Rebooting the Unofficial User Funded Steemit Billboard Campaigns: Starting in Washington, USA
1. Around 9 months ago, Steem marketing was at full power and users were funding billboards all over the world, but after the price problems, that stopped. It's time to get them going again!
Way back when Steemit was booming and the price was upwards of $3-$4, users were jumping up left and right to help the growth of Steemit.com and the Steem blockchain, there was billboards going up around the world, videos being made, referral encouragement and everything you could ever ask for in a self driven community, but then came the ever so rude dump that eventually took us all the way down to .10... well that might be why we haven't seen much about Steemit billboards in the past 7 months since then.
Well good news folks, the price has rebounded and I have just gotten off the phone with Clear Channel aka Lamar and will be getting a billboard or two here in the next couple weeks near my home, as well as funding a Zappl billboard soon after (for launch). And that is why I am writing this post, I hope to use the profits from this post to fund the Zappl billboard, if at all possible. (If you do not know what Zappl is please see this post: https://steemit.com/steemit/@decentralizd/a-steem-powered-world-why-steem-powered-projects-are-the-future-of-social-media-the-attention-economy-is-real-and-you-deserve-a )
2. The billboard campaign I will be running will start off with 1 billboard, and hopefully steamroll from there. The possibilities are endless.
To get the ball rolling without too much risk on my end, I will be starting off with a mid tier billboard near my home, then gradually moving deeper into the inner city, where the billboards will cost much much more, but also have more reach. Overtime I hope to move out of my state and into other demographics but first things first for me; get every Washingtonian to use Steemit.com, or at the very least be aware of its existence. This will help not only with user growth but with overall acceptance of crypto currencies in general, as Steemit makes the PERFECT crypto onboarding platform.
3. The design aesthetic will be as such, many different designs will be placed around the world for this concept and most will relate to the user focused content side of things, and well, getting paid for good content.
The first design is the one at the very top of this post, but I don't plan to reuse the same design every time we get another billboard, but then again, they can be saved and re-used to save on a few costs, printing time and what not... Either way the campaign will have multiple designs and all of them will be focused on 'user generated content' & 'getting paid to be social', as in my mind those statements will be the best way to resonate to middle class americans who all have internet, use social media and upload things daily, but may not have the best of incomes or the best of reasons to continually use social media, so we are simply trying to tackle those concepts here.
4. When does it begin? When will the first, second & third billboards be live?
I am in the process of getting the first billboard up, but the process is slow, I was asked by my the salesman I have known for quite some time to drive the billboards I would like to get prior to signing up for them to make sure they have a solid amount of traffic and I will be getting solid returns on them. As I stated previously, I plan to start int he more suburban areas but continue moving the billboards closer and closer to Downtown Seattle where the costs can be as high as 10x more per board. So it's smart to start smaller here, to get the most out of the funding, then gradually build up as we go and have more support.
Each billboard can run 1 month, or 3 months, depending on the contract and terms agreed upon. I will make sure to get a deal anywhere I can and if that includes 3 month terms I have no issue doing this.
Here is a map of other possible locations closer to the heart of Seattle, as you can see there is MANY options.
5. What can I do to help? How can I run my own billboard campaign?
A simply upvote, resteem or share is all very much appreciated, but if you are searching to go above and beyond and start your own campaign, help fund someone else's, or simply write about how awesome Steemit billboards are, you are the reason things like this are possible and we all appreciate you!
If you are looking to get into your own Billboard campaign, first thing I would suggest is to have $2,000-$5,000 laying around at a minimum, or start fund raising as these campaigns can get quite spendy quite fast. My last campaign we ran with Lamar was upwards of $80,000 for a handful of boards spanning months and produced quite a jump in business for a local store. Visit http://www.lamar.com/ to learn more and get your ducks in a row, oh and their salesman are all super helpful as well! I know there are other companies out there, this is just who I regularly use.
So what are you waiting for guys? Lets get busy! Steem is relying on us to get the user count even higher, and I for one accept that challenge.
Checkout my other recent posts if you missed them!
Have YOU voted for Steem yet in the FINAL ROUND of Bobby Lee's (BTCC) Twitter Poll? If not, please do.
Does your Facebook job still say you are a Steemit Blogger, a year later? Cause mine does! (Ps. Invite your friends!)
(A Steem Powered World) Why Steem-powered projects are the future of Social Media.. the attention economy is real and you deserve a portion of it.
5 Simple & Easy Steemit Tricks to Help Your Posts Earn More, from a Professional Marketer. [Fire Emoji]
Don't forget to follow, upvote and re-steem!
Great mock-ups!!
Thank you sir! I plan to do around 20 designs for my second billboard and let people vote via comments, also will be doing a @Zappl focused billboard, or possibly multiple. So those might be a completely new design, I'm thinking heavy whites/blues/cartoony lightning and a big fat "FU TWITTER. DELETE THIS, OH WAIT YOU CAN'T!"
Not too sure if billboards are all that effective though, as in conversion and cost performance. Will probably perform better digitally.. but what do i know about marketing xD
If we have the right message, we have access to thousands of eyeballs everyday, and I think we can covert quite nicely. I recently helped a storefront do +300% business in 3 months via Billboard, discounts and the right message. I think we can do something similar. Either way, its better than the amount of marketing we have going on right now :P
I applaud the idea to advertise for Steemit, but I do question the effectiveness of this. If I remember correctly, it cost around $20,000 last time. Do we have any idea how good of results were achieved? For that amount of money, are there other forms of marketing/advertising that would hit a target audience more effectively?
All great points, I'm buying a billboard either way though because it's my way of giving back to the Steemit community, and if more come after that, great, if not that is also fine. I have another idea I hope to take up soon but this one is much more passive and really just requires some funds, a small amount of my time for designing and calling, the rest is done by Lamar.
So for 1-3k I can get atleast more middle class folks to join Steemit and start posting, voting, earning, and sharing Steemit with their friends. Thats all I want to do, not going for the mass marketing campaign nearly as much as trying to help out my fellow Washingtonians!
Thanks for your response.
I feel much better about it after reading that :)
That was my plan all along, I just wanted to write about in order to raise some funds for my 2nd billboard :p Hopefully a Zappl focused one... selling Tweet 4 cash is much easier than write an essay for cash, ya know? :P
Awesome!
tweeted
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
Thank you very much sir!
Feel free to retweet this:
https://twitter.com/Decentralizd/status/866732485211639808
Done. And thanks.
No, thank you!
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
love this , following along! +
Thank you sir! I can see this being quite the long term campaign honestly.
I look forward to see images of any billboard!!!! Thanks for all that you do!
I can do a mockup in Photoshop in a couple days after I choose the location and get a photo.
Drool.....that would be a lovely post. Thanks!
I'm liking where we are going with this! :)
Thanks good sir :D You're always supportive!
Hey man that's rad I live on Camano Island,in Washington state about an hour from seattle. Not many billboards out here but I would love to see one that would be a trip.
great news....
Brilliant idea I'm on board...
I'm glad you concur!