There have been 852 ICOs in the first quarter of 2018 which has raised over $5B in funding. Due to this growth in the interest for ICOs, this sector has become crowded, making it harder for new ICO companies to catch the attraction of the investors and to build an active investor community. Projects which raise funds through ICO are mostly decentralized in nature and it is important to have a token governance model in place to engage with its investor community. Community building is a prerequisite for ICO marketing and with an active community. This gives a huge advantage for the growth of an ICO to get more funding from potential customers. Some of the ICOs failed because they put close to zero efforts to build this community.
Despite having mainstream attention, the crypto world is still a closely-knit community of developers, small-scale investors and supporters who still come into same online circles. It is very important to build a community of enthusiasts who believe in your project, engage with them actively. In this article, we will see how to make it possible.
How to build your ICO community
The first step towards a successful blockchain project is to generate buzz about your project and outreach it to the target market. The best way to organically reach out to your potential investors is through the social media channels. An active presence on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, as well as blogging and sharing contents over medium, Reddit and Linkedin will help in reaching out to your potential audience. Apart from being active on social media, sharing and publishing informative contents that help readers further understand your project should also be given prime importance.
Joining groups which are relevant to your project in all social media, sharing your whitepaper in these channels, sharing updates and informative contents to these channels etc helps the potential audience to grab attention on your project.
Leveraging telegram cryptocurrency community
There is a reason why telegram ICO community is really popular in the Blockchain society. The Telegram has great ability to keep an open-ended communication while also controlling your interactions with trolls. With the easy interface they provide, cryptocurrency community novices can easily learn about your project from it. The easy two-way communication allows users a sense of connection with the team. The participants will end up staying for your ICO since they are getting high-quality answers from the most eminent people in the project. This leads to gain trust from the participants and making them spend their money on ICO. Using Telegram as the foundation for building up the community is a great option. Telegram itself has a large team of technical savvy who clearly knows the position they are in. Most cryptocurrency enthusiasts will question the credibility of your project if you don't already have a Telegram.
Influencer Outreach
Apart from the several traditional marketing strategies to promote the ICO, influencers marketing tool can be used as a powerful tool to increase the community strength and supporters. Most of the people search the Youtube for crypto-related news. Partnering with the ICO promoting YouTubers to speak about your ICO can make their subscribers follow your ICO as well.
Youtube channel is the most prolific one. ‘Cryptovers’ which is a Youtube channel is an example of this. It covers all the aspects about an ICO and its rating. The live streaming about the ICO, interviews about the ICO to the team members etc will provide the relevant information an investor looks for in order to gain trust in your project. They have a great ability to represent your ICO in a better way in front of a larger audience. These Youtube channels already have a lot of followers from the cryptocurrency community. They can tap into the community of yours and root for your ICO as well.
Outsourcing your ICO crypto community
If you don't have the time for building up the community on your own then you can outsource the work. Outsourcing community management is an excellent choice for multiple reasons. Firstly they already have a structure in place which is proven to be effective and also you don't have to waste time building up a strategy for community building. Secondly, there are many agencies which already has a lot of cryptocurrencies communities and have access to a lot of members. They help in bringing up your ICO to the standard. This is the easiest way to build the community of your without having to spend time or energy.
Leveraging the existing community for increasing the strength of the community is another possible action you can take, the following programs have proven to be very effective in increasing the strength of ICO communities.
Referral programs
Here, the community itself is marketing your ICO to reach to a wider audience. The word of mouth advertising is used for endorsing the ICO. This means loyal customers refer the ICO to their friends and family so as to increase the strength of the community and in return, they would get rewarded for the efforts in building up the community. This, in turn, increases the ICOs popularity among people. These rewards encourage the participants to stick to the community and promote it.
Bounty programs
Bounties are incentivized rewards offered by companies for the individuals. Rewards are given to those people who help to develop and promote the cryptocurrency project. The rewards are given for a number of tasks such as spread the word, reporting a bug and even improving the aspects of the cryptocurrency framework. This help in building the community as well as developing it with the help of the individuals.
Airdrop program
Airdrops are basically free tokens. It is a way of spreading awareness about the ICO to the potential investors. The ICO team provide free tokens to the people in order to join the community. This program is attracting more investors as it is able to double the tokens for the investors who already have invested in the ICO. This attracts more members to join the community and thus growing the community.
Whitepaper email marketing
Email marketing can work well to reach out to potential customers. The whitepaper of the blockchain project can be sent out by the ICO founders to the high-end investors to catch their attention. Collecting emails of the potential investors and emailing them the whitepaper works beneficial for the ICOs growth and building the community.
Keep the common channel of communication very active
An engaging conversation can be constantly maintained with the supporters with the help of common channels such as telegram, facebook groups etc. The key point here is- “You should be there always for them”. It is better to have a dedicated community management team which can work in multiple shifts so that the communication through the channels are active 24*7. This will keep the potential investors interested and makes them believe in the project.
Conduct polls to understand community opinion
Having a good interaction with the community and understanding their preferences are essential for maintaining a good circle. Knowing the community’s view and taking account of their opinion on matters related to the ICO and project can be selected using polls. Providing the opportunity for the community to engage in the decision making will help in brand building and in winning the trust of the community.
The effort a person puts into engaging with followers determines the success of an ICO and the blockchain project. The contents that are expressed should be informative to novices, having some ask me anything sessions and engaging with crypto-related discussion online will help you in gaining wider attention and building a community that values the project as much as you value them.
