Initial coin offerings are all the rage today. Thousands of ICOs are launched every day, and it’s easy to understand why they are so popular — ICOs are the most cost-efficient way to raise funds for a startup project, with nearly no entrance threshold for the organizers or investors.
Because this fundraising method is widely used, the competition is cutthroat. You have to compete for the attention of potential investors and urge them to invest in your project instead of someone else’s. The success of your ICO depends a great deal — if not completely — on your marketing campaign. It has to be powerful enough to convince your potential investors that your project deserves their attention and is worth their contribution.
The most effective marketing tool is also the oldest one in the history of humankind: word of mouth. As new technologies have appeared, it has changed and transformed, as well, allowing us to use new marketing channels to make word-of-mouth advertising work to our advantage.
Partnering with YouTube influencers to promote your ICO is one of the ways to use word-of-mouth promotion via digital means of communication. Intrigued? Let’s see who the YouTube influencers are, how partnering with them can benefit you, and how to find YouTube personalities that will be right for your campaign.
Those Who Bring Your Project to Success: YouTube Influencers
First things first — let’s find out who the influencers are. Influencers are the people whose opinions impact the decisions of others. On the Internet, influencers are people whose pages/profiles/channels have a lot of followers, and, consequently, a large outreach to your target audience. They can be present on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.), and they may be using different mediums to create content (text posts, images, infographics, videos).
Influencer marketing, in its turn, is a marketing tool aimed at getting influencers to promote your product. They can do this on their own, if it is really good and they like it themselves (and you don’t have to pay them anything). Alternatively, you can approach them with a suggestion to try your product and publish a review on it. Either way, chances are that influencers will not promote something they don’t like personally. Keep in mind that quality matters.
As for how much you would have to pay an influencer for him or her to promote your product, the charge mostly depends upon the influencer’s outreach. So, we can’t give you a precise price list — yet. Usually, you should expect to transfer several hundred dollars to an influencer.
Now, why are we focusing on YouTube influencers? This is all about the way we, as humans, perceive information. The thing is, videos are the type of content we perceive the fastest and most efficiently, and enjoy the most. For instance, we remember 95% of a message we get by watching a video, as opposed to 10% of a message we get from reading text.
Furthermore, when it comes to video-sharing platforms, YouTube is a winner in most categories. There are 1.5+ billion YouTube users all over the world, and they watch a billion (a billion!) hours of videos every day. You can reach out to a variety of target groups using YouTube, as there are hundreds of niches with their dedicated viewers.
Influencer Impact In Numbers
Still not quite convinced that partnering with influencers is a good investment? Just check out the stats we’ve gathered for you below:
- For every dollar invested in influencer marketing, you get a return of $11.69, on average.
- According to a 2017 survey, 58% of marketers and branding experts stated they believed influencer marketing would be included in all marketing activities within three years.
- 84% of customers believe online reviews, to one extent or another.
What Are the Best Ways to Find YouTube Influencers?
Now that we realize how beneficial cooperating with a YouTube influencer can be for your ICO, let’s jump right into answering the first question popping in your mind: “How do I find these influencers and make sure they are the ones I need?”
There are two ways available for you to find the right YouTube influencers.
YouTube Search
This may be the first option that has come to mind; and yes, you can find the influencer you need this way. All you need to do is type keywords related to your ICO into the search bar, and see what videos and channels are trending. (The most obvious keywords you should always try are “ICO” and “ICO review.”)
This approach is free, convenient, and quite fast. Yet there is a downside: you can’t be 100% sure the YouTuber you’ve chosen is up to creating sponsored content. If you approach such a person, he or she may just ignore your offer, decline it, or destroy your reputation in their next video by describing it. So, be careful with this. Usually, a good sign that this YouTuber is willing to partner up can be found in their contact details (like an email address) and an invitation for cooperation on the ‘About’ page.
If you reach out to a YouTuber directly, remember that it’s not enough to just offer money. You need to ‘sell’ your project to the influencer first, and show sincere interest in his or her content. Explain that you have chosen their channel for a reason — for instance, you liked a certain video. Consider this a partnership and nothing else, and treat the YouTuber as an equal.
Bonus tip: you can use other social media to search for YouTube influencers. We suggest you try Instagram and Twitch at the very least, as well as Twitter and Facebook.
Influencer Search Software & Online Marketplaces
This approach is free, but it has its flaws, too — it may become too chaotic and time-consuming. If you would like to streamline the processes and avoid falling victim to flaws like these, there is a variety of influencer marketing software and online platforms out there. The most popular ones include Upfluence, Klear, Famebit, Traackr.
There are several advantages to this approach.
First of all, the YouTubers are vetted, so you can trust them — and, financial transactions become more secure when a third party is involved.
Second, you can use more advanced filters to find the influencers you need, including their rating by former partners.
Third, any app or platform is more than just a search engine. You can manage your bids and partnerships, track progress, etc.
Finally, you can also track a variety of stats related to the YouTuber’s performance and content engagement.
Choosing the Right YouTuber
How do you make sure that this YouTuber is the right person to promote your ICO? Pay attention to these four things:
- Outreach. Take a look at the number of subscribers, the number of views for each video and the total (available on the ‘About’ tab).
- Relevance. Make sure the topics the channel covers align with your needs, so your ICO promotion looks organic for the viewers. Also, make sure the channel is regularly updated.
- Target audience. See if viewers are falling under your target groups in terms of demographics and psychometric indicators.
- Engagement. The number of subscribers doesn’t mean anything if people don’t really care about the content and interact with the YouTuber, so check the number of comments and likes/dislikes.
Historical Mentions
It may be easy to get lost in the hundreds of YouTubers you find by searching the word “ICO” on YouTube. To help you out and inspire you, we have prepared a small overview of three influential ICO YouTube channels that are known worldwide.
Ian Balina
Ian Balina is a former IBM analyst who is now a blockchain expert and advisor. He is often invited to conferences and interviews to share his professional opinion. He has also appeared in Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, to name a few.
Ivan on Tech
Ivan on Tech is a world-famous blockchain speaker and educator. Also a software engineer, he analyzes new ICOs and the latest trends from a technical point of view. This has gained him the trust of his subscribers.
Andreas Antonopoulos
Andreas Antonopoulos is the author of the first book about Bitcoin, and years of experience have brought him the reputation of a long-term cryptocurrency advocate. Over time, he has built a community of YouTube subscribers with whom he often interacts.
Summary
Finding the right YouTube influencer to promote your ICO is rarely a piece of cake. However, this endeavor is worth the effort. If you choose well and the YouTuber does their job properly, your call to action will resonate in viewers’ hearts and minds and increase conversion rates. If you neglect this marketing tool, you lose the chance to use word of mouth to your advantage, and you give away your potential investors to another ICO.
The way you choose to find the right YouTube influencer is up to you. Just keep in mind the main things you should pay attention to when selecting the influencer, and make sure he or she is trustworthy.
