ICO or Initial Coin Offering has become so common these days that is viewed as one of the primary sources to raise funds for crypto projects or startups. Even if a majority of ICOs were tarnished by a layer of scam, it still continues to fly high giving a tough competition to its counterparts like STO and IEO.
An offshoot of anything that goes big in numbers is the difficulty to distinguish one as the best among the crowd. This is where the importance of an effective marketing strategy comes in. Marketing defines the difference between good ICO and a great ICO.
For your ICO to take its wings, attract the right investors and execute its purpose, having a robust, comprehensive and effective marketing plan is of vital importance. In the oncoming paragraphs, we will look at the importance of marketing, and the various ways to market your ICO.
Before you embark on your marketing endeavor, you have to understand that ICOs are not bound by regulatory laws. This would mean that not many marketing channels can be used and most of them fall under the mainstream spectrum of preference for many products and services. However, even the remaining platforms can be used to their fullest effectiveness to market your ICO.
Leverage The Influencers
Influencer marketing has found a new craze in many products and services streams. In the world of Investments, no investor would trust a commodity from the advertising message for the face value. However, a credible person whose opinion is heavily regarded with respect in a particular stream can make the difference. This is precisely what influencer marketing does.
Incentivizing on the influencers, any business can expect its ICO to be a success. The influencer marketing picks off even before the launch of the ICO and this would mean that you are ahead in the game even before the game has started!
YouTube and Videos
It is said that a picture speaks a thousand words but a video is worth a million pictures. Sometimes, it might not be a good idea to tell a comprehensive story in the form of verbose content but giving a video on how things work would be a great idea to inform and initiate people into your ICO.
When it comes to videos, there is no better channel to capitalize on other than YouTube. Timing your YouTube marketing activities with what influencer plans to do with your ICO could be a great strategy as it is known to have quadrupled the success of any ICO.
Press Releases
In the crypto world, there are a lot of big names when it comes to press releases. Leveraging their popularity and their trust can make a massive difference when it comes to marketing your ICO. However, it is a double-edged sword and needs to be handled with utmost care. There have been instances of ICOs successfully close their crowdfunding by collecting $33 million in a little over a couple of days. At the same time, they have also been instances where poor PR has plummeted all the other accolades an ICO has collected until then.
Life is too short to make all mistakes by ourselves and we will need to learn from the mistakes of others. When it comes to marketing ICO, this rule does not an exception. It is highly recommended that the blockchain businesses that have completed their token sale successfully are meticulously studied, and their strategies are replicated or at least taken inspiration from.
Messaging and Content
Any marketer will agree that content is the king. More than about what is being communicated, it is also about how it is being communicated. Ensure that the unique selling points of your ICO are highlighted and the communication falls in line with the elements a properly planned PR campaign like conferences, interviews, and events. Marketing your ICO is not about distinct channels but about an ecosystem that works in tandem with all the elements to create a resonating tone of success.
Airdropping
Airdropping is just a fancy name given to free ICO tokens that are given to prospective customers and investors. There have been success stories of many startups and businesses successfully airdropping their tokens and it has delivered more than what was expected. This strategy helps create trust among the prospective investors, increases mass adoption as it becomes a talking point of the community. Above everything, it helps circumvent the advertising restrictions that are imposed on ICOs by mainstream ad platforms like Google and Facebook.
Capitalize on Communities
A great advantage that ICOs have right now is that there is only a small community talking about it and that community is very closely knit when it comes to conversations. You can capitalize on this community to create the buzz about your offering. There are a lot of social media channels that should be used for marketing your ICO. The list includes but is not limited to forums that are dedicated to the promotion of ICOs, Reddit channels for crypto projects, instant messaging platforms like Telegram and Slack, ICO calendars, question and answer forums like Quora, and mainstream social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn that have specialized groups discussing ICOs, blockchain and cryptocurrency.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a method of performance-driven marketing where an external partner will get a commission based on a previously agreed delivery. This kind of marketing would mean that you generate a more valuable sale and you only pay the external partner only when the required value or result is delivered. Since ICOs are known to have short-lived attention, capitalizing on affiliate marketing would ensure that no opportunity is lost. Affiliate marketing also ensures top-notch transparency.
The Big Old Daddy - Email Marketing
Marketing pundits might brush off email marketing under the carpet, but when it comes to marketing and ICO, it remains one of the most effective strategies. What makes email marketing really effective in this particular scenario is the segmentation of the database. For this purpose, you can hire specialized ICO marketing companies like Blockchain App Factory who will create email messages highlighting your unique selling points and run an effective email marketing campaign.
Making an email marketing effective involves knowing your audience, their pain and pleasure points, and based on that, a focused and segmented set of email lists should be created.
Get the Basics Right
All the marketing that we have done so far would fall flat if the basics of your ICO like the establishment of compliances, the convincing of your audience and above everything, creating an SEO-friendly website are not properly dealt with.
The Conclusion
At the end of it all, your ICO, as much as any other product or service, is an offering that will need to stand out in the heavy crowd of all other ICOs available, and this is precisely what marketing does! While there might be limitations and advantages in marketing your ICO, getting things right is the first and the most basic step. Even if you are not able to cope with the higher level requirements, ICO marketing companies like Blockchain App Factory would be of assistance in giving your ICO the wings it deserves!