A famous marketing quote goes, “business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.” And why not! Customers do buy experiences, not products – a claim most marketers will vouch for. Marketing is more about creating a steady flow of knowledge, empathy, and value toward the target audience.
Talking about marketing in the crypto space, it is an innovation disrupting every possible sector from finance to healthcare, logistics, and many more. But when it comes to marketing, a majority of the crypto projects go with industry standards, or should we say the bare minimum – a Twitter account, a functioning website, and a whitepaper. Consequently, deserving projects and legitimate tokens get submerged in the ever-increasing oeuvre of thousands of crypto coins.
Currently, strategies such as word-of-mouth publicity, community building, social media marketing, content marketing, Google SEO marketing, awareness campaigns, blockchain-focused events, airdrops, and a host of others are finding their way in the current marketing mix for cryptos.
Crypto marketing, unlike traditional marketing, doesn’t come with a standardized recipe. It’s rather a custom-made suit for the product. As a result, there are multiple layers to understanding what makes crypto marketing distinct and even more significant in the current landscape.
Firstly, cryptocurrencies are a network of nodes running across computers globally. So it is essentially the network or the community that provides value to a particular token. No wonder the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap, including BTC, ETH, ADA, etc., make up over 88% of the total market value, given the vast communities that support these coins.
On another note, cryptos are themselves emerging as a new asset class cum technology. Any product aiming to gain mass traction first needs to inform the users about its existence and uses – the same goes for cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies, being technologically driven assets that anyone on the globe can own, need to be understood using the simplest of explanations. Content marketing is a helpful tool in generating the necessary information pool accessible to the masses keen on understanding the underlying idea behind cryptos.
Additionally, every blockchain protocol promoting their native cryptos is distinct, each serving a different use case or solving a new problem. Marketing becomes mandatory in such a scenario. Rather than teaching how the technology works, it is feasible to educate users on how it can work for them.
Community building is inherently crucial for the holistic development of a crypto ecosystem, especially dApps and DeFi platforms, where each community member has a stake in the platform. When a platform keeps the community posted about the latest upgrades, upcoming plans, partnerships, future roadmap, goals, etc., it makes the community the locus of all activity. Connecting and engaging with your community by letting them contribute to source code or any of its upgrades, partake in the platform’s governance or share the platform’s revenues can go a long way in forging long-term relationships.
Understanding the community needs is another reciprocal marketing tool to build trustful and empathetic camaraderie with your audience. As Bill Gates states, “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” Consequently, a robust community will be a marketing tool itself, helping you spread the message via direct word-of-mouth advertising. Community building and growth is more an in-house activity where numbers hold no use without relevance. But marketing tools, including Google SEO ranking and knowledge portals, essentially crypto wikis, can help newcomers understand the fundamentals and become informed and engaged supporters of the crypto token. Google decides your SEO rankings by the number of backlinks to your articles in the other pieces on the net.
All of us, for once, have gone through the reviews while buying on Amazon, no matter how promising the product looks, isn’t it? Isn’t it evident that marketing needs to build the brand from outside its core purview too?
There is so much more that can be done – Specific marketing tools, including guest blogging, representations at conferences, publishing posts on reputed crypto websites, etc., to build outreach and carry forward the brand visibility helps! Let people talk about you!
Building the visibility argument further, marketing plays a vital role in helping crypto firms get important leads and build linkages with the other stakeholders in the industry. For the past three decades, VC has been the backbone of the tech industry. Mindful branding and product development can get firms big investors and valuable partnerships.
Until now, the tight integration with the closely-knit community has been the paradox of the decentralized crypto revolution. Suppose a crypto platform seeks funds via the traditional route. In that case, it is pertinent that they understand that the conventional marketing audience doesn’t give a dime about blockchain, hash rate, or hard forks. Their primary area of concern is what new services and capabilities they would get in return for the funds they invest. If the founders are clear about the business idea or model they are trying to convey to the audience, they can easily crowdfund their platforms, get their IDOs listed, or even consider pitching ideas before investors.
It is no surprise that governments, financial institutions, and many established industry players have been the slowest to consider the viability of cryptos. The constant regulatory friction is proof of the same. Via a targeted marketing approach and lobbying the cause of cryptos, a favourable opinion for them could be slowly built within the power circles and regulatory pyramids.
Lastly, the countdown to Web3 internet has begun, and cryptocurrencies will definitely fuel the digital economy that will have us take on a metaverse-like existence. The crypto markets are far from saturated. Given the current context, when we see hundreds of new cryptocurrencies arriving on the scene, we can safely conclude that the best is yet to come. The largest number is but infinity. Crypto platforms need to rake in the existing audience and expand the user base using specifically-targeted marketing tactics to woo the stakeholders and make them believe in the idea itself.
The crypto market is flourishing and recording astonishing year-on-year growth. However, what share of the sparkling waters a crypto gets, provided they have a robust product to back them, will clearly depend on the marketing strategy they adopt and how keen they are in adapting to the ever-changing crypto markets. Therefore, the thumb rule of marketing for any cryptocurrency could be a consistent, positive, and clear marketing strategy that keeps investors holding and market cap rising.
