PR, Marketing and Communcations Firm

Community Treasury
1

We’d like to propose the engagement of a crypto-focused PR, marketing and communications firm to drive awareness of the Rally project through daily strategic content marketing (for example, bylines, blog, creator and product launch materials, promotional videos, newsletter and more), media relations, creator support, and event management (weekly community video call, key speaking opportunities and community meet-ups).

While the future potential of the Rally Network is strong, we feel it is essential to continue a strong pace of marketing and growth activities to benefit and grow awareness of the Rally Network. The Rally team is a group of seasoned professionals who understand that strong and strategic PR, marketing and communications can be instrumental to the continued success of any project. We’d like to propose that the Rally community approve of the engagement of a PR firm to work for the benefit of the Rally Network, with funding for the engagement to come from the Community Treasury, and experienced Rally team members to select the firm and manage the work on a day-to-day basis.

We believe that it is essential to this engagement that the Rally community assess the success of the services, review KPIs, and authorize the continuation of the activities, with the power to adjust or cancel the engagement as desired. As part of the proposal, the Rally team will pre-fund the Community Treasury with $60k, during which time the community will have ample time to start measuring and evaluating these PR activities.

We strongly believe that strategic communications will drive the success of the overall Rally project, including additional influential creator sign-ups and consumer participation, as well as establishing trust, transparency and affinity with crypto press and thought-leaders. We’d like to propose a recurring grant from the Community Treasury - up to a max of $20k/mo - to retain a PR firm to elevate the Rally Network’s external presence in a few key areas:

  1. Global Content Marketing:
  • Develop and syndicate multi-media content that grows awareness for project, creators and community including top tier creators announcements, case studies, and bylines
  • Create and disseminate a regular flow of information and news on the project through Rally blog, newsletter and weekly video call
  • Create content and marketing materials to support key creator and product launches

Key Deliverables: High quality multimedia content including almost daily blog content and weekly newsletter that features creator, community, product and network news and case studies. Grow key metrics for blog and newsletter. Creator Coin launch videos measured in views across social media. Ancillary product or network marketing materials evaluated by views where applicable.

  1. Global Media Relations
  • Actively developing and writing narratives/ story angles to drive awareness and support for the project and participating creators and community.
  • Partner with top tier creators to publicly announce and launch their Creator Coin
  • Create regular creator spotlight program to grow awareness of individual Creator Coin
  • Identify and pitch case studies featuring a myriad of creators spanning multiple sectors
  • Actively pitching Rally to crypto and mainstream media for inclusion in larger pieces or standalone stories heralding Rally project, participating creators and community.
  • Developing and maintaining custom media lists across multiple sectors specific to Rally
  • Create Thought Leadership program to help insert key Rally leadership into industry conversations across social media, events, press interviews, bylines and more
  • Developing high level talking points for senior Rally team members

Key Deliverables: Regular drumbeat of positive media coverage in multiple sectors (US and global blockchain press (including CoinDesk, DeFiant, DeCrypt, CoinTelegraph, Bankless), consumer tech press (including TechCrunch, Mashable, VentureBeat, The Verge), business press (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Bloomberg, Reuters), consumer press (USA TODAY, Buzzfeed, People, Associated Press, Today show) and specific verticals (like esports/gaming and music).

  1. Global Events Management
  • Develop a robust speaking event calendar for core Rally team members that span podcasts, crypto summits, meet-ups, and top-tier consumer events.
  • Actively pitch Rally for key speaking events/podcast including preparing submissions
  • Develop regular cadence of Meet Up events for Rally Community including a weekly video community call.
  • Partner with community to create and deliver larger events to highlight key themes of the project to grow leadership position

Key Deliverables: Prominent keynote and panel speaking events for core Rally team members including SF Blockchain Week, Korea Blockchain Week, Token 2049, Singapore Blockchain Week, Asia Crypto Summit, Paris Blockchain Week, CES, Vidcon, SXSW and more. Weekly video call with Rally team to highlight new creators, walk community through product and network updates, Q&A with community.

Summary and KPIs

The community should actively vet the results to justify continued monthly spend based on the following KPIs:

  • Content Marketing: weekly newsletter, weekly video call, nearly daily blog posts, 2-3 bylines a month. Engaged firm will track and report key growth metrics (newsletter subscribers, blog subscribers)
  • Speaking: 3-5 quality speaking engagements per month with the possibility of more
  • Media Relations: 5 or more press articles per month with the possibility of more based on news. For example, the Keisuke announcement drove more than 100 articles, Rally launch drove more than 150. Engaged firm will track and share coverage through Discord and provide regular updates during weekly community call.

This would be the largest treasury grant proposed to date. That said, we strongly believe that a tightly managed PR firm will lead to significant growth in the Rally Network through new creator sign-ups, increased global crypto awareness of the Rally project, and greater Creator Coin interest.

To summarize, we are contemplating a proposal for the Community Treasury to spend up to $20k/mo towards the engagement of a PR firm, with the Rally team selecting the firm and managing the work on a day-to-day basis. The Rally team will provide $60K to the Community Treasury as a grant to assist with funding core strategic initiatives like this one. Assuming this proposal passes, the community could decide to adjust or terminate this contract as desired.

Let’s discuss!

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2

Thanks Mahesh for spearheading this.

While everyone has been focused on building the core infrastructure and some light marketing in terms of speaking events, we haven’t had the resources to truly get the word out about this project. Our efforts thus far have focused on 1:1 reachout to Creators and Brands because of how early the project is, but this isn’t scalable.

With Thursday’s release of Community Activity Rewards, coupled with our Developer Ecosystem progress, I think we should be investing more and more into growing the overall market awareness of the project.

I’m also glad we addressed some of the community members’ concern about cost. I’m in favor of the proposal

1 Like
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Thanks Mahesh.

Hello everyone, my name is Todd Smith. I am so excited to be apart of this amazing creative community. I am in a Gospel group called Selah. We have sold 4 Million albums/singles, and have over Half-A-Billion streams over our career. I started getting interested in crypto in 2017.

I see the potential Rally has to impact the music industry in Nashville and around the world. As someone who grew up in Congo, Africa for 8 years I see the potential crypto has to give businesses in lower income countries around the world the opportunity to compete. The average income in Congo is $400/year. Imagine what could happen for a Congolese artist who has a platform on Rally. Has access to millions of people as the community grows. Is able to access video designers through the Creator Coin community, work with a producer in Holland to make great music, collaborate with another artist with a bigger platform on Twitch, Youtube…, and use their coins as an exchange for these services. They could sign other Congolese artists and give them a platform to create their art and make income that would benefit their families and local communities. There is so much potential.

My music group Selah was one of the first music groups to have our own Creator Coin (3CR8). Selah and myself have also steaked in Rally’s vaults so we are in this for the long term. Our latest album, Step Into My Story, just released last week. It was #1 on the Gospel Charts and #25 on the top 200 Chart. Because we are in Nashville (Music City) our publicist (Marushka Media) has a lot of connections with Billboard Magazine, Music Row, and Variety to name a few. We were just featured in Billboard and Music Row because of our 2 Dove Award (Gospel version of the Grammy’s) win last week.

We are announcing our 3CR8 coin next week. Now that PayPal is on board more people are starting to trust or become more familiar with crypto. We fear what we don’t know or understand. I believe Selah will be able to bring a lot of artists who have millions of followers into this community, but there is a huge learning curve for those artists. Many think crypto is sketchy at best.

I could see Kevin, Mahesh, Kurt, and others from the Rally team flying into Nashville to meet with artist managers in pop, country (Selah was signed to Curb Records for 20 years) and gospel to show how this platform will benefit their artists. If you can convince managers the artists will be more inclined to join knowing the team they trust will help them fine tune and create value on Rally. Those meetings would be easy to set up. The Rally team could also come during the CMA Fest/Awards, K-Love Awards, and Dove Awards to to share. Maybe Rally looks at doing so sponsorships at these events to raise awareness and connect with artists directly.

I agree that Rally needs a PR team that specializes in crypto to set all of that up. After Napster the music industry is looking for ways to monetize and reach more fans globally. A PR team could really help convince the music industry press by giving them content to share and answering questions about any skepticism they have. That PR team could team connect with PR firms in Nashville like Marushka Media and other music PR firms to connect with media and the artists those PR firms work with.

Having promotional videos that I can send to my artist friends directly would be really powerful. It would help ensure that artists like myself art communicating Rally’s message clearly. Content that is easy to understand and that shows an artist/management team how they can connect with their fans and create value with their coin will be really helpful.

Selah has done one concert since March. Our 11 show Christmas tour is down to one show. We are alive and healthy, so I am grateful, but no one knows what 2021 holds. Rally could be a catalyst for the music industry joining the crypto world in greater numbers. If tours are cancelled/postponed and crowds are limited because of social distancing, Management companies are going to be looking for new streams of revenue. If a PR firm can help the artists/managers see how that would work it could create a lot of growth and awareness for Rally.

Selah will be announcing some really great campaigns related to our 3CR8 coin by the end of this year and next spring. We believe it will bring fans to Rally.

The Rally community is a giving community. We plan on giving a portion to non profits we have been a part of for over 20 years, including OneChild.org. It’s a child sponsorship program that comes along side families to help feed, educate, clothe, and tutor their children. Our manager, Marcus Rixon, is from Kolkata, India. He was a sponsored child through One Child for 14 years, so it’s very personal for us. His sister was sponsored for 13 years. She has two masters degrees and pours back into children every day in her community in Kolkata. Being able to show our fans how Creator Coin is benefitting others will help them believe this crypto space.

We own our album that just went #1. This is the first time we have owned our music in 24 years! We have worked hard the past two years researching the label side and building relationships with Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora (60 Million people listen Pandora). We have created a great album vocally and musically, but without our publicist (Marushka Media) and FIFO Collective (social media marketing company) we would not be where we are.

All that to say I affirm what Mahesh is saying and I believe it will only help to grow this amazing community of creators if we bring on a crypto-focused PR firm.

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