I want to preface this by saying I am quite tired, so I apologise if anything I write is hard to understand.
I want to weigh in with my feedback on the marketing aspect. Overall, I do also understand and somewhat agree with the concerns on why increase the competition for lending platforms on the network, however I think this is heavily dependant on consumer expectations.
How this ties into marketing is I think it is incredibly important to streamline your brand, UX/UI, messaging and such to properly communicate your specific, differentiating use case, to the consumers who you expect to use it. There are amazing products out there that aren’t used because they don’t reach their optimal end user, and I fear that especially with the upcoming release of ShadeLend and SiennaLend, that you will see a similar scenario surface; people won’t have the information readily available to them to understand the value that your specific product brings, in contrast to or even in combination with the other aforementioned products.
Managing these expectations is key, as building the most unique product doesn’t matter if people don’t see it from the perspective/angle you do. And, without understanding or at least attempting to reach your market segment, this will be difficult to achieve, especially in light of the traction that Shade specifically has gathered - Sienna not so much.
Marketing isn’t just about promotional materials, making advertisements, shilling, etc. The main responsibility of a marketer imo in the current corporate world should be to accurately empathise with the consumer to maximise both the impact and effectiveness of your products value offering; Marketing is the business practice/application of empathy, translating empathy into a valuable, mutually beneficial, professional trait.
I think even if you are to utilise the Secret Agents to create exposure for your product, understanding how to maximise the impact of the agents during a promotional campaign is valuable, then how do they interact with your posts/twitter account, what’s their experience on your landing page, do you have a way to retain users/convey the specific use case of your product in an easy to digest way that will resonate with the user, etc could be angles for which having a marketing budget might be helpful.
Saying all this, I’m not 100% sure what would be the most effective way to deploy any budget you would allocate to marketing, and maybe that’s where it could be helpful to touch base with other marketing focused individuals in the community for some feedback.
Anyway, this was a bit of a ramble, apart from that very interested in how things turn out
Sorry if anything was difficult to understand, hope this is somewhat thought provoking!
Have a wonderful day/night <3