There should be a handout created for NEM targeted for people completely new to digital currencies. It should be brochure like, easy for anyone to print out. Make it as simple as possible, explain the idea of digital currencies as a whole and then what approach NEM is taking. People involved in the swarm team could print these off and post them locally on bulletins or hand them out by hand on streets, campuses, local events.
Going further, we could put a message inside some of the brochure offering free X amount of NEM (we could include what market value this would be in $) for anyone potentially interested in getting involved with the project. We could make the brochures unique by serial numbers and have them redeem them after creating an account on the Nem forums.
Does this seem like a realistic marketing idea?
No. Bitcoin itself is only used by a million people around the world. Getting people to use crypto currencies is an education campaign and a simple brochure (even with measly freebies attached - which I don't like) would have a very low effectiveness rate.
I've seen the marketing strategies used by Litecoin and Dogecoin. Back in 2013 they were spamming on large internet forums like Bodybuilding but it wasn't an education campaign "why you should use cryptos" but more like "hear about dat Bitcoin chyieet? Well throw money at Litecoin and make $$$$"
However unethical it was for LTC Doge people to pass off their coin as a money flipping opportunity, I don't think anyone on their forum ever writes: "hey guys, remember in 2013 when you were passing off money flipping opportunities to random people on the internet?".
That method they used was effective in the sense that Doge was able to hit $60 million and LTC is still the Prince to BTC and I was around (albeit not registered on BTT at the time) to see its' raise. Ironically it was those LTC money flipping threads on websites like Bodybuilding that made me lurk on Bitcointalk.
People don't need handouts or brochures. People need simple and impossible to screw up mobile apps.
