitcoin. At the moment it seems like we have 100 nerds trying to explain to the general public why Bitcoin is <insert nerdy techno-babble here>. An experienced marketing professional will do the job 10 times better than these 100 ever will.

So here is an advert that outlines what this "job" entails:

Wanted:  Experienced marketing professional wanted to persuade humanity to use Bitcoin. No remuneration,
but it will look fantastic on your resume. The project has a 50/50 chance of success. If successful, you will dine out on this success for years to come. If not, well, you will go down in a blaze of brilliant flame - Icarus will take second place.

In order to help you succeed, you will be able to draw upon the collective expertise of a phalanx of professional developers and enthusiasts.

Your marketing budget will be zero, unless you can raise some.

The world's banking institutions will want you to fail, unless you can win them round.

The world's governments will want you to fail, but Bitcoin will free their people.

Overcome these challenges and you will become famous.

[paraipan]

lol, we should put it on craigslist

[julz]

I think we need improvements in Bitcoin clients for mobiles before we need more marketing.

My family and friends use a mixture of iPhones and android devices.

If.. in a matter of minutes I can install a bitcoin wallet app which has an integrated QR scanner (or launches existing QR app),
and if I can then perform small demo spends between android and iPhone without
a) waiting 10 mins or so for block inclusion
b) paying a proportionally large fee even on a small amount such as 0.01 BTC

then..  I think Bitcoin has a chance to grow much more rapidly.


I've tried a few times to do some demos on friends/family phones and it's been a pretty tedious and flaky experience so far.
Full blockchain download on mobiles is a non-starter except for enthusiasts or people who specifically know about and want a local blockchain.

Wallet apps also need to explain 'where' the bitcoin private keys are kept, both in a detailed manner for the techies, but also in a user-friendly manner for the average user - at least enough to know things like:
a) if my phone is thrown in the sea do my bitcoins disappear with it
b) if the company providing the wallet goes out of business - do my bitcoins disappear with it
c) is there a way I can just hit a button, enter a password and backup/restore my wallet using a cloud service something like dropbox.

To me these things seem like basics that need to work - or the marketing is largely wasted.

[jim618]

Yes I agree that the user experience for introducing bitcoins to users is still a bit flakey.   With the skills we have amoungst the current 'bitcoiners' I am pretty sure this will improve over time though.

One of my family works for a multinational and explained that they have a person dedicated to 'credentialing' future products two years before the product launch.   Apparently this person introduces the ideas/needs that the product will address into the target market long, long before it is launched.

It made me realise we have all these techies working on improving Bitcoin at the technical level, but virtually none of us know the Art of Marketing. To recruit even a single person who knows this area inside out would be beneficial overall I think.

[julz]

It made me realise we have all these techies working on improving Bitcoin at the technical level, but virtually none of us know the Art of Marketing. To recruit even a single person who knows this area inside out would be beneficial overall I think.

Well I agree some marketing will be good to have some time.. but I think weusecoins.com is pretty good - and in fact perhaps too good. Same with some other videos from crowds like bit-pay & cryptoexchange.
We're *already* marketing at a level that seems above what can be delivered in terms of convenience.

[jim618]

That is a valid point - to promise a slick "Mercedes Benz" user experience and then deliver less than that gives a very poor impression.

(I am not criticising any of the bitcoin solutions mentioned - I know we are all trying to make things as good as possible but we are definitely not there yet).

It is just that I would hate us to get to the point where we have everything rock solid and then we lose, say, 6 months because we should have started <insert well known marketing technique none of us know about> earlier.

[farfiman]

We're *already* marketing at a level that seems above what can be delivered in terms of convenience.

I agree,  one thing we don't need is novices having bad experiences with bitcoin as it is today.
 

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I offer up this only 3:02 video to hopefully address this marketing issue. Please take the time to view it in its entirety to get the full impact at the end. This guy is the marketers guru's guru. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cELuBcZxmKk

I've read that we're back to that chicken and egg thingy. A marketer would say forget about the smartphones for a second and concentrate on Bitcoin's other strengths, e.g., online transactions which are quick enough for direct purchases. As this aspect evolves, somebody will come along and develop that uber-smartphone APP for Bitcoin, albeit it's even being worked on as we type and read.

If I was a great marketer and read this ad, my wheels would spin in the following direction. Take up this marketing position by joining BitcoinTalk, thereby having a community behind me. I would stake at least a 10K BTC claim knowing that my investment would more than double in a relatively short period of time all due to my marketing efforts. In fact, I would get one of my marketing buddies to do the same thing, thereby combining our marketing knowing to hedge my, now ours, investment. (BTW, this thought has nothing to do with the video which I encourage you to view)

~Bruno~

[btc_artist]

I don't think bitcoin needs marketing until we have something better to offer in terms of desktop and mobile clients, and mobile clients fully support easy-to-use POS transactions.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I don't think bitcoin needs marketing until we have something better to offer in terms of desktop and mobile clients, and mobile clients fully support easy-to-use POS transactions.

Exactly.  Right now Bitcoin is "rough around the edges".  It is functional but hardly user friendly.  Spending resources trying to get everyone's brother, sister, and grandmother using Bitcoin is not only futile it is likely counter productive. 

The first time they lose coins because they didn't realize that deleting wallet.dat was bad they will not use Bitcoin and they will call it a scam, a trick, a piece of shit, a good way to lose money .... etc.

The first time their Mt. Gox account gets hacked the same thing happens.
the first time they naively pay a seller "100 BTC upfront" without escrow and the person disapears the same thing happens.

There will be a time when Bitcoin is ready for mass adoption but it isn't today.  The good news is Bitcoin can continue to grow filling niche cases, and being adopted by tech savy users.

[bitcoinbetas]

I have been talking to my family over Christmas and have come to the realisation that we really need a marketing professional to help us promote Bitcoin. At the moment it seems like we have 100 nerds trying to explain to the general public why Bitcoin is <insert nerdy techno-babble here>. An experienced marketing professional will do the job 10 times better than these 100 ever will.

So here is an advert that outlines what this "job" entails:

Wanted:  Experienced marketing professional wanted to persuade humanity to use Bitcoin. No remuneration,
but it will look fantastic on your resume. The project has a 50/50 chance of success. If successful, you will dine out on this success for years to come. If not, well, you will go down in a blaze of brilliant flame - Icarus will take second place.

In order to help you succeed, you will be able to draw upon the collective expertise of a phalanx of professional developers and enthusiasts.

Your marketing budget will be zero, unless you can raise some.

The world's banking institutions will want you to fail, unless you can win them round.

The world's governments will want you to fail, but Bitcoin will free their people.

Overcome these challenges and you will become famous.

This basically sums up why Bitcoins hasn't taken off mainstream lol

[proudhon]

Somebody get Don Draper on the phone!

[phatsphere]

An experienced marketing professional will do the job 10 times better than these 100 ever will.

not true, geeks can also learn how to talk to other people.

watch this video and educate yourself:
http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

[Brunic]

I don't think bitcoin needs marketing until we have something better to offer in terms of desktop and mobile clients, and mobile clients fully support easy-to-use POS transactions.

Bingo!

I've studied marketing at university, and had a couple of jobs in that domain(salesman, market surveys, sport promotion, business plan, etc). I know this domain pretty well.

btc_artist is spot on. You would be amazed about the lack of knowledge and fear that general people have with computers. You guys know that "google" is one of the top searches in Google?

Bitcoin have many "interfaces" problems. First, it's really long to start the first time. Yeah, I know, it download the block chain, but for somebody who don't know about it, they just see it as "it's long".

Ok, so now you have Bitcoin installed. Where is the button "Get Bitcoins"?. I can't use them if I don't have some. And opening your browser to go to MtGox/Virtex/whatever, making an account, validating that account, copying your bitcoin address and funding your account to buy Bitcoins is not something easy for a newcomer. It looks like a mountain of hard work and time to invest that they're not interested in doing.

And we're not talking about the wallet security yet. We don't need a Bitcoin wallet, we need a Bitcoin safe. The unbreakable kind, with a way to be able to manage many wallet on the same computer without moving the file each time and risking of overwriting wallet.dat. We need to offer better tools for people with a lack of skills.

The main competitors of Bitcoin on the Internet is Paypal and credit card payments. If Bitcoin is not as easy-to-use than those ones, don't bother with the mass market.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

An experienced marketing professional will do the job 10 times better than these 100 ever will.

not true, geeks can also learn how to talk to other people.

watch this video and educate yourself:
http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

That video was going to be the very next video I was going to link to in this thread. Thanks for beating me to the punch, phatsphere.

~Bruno~
 

[phatsphere]

Thanks for beating me to the punch…

VICTORYYYY

[Daily Anarchist]

I wouldn't worry too much about promoting Bitcoin in general. I would focus more on offering whatever goods/services you can in Bitcoin. If you have a financial stake in Bitcoin, Bitcoin will be promoted by default. We need more businesses willing to accept Bitcoin as payment.

[Matthew N. Wright]

BitTalk Media is at your service.

[ineededausername]

I think we need a "Bitcoin Wizard," a site that lets "normal people" scroll through the typical newbie's learning process in about 5 minutes.
1. What is Bitcoin? (don't talk about the blockchain, talk about tangible benefits like tiny fees, international banking, instant transfer, no chargebacks)
2. Get a Bitcoin "account"/address (which term is better?)
3. Buy bitcoins
4. How to use it

[Phinnaeus Gage]

From this list http://www.marketingminds.com.au/features/gurus.html

I picked this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ7EG58J5eo

WOW! Part 3 is good! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N-1NzS4OJk&feature=related

Going to watch Part 4 now.