A clearly defined strategy for the marketing and kde-promo actions is essential in order for our efforts to be beneficial for KDE and its products so am looking forward to seeing this developing.

A question that rises here is: What does KDE expect from this initiative? Some relevant information is mentioned in the initial Call for Proposals for Marketing Support document.

But we probably need some clear goals that can be linked directly to tangible outcomes. I could come up with increasing:

• Donations
• Sales (Slimbook is now out, maybe more products on the way)
• Adoption of products
• Fllow of new contributors
• Publicity and awareness

Maybe you can think of something more or already discussed this someplace else in the past?

Of course all these are interconnected, but if we want to avoid being distracted we should really strive to define goals, come up with tactics to implement and find ways to measure their success.

For example we could set a period of 3-6 months and try to go for increasing donations in that time. Then the next 3-6 months go for luring in new contributors. These could obviously also be done in parallel, as long as we are aware and track each goal separately. At the end we can check what we achieved, what didn't work, what we can enhance, what to drop etc.

Doing this should lead to the kde-promo actions being beneficial where it counts and add long term value to KDE, having a direct impact on the success of both the community and its products.

The goals you mention are all connected: publicity and awareness -> adoption -> new contributors -> sales/donations. We should start (and are doing that) at the beginning of that chain.

Yup, there are definitely overlaps and connections. This path makes total sense, but I have my doubts about it being set this clearly and things being as straightforward.

For example, a project could be doing very well in publicity but struggle in adoption, or be successful in gaining contributors but have issues gathering funds. In another case, a project could choose to raise money in advance and then aim at attracting new developers. Which reminds me, I forgot to add 'Sponsors' to that list.

Different tactics will most probably need to be implemented according to the potential audience and the distinguished goals and it would be a major plus to define them in advanced in a strategic plan.

This will be interesting to follow: https://fedoramagazine.org/share-fedora-measuring-success/
I'll keep an eye on that hashtag and the articles/discussion around it. There might be some very useful insights and advice we can apply to our projects and plans.

I came across two articles on Authentic Marketing and User Generated Content that are probably good to take into consideration:
https://www.tintup.com/blog/authentic-marketing/
https://www.tintup.com/blog/user-generated-content-definition/

They were referenced here by CMXHub:
https://cmxhub.com/7-examples-of-awesome-user-generated-content-campaigns/

Leaving this here as a reminder for the "Increase number of contributors" goal: https://medium.com/mozilla-open-innovation/cracking-the-code-how-mozilla-is-helping-university-students-contribute-to-open-source-25fa630d8c5c