How to market an ICO: a quick overview.
Finishing the series of articles about technical specifics of ICOs, I cannot ignore marketing as a driving power of most processes. In this article I will briefly touch on main topics for marketing an ICO.
Marketing in general and its aims.
Marketing is the actions you take to help people learn about your product and make a desired action (e.g. purchise). Commercial marketing is not much different from political campaigns, religious preaching or really any persuasion attempt — someone tries to extract a desired action out of others.
Key thing with any marketing is knowing what you’re selling and who you are selling it to — knowing your product and your audience. In terms of ICO, the product is a prospect: you want people to give their support to an idea of a better future, weather it is for a niche market or for the whole world. Selling ideas and promises can be hard, but is not much different from the real sector products — most companies shift to selling emotions and experiences. Being able to formulate and highlight main beneficial idea of your project is highly important, as it is mentioned in the white paper article.
Second idea, also mentioned in that article, is to define your audience. Often, ICOs are overlooking this part, aiming for any investors willing to give money. However, there bound to be certain people more interested in your tokens that others. Directing your marketing towards them can increase the number of your brand advocates, and help your ICO gain more reach and credibility.
Technical steps integrated with marketing.
Returning to the technical aspects of ICO marketing, main things are:
- the token sale specifics and your business plan of returning value to the investors
- performance and advertisement optimization of your website and personal cabinet
- using design and visual content to help users navigate through conversions
Most of these things I have touched upon in the previous articles. Hiring a team of technical experts is highly recommended to make sure all the small puzzle pieces are at their place for the start of token sale.
Marketing steps you should consider.
Let us briefly go through steps marketing managers should do in order to make their ICO known to the crowds.
First things first, do not forget to set up a proper analytics tools for your website and personal cabinet. It is mostly free and will provide valuable insights on the channels users come from. Sure, you have KYC for the investors, but simply knowing most valuable channels and conversion rates can be of great help in adjusting your marketing strategy.
External channels that will generate leads for your landing page:
Press releases — press coverage is important, it gives you credibility and attracts attention. It can come in a form of proclaiming or explanatory articles, that are as open or subtle as your marketing thinks it should be. It is advised to have this step set up even before the landing page is live, and way before ICO start to allow articles to be published and indexed by search engines.
Listings — there are many websites that publish ICO listings, and it is recommended to have your ICO registered there. Although not the most valuable, this is the easiest way of showcasing your ICO and should not be ignored.
Social media and communities can be hugely important to extending the marketing reach of an ICO. It is advised to have a dedicated manger that will lead the growth of social media profiles, development of communities and external guerrilla marketing. Social platforms like reddit, quora, steemit, linkedin, facebook and bitcointalk forum are adviseded, as well as having a channel in twitter, telegram and discord.
Online campaigns are a popular way of promoting your ICO to the crypto crowd. Here are some forms of online campaings:
- Airdrop is offering some tokens for free to pick interest and produce awareness.
- Bounty campaign is giving rewards (e.g. tokens) for some actions that benefit your marketing (e.g. retweets).
- Referral program is awarding tokens for bringing people in.
Note that any token giveaway should be accounted for during the drafting of a business plan, white paper and smart contract.
Paid advertisement is a way of attracting traffic to your website through commercial placement of banners and links using advertisement platforms like Google AdWords or Facebook ads. It takes considerable sums to maintain, as you need specific audience, but will be beneficial to the sheer numbers and overall perception of your ICO. It is better delegated to a specialized agency or a dedicated specialist.
Offline activities, generally, include participating in related events, and directly communicating to the potential investors. One of the more important activities, it has the least to do with technical process of ICO and the most — with the social skills of your representatives.
***
Consistency is a key to any marketing campaign, especially a short-lived one an ICO has. Make sure your messages, given through design, documents, content, presentations, and spoken by your representatives are in line with the marketing plan, and aimed toward the very core of your audience. It is best if there is a person responsible for the consistency in marketing, who can keep all the aspects of ICO in line with the strategy.
Marketing an ICO is not a trivial task, and is based on the combination of consistency, thorough calculation, creativity and luck. All of my articles have some pieces to this puzzle from the perspective of technical tasks that stand before a team going for ICO.
Lastly, I would like to mention that ICO is not a money grab tool some think it is. It is a slightly less regulated method of obtaining funding for projects, and the more you are willing to give back, the better are your prospects.
Read more in my article cycle about technical specifics of ICOs:
Overview of ICO technical challenges
