Your Web3 product is underrated because its target audience does not widely see the features, benefits, or qualities.
This often happens due to a lack of crypto marketing efforts or a limited distribution network.
This article is for Web3 project founders, content strategists, and crypto marketing agencies.
To explore different and reliable strategies to help you expose your project to your target audience.
It doesn’t matter if it is IDO, NFT, cryptocurrency, or exchange. This applies to all niches in Web3. The goal of marketing is either for awareness or product sales—anyone you choose needs to get to as many people’s eyeballs as possible.
Fundamental Marketing Strategies to Growth Hack Your Crypto Project: Preparations to Promote Your Crypto Project.
Research your competitors
Before promoting your crypto project, you must know who your competitors are and what they are doing to have the current publicity level they enjoy, especially if they are doing better than you.
Replicate what works for them and add more value.
The second goal is to identify their weaknesses and shortcomings and build a better product.
For instance, Ethereum is decentralized and secure but needs to be more scalable.
New blockchains that offer smart contract services are selling their projects by capitalizing on Ethereum’s shortcomings to attract new users and developers.
Research your audience
Your competitors are different from your audience. Your audience is the people that would use your product.
The reason for researching your audience is to know the content that resonates with your audience. This is popularly called customer persona.
Someone who is hovering on Twitter looking for Crypto degens isn’t going to use your protocol.
Instead, they would hang around to speculate on your tokens. They would follow your announcement channels to know when a big announcement affecting the price will be announced.
Once they’ve sold their token, they move to the next project.
Get a professional website.
You should build a professional website to showcase your product, partnership, new products, and funding. You also need to have a good user interface on your website. Take a look at how beautiful this UX/UI looks.
Solana is one of the Web3 projects that have a beautiful user interface.
Select your marketing channels.
When you have a good product, the fatal mistake you would make is building on a platform that your customers rarely use and expect them to come to you.
Let’s say you’re running a digital marketing campaign for a new fashion brand that targets young women. Your target audience spends most of their time on social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.
However, you run your campaign primarily on LinkedIn, a professional networking platform.
While LinkedIn can be an excellent platform for B2B marketing, you will get a better result using Instagram, Snapchat, and Tiktok as your marketing channels for such a target audience.
The right strategy is to go where your target audience is and promote your product.
Web3 projects are concentrated on Twitter for Web3 discussions and information.
Create your content strategy.
Your initial content strategy would be to create content according to what people in your customer persona need.
After a few weeks or months, people would have asked you several questions in the comment sections, inbox, or survey.
Create content addressing these questions, one blog post after another. If more than one question can be addressed in one blog post, that’s fine, too.
Post it on your blog and cut it into little content for your social media accounts.
You should be consistent on your social media channels, also.
Set your budget
How much can you spend weekly/monthly/yearly on marketing?
How many percentages of your funding go into your marketing activities if you received funding?
Some Web3 projects allocate funds to salaries, research, and development.
They do marketing later on or often disregard the effect marketing could have on their product.
Once you’ve gotten to the stage of marketing your crypto project, you should set a budget.
Track your performance
At the beginning of your marketing campaign, you should record your results.
After implementing your marketing strategy, you should also compare your performance and evaluate the results.
This will help you improve where necessary. Reduce investing resources in unproductive strategies.
For instance, if most of your traffic comes from Twitter, you should double down on Twitter to make the best of it.
Crypto Marketing Strategies to Beat Your Competitors.
Tell Your Story.
What problem prompted you to build your Web3 product?
Ethereum was created with the story that Bitcoin is a medium of exchange only. If Web3 has to go mainstream, there have to be more problems it is solving other than just being a payment channel.
Ethereum blockchain introduced smart contracts to enable friends and strangers to conduct business without any party getting scared of being scammed.
Being scammed means paying for a product without getting the product you paid for.
Then Ethereum had its problem of scalability. Solana came and sold the story that it is more scalable than Ethereum.
Everyone knows Solana has more transaction speed and throughput than Ethereum. Solana processes 50,000 transactions per second, while Ethereum processes 30.
What story do you want users and developers to associate your project with?
Sell them this story consistently, and it will stick to their brain.
Create your content around your story and show them how possible it is.
Build With Discord and Telegram to Interact With Your Community.
Discord and Telegram are two of the most used community-based social platforms for Web3 users.
Build your community on both platforms to network with your community.
The most important thing about building a community isn’t about having a relationship with you; it’s about members creating new friendships.
Some communities turn out to be cult-like. Everyone is familiar with everyone, the jokes, the drama, etc.
This organic activity keeps your community members in your community. If they stay, which they would, it reduces the cost(time and money) of acquiring a loyal member.
Because leaving your project means leaving all the friendships and relationships they’ve built behind to build a new friendship in a different community.
Motivate People to Spread The Word
This may sound easy, but people are often motivated in two ways.
- Extrinsically.
- Intrinsically.
Extrinsically, people refer their friends to your project only if they earn a referral commission or get an airdrop.
Some invite their friends to use your protocol on the condition that their friends will also get an airdrop.
So when these airdrops or referral commission is halted, they lose interest in your project and move to the next one.
Intrinsically, the most significant capital in Web3 is to have a loyal community, regardless of the number.
If you have built a community that loves your project, they will spread your word on their WhatsApp status, retweet, like, mention you under people’s comments, etc. They are shilling your project everywhere they go because they believe in your project and you.
Most importantly, they have confidence that you wouldn’t rug pull on them as other projects did to them.
Outstanding projects solve real problems, but they are often underrated. Nobody talks about them on Twitter because they don’t create a reason to be discussed.
Then we have these sets of projects like Polygon, Avalanche, Solana, and Tron with so much attention and hype that you begin to wonder if other blockchains exist.
As you build a great product, you must intentionally create content around it to make it go viral. This increases your visibility, brand awareness, and credibility.
The question is, how do you make your post go viral?
I will explain this in the following subheading.
In this age of social media, attention is the currency. It is not money, and it is not value.
This is why most girls have to get half-naked to get attention, while those who dress responsibly aren’t.
Again, it is not about the value.
You grab people’s attention by reporting bad news, attacking feminist ideologies, making fun of Presidents and famous people, and discussing fights in the Web3 industry.
What do you think will happen on your timeline when you say that Bitcoin is the most speculative digital asset with little value other than sending and receiving payment?
It is important to note that when you make these statements, you have to back them up with facts, or else the controversy you are trying to create won’t come.
People will see your post as shallow and know you want to farm engagement.
However, when you back up your statement, this is when you see people with opposing views coming for you.
Some may go to the extent of insulting you.
You can also make your post go viral by attacking Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, etc., which have large and loyal community members.
Making hype is one of the ways to leverage social media.
Of course, you won’t create a viral post consistently. You are primarily on social media to educate your followers and convert new people to your product.
It is advisable to publish educative content for a while before thinking about creating a controversial post.
If you do not have content on your timeline before going viral, people will leave immediately because there’s nothing to learn about your project.
If you create a series of content before going viral, some eyeballs will read your content and become followers and loyal community members.
Do airdrop
There are three reasons Web3 projects do airdrop.
- Marketing purposes.
- Avoid stepping on SEC’s toe.
- To gauge protocol capability.
Marketing purposes
Airdrop is a marketing strategy to spread the word about a project to people who haven’t heard it yet.
If your project would give me a free token with value, what stops me from inviting my 100 friends to stand a chance of getting an airdrop?
And my 100 friends have their 100 friends to invite to use your product.
This way, new people would know your product. Some will leave after getting the airdrop; some will stay if your product is good.
Avoid stepping on SEC’s Toes.
According to SEC, the result of the Howey test will determine whether your project is a security asset.
The problem is that the SEC does not respect the test it provides for crypto projects to check whether they are securities.
If your project isn’t a security, the SEC can still classify you as a security, charge you a fine, or take you to court.
This non-guideline has made some crypto projects refrain from selling their tokens to the public.
Whether the SEC thinks it is a security or not, they avoid all the troubles involved by airdropping their tokens to their community.
To gauge protocol capability.
It is no longer news that when Web3 projects announce an airdrop, they experience increased users on their platform.
These projects use it as a medium to confirm how robust their protocol is if a massive number of users use it at the same time.
If Solana claims it does 50,000 transactions per second, it can do a testnet and promise users a reward.
It will gauge how fast transactions moved within that period to confirm whether their protocol needs improvement.
If your website or network goes down within this period, you need more time to attract mainstream users.
Give or Host Interviews
Cryptopunk was an NFT that was freely given to its community members. The community members had to pay a transaction fee of about $0.11 Ethereum to claim their Cryptopunk NFT.
Cryptopunk was slowly being claimed until Mashable wrote about Cryptopunk on their website, and before the following day, all 10,000 total supply of Cryptopunk NFTs had already been claimed.
“We posted it to some of the forums and news boards. . . by Saturday morning, they had all been claimed. One night, everyone had gone crazy.
John Watkinson, co-creator of CryptoPunks.”
I want to pay attention to the effect of blogs or news sites mentioning your projects.
Podcasters and blog writers often need new content to keep their audience informed and engaged. They often recommend new and existing projects to feature on their podcast.
If they don’t, you take the initiative and contact them to interview you or write about your project.
You can also contact other Web3 communities to discuss your project. Allow them to interview you on their webinars or Twitter space.
You should host Twitter spaces inviting other projects to interview them on how Web3 users can benefit from their projects.
One of the advantages of inviting other projects to interview them on your platform is that they announce the event to their followers, and a percentage of their followers join your community after the interview.
Issue Press Releases
Followers and non-followers want to see how transparent you are. Influencers or accounts with big followers sometimes say something terrible about your product.
You must counter it immediately by issuing a press release about what happened.
If you keep mute, people will believe that your silence is guilt.
CZ, the founder of Binance, is very good at this.
Team up With Influencers.
Most influencers prefer getting paid to promote your project on their timeline.
Depending on your level of publicity, some would love to mention your project free of charge to their audience as part of their responsibility to keep them up to date in the crypto industry.
Whatever wins the heart of an influencer, sell it to them to make them tweet about your project on their timeline.
If it is money, and you have it, pay them.
But before you pay them, research their past sponsored posts and measure their performance.
SEO
This may sound like an unpopular opinion, but an unpopular opinion doesn’t make it false.
Why create a blog post if you do not want to optimize your website to be seen on Google and Bing search engines?
If you need to have a blog to drop content about your project, why don’t you use medium and save yourself from the stress of setting up your website and the bills that come with it?
When you publish a blog post without sharing the link on all your social media accounts, no one would see it to read it.
The problem with accessing your post only through links shared on social media platforms is that thousands of people are interested in the solution you have but don’t know you exist.
But if you optimize your website to be seen by Google and Bing search engines, people can discover your website and product with mere keyword research.
Hire a professional SEO to optimize your website to be seen and rank on the Google search engine.
Email Marketing
Digital Marketers use email marketing to promote their product.
You can promote your Web3 product in several crypto newsletters.
Many of your community members have busy schedules. They barely have time to follow community chats and keep up with social media content and announcements.
You should create a newsletter primarily for this set of people. The newsletter should summarise all your weekly activities, such as announcements, partnerships, and funding.
The aim is to allow this set of members to stay updated with your project’s development without wasting time looking for them on social media.
Establish Branding
Branding and marketing are different. Branding is the image and story you make your users see each time they interact with your product.
To establish a strong brand, you must identify your USP(Unique Selling Proposition) and the values you want your brand to represent.
There are several competitors in your niche, but there is always one or more things that give you a comparative advantage.
For instance, despite all the L1 (layer 1) blockchains capitalizing on Ethereum’s shortcomings (scalability), I haven’t seen any more decentralized and secure projects than Ethereum.
Some L1 and L2 blockchains either forked Ethereum code to build their smart contract or built from scratch and made their blockchain EVM-compatible.
Ethereum’s branding around its name has made it stand out amongst other L1 blockchains.
Networking
Networking with people is a great way to expand your professional and social connections, find event opportunities, gain new knowledge and insights, and build mutually beneficial relationships.
Previously, I mentioned teaming up with influencers to give or host interviews for more visibility.
Getting an influencer to do this free of charge is easy if he’s within your network.
Influencers or your fellow project founders rarely respond to random messages on social media platforms.
Therefore, if you hope to invite them to your live event by sending them a message on social media, it might be challenging to get their attention.
You can network with people effectively by attending Web3 networking events. This lets you meet new people who share your interests or work in your field.
NFT tech has compiled a list of Web3 events on the Internet. It is continuously updated to show future events so you can plan for events within your location.
When you meet new people, show genuine interest in what they do. Be the one to listen most of the time, especially if the person seems more knowledgeable than you.
Listen and ask relevant questions. Don’t focus on what they can do for you. If you’ve not given them value, you should never make a request.
Outsourcing to a marketing agency.
Sometimes, these marketing strategies can be overwhelming, especially when you have a lot of product development to do.
Most developers barely have the expertise and time to market their Web3 projects.
As a founder, it is challenging to market and code your product simultaneously.
Founders that code often outsource their marketing to an agency. And marketing-oriented founders often outsource their product development or hire in-house developers.
Hire a Cryptocurrency Marketing Agency
If you are a founder with marketing knowledge, you could lead your marketing team yourself.
Get a few courses to brush up on your knowledge and keep you up to date with working marketing strategies.
But if you are a developer as a founder, it is crucial to outsource 100% of your marketing effort to a cryptocurrency marketing agency for the following reasons.
1. Cryptocurrency marketing agencies have the knowledge and experience to help you navigate the industry’s complexities and develop effective marketing campaigns.
They can double down on what works based on a key performance indicator.
2. They have established relationships with Web3 Influencers, media outlets, and other key players in the crypto space.
You are getting value from what took them years to build such a network.
3. The digital marketing industry is fast-paced. A strategy that worked yesterday may not work today. So, you must consistently find new ways to stay ahead of the curve.
When Facebook started, content creators didn’t have to spend money on advertisements because their post was pushed to be seen by more people on the news feed.
Those who had products to sell were making a lot of money.
But Facebook suddenly stopped showing more people their posts. They wanted content creators to pay for more visibility.
Then, many people learned about Facebook advertisements before it became more costly today to get impressions on your advert.
Tactics for Choosing a Crypto Marketing Agency
Research your competitors.
The reason for this is to see the kind of results your competitors are getting using a marketing agency. Hire the same agency to replicate their success in your business.
Know Your Budget
Before starting a marketing campaign, you should know how much you are willing to invest monthly.
Some agencies may want you to go beyond your budget because their strategy demands more money than your budget. The right thing to do is to spread the marketing campaign over a month.
Remember that marketing is the easiest way to burn money without a return on investment.
Ask Questions
Do they have in-house or contract workers?
The most important thing is that an expert works on your project. Some agencies hire a jack of all trades to maximize profit.
Jack of all trades does not have specialized knowledge compared to an expert and cannot get you your required result.
If agencies give a jack of all trades your project, you better hire one yourself and keep them in-house.
Do they charge project-based or hourly-based?
Some projects prefer paying marketing agencies per hour because it saves them money. They only pay according to what agencies work.
The problem with paying the hourly wage is that agencies are not incentivized to produce results fast.
They are incentivized to work slowly because the slower they work, the more money they make.
As a business owner, you want milestones to be hit quickly.
And most times, it’s not about what you’re spending but the results you’re getting.
This is why a project-based payment method is better.
A project-based payment method incentivizes agencies to produce results quickly and move to the next project or milestone.
It is a game of numbers for them. The more clients they have, the more money. The quicker they deliver their deliverables to move to the next project, the more money they make.
Who is their ideal client?
You ask this question to see if you are the right fit for an agency. Some agencies have an ideal client they want to work with.
If you don’t meet the requirements of their ideal client, they turn you down regardless of the amount of money you have to offer them.
One of the characteristics of their ideal client is the client’s temperament.
Conversation
At the beginning of the call, you should tell them a little about your Web3 project and your goal.
Since they are experts in their field, you should let them suggest ideas for you and the best way to reach your goal.
FAQs
Is there any application of blockchain in marketing?
Yes, there are several applications of blockchain in marketing.
Supply chain transparency: Blockchain can be used to track products from origin to delivery, providing a transparent record of every transaction and ensuring that all parties in the supply chain are held accountable.
Loyalty programs: Blockchain can create more secure and transparent loyalty programs that cannot be manipulated or cheated.
Customers can accumulate and exchange loyalty points without intermediaries, making the process more efficient and cost-effective for businesses.
Digital advertising: Advertisers can verify the identity of the target audience and ensure that their ads are being delivered to real people, not bots.
Personal data protection: Customers can share their data with specific companies or individuals and revoke access anytime.
Content distribution: Blockchain can be used to create a more secure and transparent system for content distribution, where creators can receive fair compensation for their work, and consumers can verify the authenticity of the content.
How do you make a crypto project successful?
- Solid technical foundation.
- Get a mentor
- Clear value proposition
- Strong community engagement
- Strategic partnerships
- Effective governance and management
How do you convince clients to invest in cryptocurrency?
- Educate the client.
- Highlight the potential benefits.
- Address the risks.
- Provide real-world examples.
- Develop a comprehensive investment strategy.
Who is the target audience for crypto?
Investors: Crypto can be an attractive investment opportunity for individuals and institutions looking to diversify their portfolio, hedge against inflation, or take advantage of the potential high returns the crypto market offers.
Traders: Crypto can also be an attractive option for traders looking to take advantage of the high volatility and liquidity of the crypto market.
Developers: Talented developers with expertise in blockchain technology, smart contracts, auditing, coding, and other related fields are highly needed in the crypto industry.
Merchants: Crypto allows merchants to accept payments from customers in a fast, private, secure, and cost-effective way.
Consumers: Consumers benefit from lower transaction fees, faster cross-border transactions, micropayments, and other innovative use cases that are impossible with traditional payment methods.
Unbanked and underbanked populations: Many people worldwide don’t have access to or afford traditional banking services. Crypto offers an alternative to traditional banking that can provide greater financial inclusion, allowing unbanked and underbanked populations to participate in the global economy.
Socially conscious investors: Crypto projects that promote renewable energy, social welfare, or other positive social and environmental outcomes attract socially conscious investors because they align with their values.
Why is marketing important in crypto?
Awareness: Cryptocurrencies are still a relatively new concept for many people, and effective marketing can help raise awareness of the benefits and potential of crypto.
Adoption: Marketing plays a crucial role in promoting the adoption of cryptocurrencies by educating people about the benefits and creating trust in the technology.
Differentiation: Web3 is competitive and innovative, and effective marketing can help crypto projects differentiate themselves from others.
Who are the major players in the Cryptocurrency market?
Exchanges: It is a marketplace where buyers and sellers come together to trade cryptocurrency.
Wallet providers: Cryptocurrencies require a secure storage solution, and wallets are one of the primary methods of achieving this.
Miners: The role of miners is critical to the security and integrity of the cryptocurrency network.
By verifying transactions and adding them to the blockchain, miners help to prevent double-spending and ensure that the network operates smoothly and reliably.
Institutional Investors: Institutional investors are often seen as more sophisticated and risk-averse than individual retail investors, and their involvement can help lend credibility and legitimacy to the market.
Institutional investors can also help to stabilize the cryptocurrency market by reducing volatility and improving liquidity.
Developers: Developers are responsible for various critical tasks, including coding, testing, and deploying software updates, fixing bugs and vulnerabilities, and implementing new features and functionality.
Regulators: As cryptocurrencies continue to gain mainstream acceptance, regulators increasingly recognize the need to develop comprehensive regulatory regimes that can help protect investors, prevent fraud and illicit activities, and promote stability and transparency in the market.
Merchants: Merchants are businesses that accept cryptocurrencies as a form of payment for goods and services. Their adoption of cryptocurrencies can help create a more vibrant and diverse ecosystem.
Payment Processors: Payment processors impact the cryptocurrency market by reducing the friction and complexity of accepting cryptocurrencies for merchants. This is done by providing an easy-to-use platform for merchants to accept cryptocurrency.
Media: Media impact Web3 by creating hype and driving demand for cryptocurrencies by covering significant events, such as price rallies or regulatory developments. This can significantly impact the price of cryptocurrencies, as media coverage can influence investor sentiment and trigger large-scale buying or selling activity.
Crypto Influencers: Crypto influencers create hype and drive demand for specific cryptocurrencies by sharing their opinions and insights with their followers.
Crypto Analytics Firms: Crypto analytics firms use various tools and technologies, including machine learning algorithms and data visualization tools, to collect and analyze data from various sources, including blockchain transactions, social media sentiment, and market data from cryptocurrency exchanges.
Stablecoin Providers: Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value. It is often pegged to a fiat currency (USD) or other assets, such as gold or silver. This makes stablecoins more attractive to investors and users looking for a more stable store of value or a more reliable medium of exchange.
What age group is most into crypto?
According to the survey conducted by Gemini in 2021,
The survey found that 14% of Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) and 24% of millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) own cryptocurrency.
Compared to only 6% of Generation X (those born between 1965 and 1980) and 3% of baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964).
The survey found that younger generations are more optimistic about the future of cryptocurrencies, with 67% of millennials and 74% of Generation Z saying that cryptocurrencies are here to stay, compared to only 54% of Generation X and 41% of baby boomers.
Why are people so interested in cryptocurrency?
Decentralization: People are tired of centralized authorities like banks and the government controlling their money and the flow of information.
Anonymity and Privacy: People want to use the Internet anonymously. They also want to carry out transactions without displaying their identity.
Security: Cryptocurrencies are based on advanced cryptography, making them more secure than traditional financial systems.
The transaction validation process involves a network of users, and once recorded on the blockchain, the transactions become immutable, making it impossible to alter or delete them.
Investment Potential: Early crypto adopters have generated a massive return on investment.
In light of the comparison between the crypto market cap and Forex’s daily volume, it becomes evident that the crypto industry is still in its early stages, implying that there is a potential for significant returns for today’s investors.
Utility: Some cryptocurrencies have utility beyond their use as a form of money. For example, some cryptocurrencies provide access to decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. A medium of exchange is what people use them for.
Innovation: The decentralized nature of Web3 has enabled smart individuals to create innovative products without waiting months for a central authority to approve their existence.
How do you promote and advertise your NFTs effectively?
Use the strategies I mentioned in the blog post to advertise your NFT effectively.