Lessons from mistakes of past ICOs CANNOT save you in the future because the times are changing and the errors that people would make or have made are very different. What was right in 2017 was no longer right in 2018; what was right in 2018 is so wrong now.
If someone looks at those success stories for good strategies to implement, that's not going to work. On the other hand, you can learn from past mistakes and failures but cannot expect success just by avoiding them.
For example, let’s consider that your proposed ICO is not really a true blockchain integration, but had the blockchain part in it like an “alien”. Let's say your business has nothing to do with the blockchain, but you just want to connect your reward system to blockchain or something silly just so you can do a crypto ICO.
In 2017 and early 2018, businesses of that kind failed because people like projects which are very blockchain-ish.
At that time, after the changes in the market, people preferred projects that are real, even if it had just a few basic blockchain integrations. As long as you had a good product and a sustainable business, they were happy with it as an investment. Now, they feel a need for security, and established existing brands will do well with that. As you can see, it's the exact opposite of the last phase.
The lessons that we learned in the past cannot be used right now because what was wrong back then, is right, right now. So learning from the past, we have to be cautious, be the right judge, do the right research, work with the right experts and then make a call. But definitely not based on some quick data analysis because the past cannot determine the strategy of the future. The future defines the strategy of the future, that's a big distinction there.
Content marketing is the best option
You have to know what's about to happen and that comes with the predictive data analysis and knowing what's in store from other ICOs and the overall market space. You need to break down the jargon and particularly, focus on content marketing which is the BEST option right now, moving forward.
Having a good number of people to respond to the community is great, but you need to also ensure that those individuals are qualified and they know what they're talking about. Content marketing helps you to flush all your ideas, thoughts, possibilities, use cases, and anything else you can imagine into pieces of content which you or the community managers can just share easily and/or learn from to provide educated answers.
As long as those right and vital pieces of contents are out there to establish credibility and transparency, and as a sign of validation, everything looks good for a strong start with your ICO.
Successful projects go beyond the existing model
Being active is very important for investors to consider a project serious because a lot of projects are dead out there right now which makes it very hard to trust any project which is just not moving ahead at all. How do investors determine that? Your social communication.
If they find that the quality and attention you provide to the community goes down, red flags pop up. If you stop doing what you were doing before, in part or in full, that’s the time for panic. Remember that content marketing isn’t a campaign or a marketing strategy, it’s your business communication channel and it has to remain open, all the time.
Most investors don't have a clear grasp of how the ICO works because the market is growing and more new people are coming in on a daily basis. They have no idea what's what, although they do have a perception of what an ICO is. They keep asking the same basic questions over and over.
So, you don't really have to show how your project fits into a model because the successful projects are the ones that go beyond the existing model, and go an extra mile basically. You can show how your tokens are valuable on their own, as the business is making it valuable. So, the token cannot just stand alone but always is backed by either a viable business or verifiable assets.
When a project has a viable product/business, they have a lot to talk about. They can talk about reports of activities on the platform in the last 30 days, or about a partner integration (not just an agreement), or an upgrade to the existing platform to fix a problem they found from user surveys. The possibilities are endless. They can address factual and logical areas and write more than a startup can imagine.
The more they share, the more they let themselves be known and understood. They pave the way to establish authority, reliability, and “known, liked, and trusted” factor. It shows to the investors that they have nothing to hide and that the investor is in control and he is free to explore and poke around. This changes the game moving forward from hype (PR) to transparent value (Content Marketing).
What are you waiting for? Go create valuable content and distribute it as videos, audios, image quotes, articles, slides, infographics and more!
Original Publication: https://www.cointelligence.com/content/future-of-ico-marketing