Many Web3 projects fail, not because of bad products but because of inadequate marketing. This means that the ideas and products may be good, but they are not marketed correctly.
However, using the right Web3 marketing strategies can earn community trust, increase sales, and enhance project adoption.
Successful Web3 Marketing Strategies – Tips for Your Web3 Protocol or Project.
Foundation
Web3 marketing strategies refer to the plans or processes that web3 businesses use to promote their crypto, DeFi, DAO, NFT, or product to their target audience.
These strategies aim to educate the audience on the benefits of adopting Web3 projects and how the products can be utilized to solve daily problems.
The idea is that if the audience understands how a Web3 product solves the pains they currently feel, they will be motivated to use such products consistently as solutions to their problems. When this happens, the founders of these Web3 products onboard more users and make more sales. This is the ultimate goal of marketing.
The following are Proven Web3 Marketing Strategies that can enhance the success of your Web3 Projects:
- Invest in creating informative content and Build Your Authority in the Web3 Space
- Focus on Adding Value and Vision through your Content and Messaging
- Publish Behind-the-Scenes Content
- Share your roadmap and goals for the year
- Engage Key Prospects in the Conversation
- Ensure Company Leadership is Active on X (Twitter) and Discord
- Talk About Security, User Experience (UX) and the Benefits of Your Project
- Utilize Both Evergreen and Incidental Topics
- Target and Reward High-Volume Users With Additional Benefits
- Provide for the Changing Needs of Modern Internet Users
- Use Video Marketing
- Content Marketing
Invest in creating informative content and Build Your Authority in the Web3 Space
Invest in creating content that adds to your audience’s knowledge. Also, ensure that your content is high-quality, accurate, and focused on explaining the use cases and advantages of your Web3 projects.
This helps you build authority as a thought leader in your niche. If the use cases can be easily adapted to solve problems, you would create an army of brand ambassadors who advocate for and talk about your project everywhere.
Focus on Adding Value and Vision through your Content and Messaging
The content of your message should revolve around the value your brand and products offer the community.
While communicating the values, clearly state your brand’s vision and how the community fits into your strategic plans for the long term.
Importantly, ensure your content provides actionable points your audience can implement immediately to solve their pain points.
Publish Behind-the-Scenes Content
The truth is that many people are interested in the back-end of your processes because it serves as a great source of learning. Now imagine this – Would you prefer to read about how Space-X creates spaceships or watch Space-X Engineers create a spaceship?
Sure, you will want to watch how the Engineers do their work. Hence, a great way to attract people to your Web3 brand is to combine stories with a little peep into your brand’s activities. This will create genuine connections between your teams and your users.
You should carry your audience along by sharing your roadmap and the specific goals and objectives you wish to achieve for the year.
This helps to build trust, reliability, and community because the people will hold your team accountable to the goals you outlined and the deadlines you set to achieve them. This form of transparency will enhance your marketing activities.
Engage Key Prospects in the Conversation
Another key way to foster trust and engagement is inviting prospective users to join important conversations about your protocol. These conversations can happen in your Discord channel, in comments under your Social media posts, or on podcasts.
This is a great Web3 marketing strategy because prospective users will feel involved and connected to your Web3 brand.
Ensure Company Leadership is Active on X (Twitter) and Discord
When a company’s leadership stays anonymous, it raises many eyebrows on the project’s legitimacy.
On the other hand, when a company’s leadership is clearly listed on its website, and the leaders are also active on X and Discord, it creates a sense of trust and confidence in the audience’s minds, boosting the brand’s marketing efforts.
The company’s leadership should engage the audience through responses to comments to boost the company’s community-building efforts.
Talk About Security, User Experience (UX) and the Benefits of Your Project
Security breaches and fund losses still occur in Web3. Hence, users are becoming increasingly careful about the Web3 products they use and aware of the nature of various Web3 solutions.
Therefore, Web3 Protocols should ensure adequate security features and a great User Experience (UX). With these in place, the company’s marketing content should also explain the benefits of these features and other functionalities to the users.
A secure platform with excellent user experience would be easier to sell to the people.
Utilize Both Evergreen and Incidental Topics
Many Web3 projects and their representatives depend on trending topics to increase visibility. While this strategy works briefly, combining discussions on trending (incidental) topics with evergreen subjects that will remain relevant longer is best.
For instance, topics like Scalability in Web3, Mass adoption of Web3, and regulatory issues in Web3 will definitely remain relevant for a longer time.
Not only that but such evergreen topics are bound to raise more issues to discuss in different contexts, thereby ensuring an adequate supply of content ideas.
The main point of this strategy is to talk about relevant trending topics to increase your brand’s visibility. At the same time, create evergreen content constantly to validate your brand’s authority in the Web3 industry.
Target and Reward High-Volume Users With Additional Benefits
Web3 projects should track users’ past activities and use the data to provide additional benefits and special incentives to individuals with high-volume transactions.
These additional benefits and incentives can be in the form of discounts and special recognitions. This strategy encourages more users to adopt your project or increase the usage of your products.
Provide for the Changing Needs of Modern Internet Users
Modern internet users typically want platforms with a simple user interface, speed, and security. Web3 brands must consider these needs while shipping their products.
Building a complex product means nothing if the target users reject it. Meanwhile, a Web3 platform with an excellent user experience and proper education will likely gain mass adoption.
Use Video Marketing
Videos are powerful tools for promoting your Web3 brands because many people are more attracted to video content.
According to Gitnux Marketdata Report 2024, Users spend 88% more time on websites with videos. The same report also indicates that viewers spend 2.6 times more time on pages with video than without.
Videos tend to be more engaging and entertaining. Hence, more people will watch your videos than your written content.
There are complex things about your product. Use videos to show your audience how it works and how they can navigate around your product.
Employ creative storytelling to make your videos more engaging, and use real-life examples to explain concepts better. Share your videos widely, and measure their performance to learn and improve.
Content Marketing
Content marketing involves creating engaging educational content and distributing it to a target audience. The forms of content employed for content marketing include writings, videos, slides, and images.
Blog posts, in-depth tutorials, user guides, documentation, white papers, and video tutorials are some of the content types used in content marketing.
Content marketing is an effective Web3 marketing strategy because it educates the audience about the nature and benefits of Web3 products.
Web3 founders should create many educational materials, including images and illustrations, to walk readers and viewers through the content.
Indeed, content marketing may take time before the effects are significantly felt, but it is always a rewarding investment in the long run.
Outreach
Web3 marketing strategies are not complete until the products reach the end-users. Below are the ways to ensure that the marketing campaigns successfully reach the target audience.
Collaborate With A Current Top-Brand
Find a top brand with a large or growing community and attach your company to them. You can achieve this through partnerships or integrating your products.
A good example of this partnership in Web3 is Sorare, which partnered with top football clubs like FC Barcelona, Juventus, and Paris Saint-Germain. These partnerships helped Sorare to attract over 3 million users worldwide.
Remember, collaboration must be between two parties that can add value to each other. Therefore, study your prospective partners and understand how you can help them achieve their goals. Make it the main point of your proposal and get in touch with them.
Engage in organic PR to catch the attention of journalists/Reputable Media Outlets
Web3 natives are getting a lot of Ads about the latest Web3 projects. This large number of Ads makes them skeptical because anyone can run Ads, even for sub-standard products.
However, a feature or news publication by a reputable news or media outlet will gain much trust from your target audience. Hence, engage in organic PR by talking about the value of your project and the actual problems it solves for the users.
If you do this well, you will likely draw the attention of journalists and media outlets to publish about your products. Being mentioned by reputable media validates the legitimacy of your brand and projects.
Collaborate with Web2 brands
Many Web2 brands already have a loyal audience. Hence, collaborating with them is an excellent way to enhance market penetration and mass adoption of your Web3 brand and projects.
Working with established Web2 brands increases the chance of converting such Web2 brands’ customers to users of your Web3 products.
Consider holding in-person events
In-person events are one of the best Web3 Marketing strategies. They provide a face-to-face interaction that virtual and online promotions do not.
Physical meets can guarantee trust and create a sense of connection between the Web3 brand, its team, and users of their products. This enhances community building and mass adoption of the project.
A good example of a Web3 brand that adopted in-person events is Web3 Bridge, which organized a physical event in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2023.
A few weeks after the event, the founder, Ayodeji Awosika, shared in his newsletter that “community contributors from Web3bridge got 900,000 STRK tokens (worth about $18m) from the Starknet Team as a reward for contributing to Starknet’s Cairo protocol development in Nigeria by contributing to their open source documentations, and building dapps and games on Cairo”
Community Building
Community building in Web3 is a marketing strategy that involves gathering Web3 natives via online channels (Discord servers, Telegram channels, Twitter handles, Digital events, newsletters, DAOs, etc.) or in-person events.
The ultimate goal of community building is to create an army of ambassadors or advocates who adopt a brand and its project in a way that they support the brand’s activities and talk about them anywhere. Web3 communities are crucial to the success of Web3 brands.
Web3 brands can build their own communities and share insights and trends in other communities. Engaging Web3 communities promotes your brand to a large group of people with shared interests because those who join Web3 communities include the target audience for most Web3 brands.
Importantly, Web3 communities can act as an effective feedback machine because members of such communities share their opinions, comments, and reviews on such platforms.
Decentraland is a good example of a Web3 platform building a thriving community. The company engages with key stakeholders, including content creators, community members, and developers, and continually uses their feedback to improve its products.
Use Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is one of the most effective Web3 marketing strategies. Social media platforms have already gathered the attention of Web3 natives in a platform. According to a report by Data Reportal, Millennials under the age of 35 are likely to hold Crypto Assets.
These are your target audience, and they spend most of their time on Social media. Promoting your brand where the attention already exists is easier than creating an audience elsewhere.
Again, being active on different social media channels enhances communication between the brand and its audience.
Publish posts on LinkedIn and Twitter, repurpose them into pictures for Instagram, and scripts for YouTube shorts. These will help promote your brand to your target audience.
You can also host AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions and giveaway swag on social media to create buzz and draw attention to your projects.
Leverage Influencer Marketing
Working with a popular figure with many organic followers, considered an authority in Web3, can also boost your marketing strategy. This gives credibility to your brand and builds relationships with popular influencers in the Web3 industry.
Note that influencer marketing is more effective when you have reward programs to back up your promotional activities. These rewards can come as airdrops, whitelists, or even NFT giveaways. This gives users a sense of immediate benefits and gives the influencers a solid point to attract attention to your brand easily.
A good example of influencer marketing in Web3 is Sandbox, which partners with Snoop Dogg, DeadMau5, and other influencers to promote its brand.
Work With More Micro-Influencers
Micro-influencers can significantly increase the visibility of your products. These micro-influencers are skilled content creators and have carved out a fan-like audience within their niche. Hence, working with them ensures you get high-quality content delivered to an audience that listens.
You should partner with Micro-influencers who are highly authoritative in your niche. This is a great way to promote your Web3 brand.
However, you must be careful with the micro-influencers you hire so they don’t make mistakes that may cost the reputation of your Web3 brand.
Conduct an Airdrop Campaign if you haven’t launched a token yet.
Airdrops involve distributing your crypto assets to members of the public as part of your brand’s marketing strategies.
To ensure the success of an airdrop campaign, you should announce the assets to be used as airdrops, clearly state the campaign goals, create a lot of anticipation and buzz before the campaign’s launch, and indicate how participants can claim their airdrops.
These steps will remove confusion and encourage participation. Importantly, promote your airdrop campaign aggressively on social media to create much media buzz.
Delivery
How a Web3 marketing strategy is presented to the audience significantly impacts the marketing campaign’s success.
To ensure proper delivery of a Web3 marketing plan, adhere to the following checklist:
It is important to actively collect feedback on your Web3 products as part of your marketing activities.
A simple “Hey guys, we just added a new feature to our XNX project. Check it out and let us know what you think about it” or “Hey guys, what do you think about the newly added feature on our XNX product?” can help you learn what your users want.
Then, you can build on that to deliver more functionality and improved user services. These activities go a long way in growing and nurturing a community.
Work With Decentralized Autonomous Organizations Within Your Industry
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) can be a great asset to marketing your Web3 project.
You must not own a DAO, but you can join or partner with existing Web3 DAOs within your industry as long as your brand and the DAO offer ongoing value to each other.
You typically find these DAOs or instructions on how to join via X or Discord.
How can I execute these strategies?
Marketing is indispensable to building a company because sales and revenue come through marketing.
However, most Developers and founders are not good marketers. Hence, they need help getting their projects in front of their target audience.
If you are this type of founder, do not worry. The following are two common ways to implement your Web3 Marketing strategies.
1. Contracting to a Web3 marketing agency
An effective way to execute successful Web3 marketing is to hire a Web3 Marketing Agency.
These agencies have expertise and a wealth of experience marketing similar Web3 projects and brands. Hence, you’ll likely get a high ROI on your marketing spending.
Although Web3 marketing agencies can be expensive to hire, they come with the following advantages:
– On-going experience and knowledge of Web3 marketing trends to ensure your projects reach the right audience.
– Knowledge of promotion strategies to place your brand name and products on strategic platforms and groups.
– Diverse knowledge gained from working with various brands in the industry. Web3 marketing agencies usually know exactly what works and what doesn’t work.
– High reputation and expertise on the job.
– Web3 marketing agencies offer valuable advice on how to improve the products to ensure adequate adoption.
A good example of these Web3 marketing agencies is Cryptokedia.
2. Hiring an in-house marketing team
An alternative to hiring a marketing agency is recruiting in-house marketers for your team. This option may be cheaper and give you greater control over your marketing activities. However, you may not gain knowledge from diverse experiences with Web3 marketing agencies.
Challenges and Considerations in Web3 Marketing
Web3 is a new terrain, and just like every new concept, it still has many challenges. Below are 3 Common challenges to Web3 marketing and tips on how to overcome them.
1. Regulatory and Legal Implications
Legal Regulations surrounding Web3 are still unclear and unstable, making it important for Web3 project founders to pay attention to applicable laws within their business territories while carrying out their marketing strategies.
Anti-Money Laundering (AML), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and Know Your Customer (KYC) are some of the general regulations that Web3 project founders must check during their marketing activities and other business operations.
To ensure compliance with these regulations, Web3 founders should hire legal experts within their jurisdiction to guide their marketing and operational activities.
2. Overcoming the Learning Curve and Technical Challenges
Web3 marketing requires founders and marketers to understand several new concepts, such as Blockchain technology, decentralization, smart contracts, layer 1 and layer 2, tokenomics, gas fees, and airdrops.
To overcome these learning challenges, you may need to take new courses, receive expert mentorship, or work closely with those with the knowledge.
However, some platforms like Alchemy are already doing a great job bringing Web3 education to its users.
3. Ensuring Inclusivity and Accessibility in Web3 Marketing Initiatives
Web3 is built around the idea of giving people control. Therefore, Web3 marketing initiatives should be executed so that as many people as possible participate.
The following are some checkpoints to follow while executing your Web3 marketing strategy:
– Bridge the Digital Literacy Divide: Not all Web3 enthusiasts have the same literacy level. Hence, your Web3 marketing strategy should be executed so that the Web3 platforms and brands are easily accessible to people with different technology literacy levels and access to online resources. Web3 brands can achieve this by promoting user-friendly platforms and easy-to-understand educational materials.
– Decentralize Token/Asset Distribution: Web3 brands should ensure that a few wealthy people or early adopters do not concentrate on digital asset distribution and voting rights. The smart contracts should be designed so that later users can still access the native tokens and assets of the Web3 brand.
– Simplify the User Experience: A simple and steadily improving user experience can ensure mass adoption by people from diverse backgrounds. Eliminate complex features and reduce transaction times.
– Promote Cross-platform Interoperability: Web3 Founders and marketers should promote products with standards that allow users to interact with other platforms. This enhances user experience and encourages more people to adopt such products.
How do I implement these Web3 Marketing Strategies Effectively?
Having understood the strategies for conducting effective marketing for your Web3 brands and products, it is essential to know the stages and processes for successfully implementing the strategies you have learned.
The following are the steps to implement your Web3 Marketing strategies:
1. Brainstorm: This is the first stage of your Web3 Marketing Strategy. In this stage, your team should set the objectives of your marketing campaigns, list the processes to achieve those objectives, adopt the forms of marketing, focus on the platforms, and use the forms of media (whether images, long-form texts, or videos).
During your brainstorming section, you also discuss the paid media to use and a rough estimate of the cost of the marketing strategy. The brainstorming stage is also where you talk about your mission and vision and how to align your marketing activities to the vision.
2. Create a persona: This is where you define your target audience. Who do you want to reach? What is their age? What is their income range? Where do they spend most of their time? Who do they trust for authentic information? Where do they live?
An honest answer to these questions will clearly define the people you should target during your marketing activities. It also ensures that you spend your marketing budget on the right group of people to ensure a high return on your marketing investments.
3. Create an Action Plan: After brainstorming and defining your target persona, the next stage is to create an action plan. Here, you state the specific roles to be performed, assign the roles to different team members, indicate who the team members report to ensure accountability, and state the budget for each item on the marketing plan.
4. Build a Timeline: Once the action plan is ready, stipulate a timeline for each stage of the plan and set deadlines for each team member and group. This creates a sense of direction and speed in the marketing campaign.
5. Run the Campaign (In-House Vs. Agency): Decide whether to run the campaign using your in-house marketing team or hire a specialized marketing Agency. An in-house marketing team may be cheaper, allowing the company more control over marketing activities. Still, specialized marketing agencies bring expertise and real experience to your plans.
6. Execute the Plan: After the preliminary stages, it is time to implement it. Ensure that all the processes are organized and that every team member is fully ready. Importantly, ensure seamless communication throughout the execution process.
7. Measure, Learn, and Improve: The first execution may have many errors or only partial success. But do not worry—continuous measurement, learning, and improvement are important components of a Web3 marketing strategy.
Hence, Analyze and measure the results of the process. Find out what works and what doesn’t work. Double down on what works and eliminate the things that do not work. Then, improve the Implementation for better outcomes.
FAQs
● Who is the target audience of Web3?
Web3’s target audience includes Tech enthusiasts, blockchain adopters, and crypto holders typically between 18 and 45 years old.
● What are your top 3 digital marketing strategies to attract clients?
The top 3 digital marketing strategies include content marketing, paid advertisements, and influencer marketing.
● How do I reach more customers?
You can get more customers through advertisements and promotions, your network, referrals, re-contacting old customers, offering discounts, and partnerships.
● How do I start web marketing?
You start web marketing by identifying a target audience, creating an action plan with a timeline, executing the plan, measuring results and iterating with improvements from the knowledge gained from earlier trials.
● How to Prepare Your Brand for Web 3.0 Marketing?
To prepare your brand for Web 3.0 marketing, pay attention to Web3 trends, glean data from web3 communities, understand blockchain technology, and create a Web3 marketing strategy.