[BIP-394] Fund Beethoven X DAO - Marketing for Aug - Dec

PR with Payload

https://github.com/BalancerMaxis/multisig-ops/pull/431

Service Provider Name: Beethoven X DAO - Marketing

Core Contributor(s): JediRasta, Naly, Jeff, Vee, Skly, Tom, Josey, Ardordo

Pledge to abide by the DAO’s Code of Conduct 1 (or link to your own): Yes

Pledge to abide by the Accountability Guidelines: Yes

Introduction & Domains of Operation:

On April 25th, 2023 the Beethoven X DAO engaged as an official Service Provider for the Balancer ecosystem.

Initially, the primary focus of this commitment was to provide Balancer with support in technical areas with a secondary focus to provide support to Orb Co with content and social media. This engagement was contracted for the period of May 1, 2023 - July 31, 2023; specific details can be found in BIP-254.

Shortly after the ratification of BIP-254, changes were made to key service providers contributing to the Balancer ecosystem; namely the dissolution of Orb Co and its contribution towards marketing-related services.

To help maintain consistent output for Balancer’s marketing, the Beethoven X DAO stepped in to fulfill the role Orb Co provided. Consequently, modifications were made to BIP-254 to account for the additional services/responsibilities relating to marketing services. [BIP-314] outlines the most recent parameters defining the services provided by the Beethoven X DAO.

As part of its implementation, a key change to the service provider arrangement was the distinct separation of services provided by the Beethoven X DAO into 2 independent proposals: technical and marketing services.

As the current funding period for [BIP-314] is coming to an end, this proposal seeks to extend funding for marketing services for the period of August 1, 2023 - December 31, 2023.

Key Objectives & Success Metrics:

Over the past 3 months, the marketing efforts of Beethoven X have been focused on building a foundation to adequately fill the role previously occupied by Orb and subsequently to showcase Balancer as a highly relevant player in DeFi.

To achieve this we have focused our energy on developing the following areas:

1. Social Media
2. Core Growth Pillars
3. Brand Development
4. Long-Term Initiatives

Below we have outlined the intention for these initiatives with relevant KPIs for their measurement/success.

1. Social Media

Twitter is a key platform for Balancer to reach its target audience and build brand awareness.

Goal: To build relevancy for the Balancer brand and increase reach on Twitter.

Strategies:

• Consistent threads focused around the core growth pillars identified with BD to help ensure Balancer's content is relevant and informative to its target audience.
• Building rapport with key partners in the space to increase network effect and help amplify Balancer's reach/visibility.
• Refining Balancer's visual style and tone of voice. This will help to create a more cohesive and professional brand identity.
• The inclusion of visual forms of educational content to help make Balancer's content more engaging and accessible.
• Social Media Launch campaigns for new Balancer chain deployments.
• Community initiatives and a focus on increasing engagement. This will help to build a strong and engaged community around Balancer.

Content Library (May, 1st - present):

Content Library

KPIs:

• Twitter followers: The number of followers on Balancer's Twitter account.
• Tweet impressions: The number of times Balancer's tweets are seen.
• Engagement rate: The number of times Balancer's tweets are liked, retweeted, or replied to.
• Profile clicks: The number of times the profile is clicked per day.

Twitter analytics starting from May, 1st (SPs contract start date). This is the first set of quarterly data we have collected and will be used to create comparisons for future reports.

2. Core Growth Pillars

Balancer has identified four core growth pillars that are critical to the future success of its ecosystem. These pillars are:

• 8020
• LSTs: Liquid staked tokens (LSTs)
• Boosted Pools
• Building on Balancer

Goal: Drive education and awareness around the most important areas defining the Balancer ecosystem.

Strategies:

To promote each of these core growth pillars the following strategies have been implemented:

• 8020: Focused marketing efforts on highlighting the benefits of the 8020 model. Furthermore, an 8020 partnership initiative has been created to showcase successful case studies, facilitate co-marketing efforts, and build out an educational resource pack to help users learn more about the benefits.

  • Radiant 8020 Case Study
  • Aave 8020 Case Study
  • 8020 Initiative Article
  • 8020 Partnership Pack
  • 8020 Welcome Pack

• LSTs/Boosted Pools: Continued efforts to curate content that highlights the unique technology that sets Balancer apart. Specifically, for the means of hosting and facilitating the growth of LSTs as well as showcasing the power and effectiveness of Boosted Pools for facilitating ecosystem-wide liquidity growth.

  • Weekly Staked ETH update
  • LST liquidity Flywheel
  • Boosted Pool Breakdown
  • Balancer LST Hub

• Building on Balancer: Highlight the importance of protocols building on Balancer with content and development of a developer-focused landing page to provide specific content/material for builders to easily onboard into the Balancer ecosystem.

  • Ecosystem Launch Pad
  • Building on Balancer Thread
  • Inside Balancer Contracts Part 2
  • Inside Balancer Contracts Part 3

KPIs

To measure the success of its core growth pillars, the following KPIs have been tracked:

• 8020: The number of protocols that adopt the 8020 model.
• LST dominance: The percentage of LST liquidity that is hosted on Balancer.
• Building on Balancer: The number of developers who build new products and services on Balancer.

Analysis

• 8020: At the start of BIP-324 we set out to increase the number of protocols adopting an 8020 model from 8-15+ by the end of Q3. Currently, we have 15 protocols engaged with the 8020 initiative with a plan to onboard more over the next quarter.

• LST dominance: Our overarching goal for LSTs is for Balancer to become the dominant hub for YB assets. As a platform Balancer offers a tailor-made tech stack to facilitate the growth of LST liquidity and our expectations are to see LST dominance on Balancer increase over time. While we have continued to drive marketing material to educate users and protocols on the advantages of the Balancer LST tech stack, from the start of Q2 to the start of Q3 we saw the majority of YB assets hosted on Balancer actually decrease with the exception of sfrxETH (Ethereum), stMATIC (Polygon) and rETH (Optimism). While there may be multiple reasonings behind this, it seems likely the recent enabling of recovey mode, and the resulting reduction in core pool incentives has had a considerable effect.

• Building on Balancer: At the start of our service provider contract we had begun work on a developer-focused landing page. However, during the transition of Orb this project has seen less attention as our focus shifted to building a baseline for operations. With a baseline now in place, the goal for the next 3 months is to have completed a beta version of the Landing Page for the community to test out.

3. Brand Development

Goal: To help improve the overall design and UX for Balancer.

Strategies:

• The development and exploration of 2-3 refined brand aesthetics with UX/UI prototypes.
• Build out the Balancer developer landing page integrating new brand aesthetics.
• Incorporate a new look and feel into Twitter and content-related efforts.

Sample images of UI prototypes/design concepts.

4. Long-Term Initiatives

As we progress into our service provider role we have outlined 2 long-term marketing goals that we would like to pursue:

• Education (Balancer Media Hub)
• Community Development (Ambassador Program)

The first step in this regard will be to continue to work on developing more animated forms of educational content. We have piloted an initial series to highlight the key pillars driving balancer growth and this will serve as a foundation for more expansive forms of visual content. The first thread in this series will be released later this week.

Secondly, we will be working on a concept for an effective ambassador program. In alignment with the bounty board managed by the Balancer Maxis, the goal would be to create an initiative that encourages community participation and user-generated content through gamification/incentivization.

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These initiatives will continue to remain the core focus for our efforts moving into the next phase of our service provider contributions. The past three months have served as a foundation for us to assimilate into the Balancer ecosystem and build familiarity with people and processes.

Over the next 3 months, we would like to build on the foundation we have established and start to explore ways we can develop our marketing strategy to amplify our efforts / expand the awareness of the Balancer ecosystem.

Length of Engagement & Budget:

For the services described above, we are requesting an extension of the current funding outlined in [BIP-314] of $30K USDC for marketing-related services for the period of August 1, 2023, until December 31, 2023.

These funds will be used solely to cover contributor salaries and as such we request that this amount be made available in a liquid form.

If approved, $30,000 USDC or BAL equivalent would be sent to the below ETH address around the first of each month.

ETH Address to Receive Funds: 0x811912c19eEF91b9Dc3cA52fc426590cFB84FC86

Furthermore, in light of the discontinuation of funding for Coordinape, we are also requesting a supplementary budget of up to $5000 USDC per month to fund external marketing services (animations, design, content, etc). This would be held by the Balancer DAO and would only be requested on an as-needed basis. Spending would be capped at a maximum of $5000 USD for a given month and all expenditure will be recorded in a monthly budget breakdown.