So you’ve had a great idea for an NFT collection. You’ve designed something brilliant, chosen a platform, bought your Ethereum, set up your crypto wallet and started generating a load of hype around your creation. You’ve sorted your pricing strategy, considered rarity value — and possibly even sold out at mint. Great stuff!
But if you think your work is done — think again.
In fact, we believe that the most lucrative part of your NFT journey starts after mint — and it’s then that the serious money can be made. From reaping the benefits of sales on the secondary market, to keeping your holders engaged and sticky, having a solid post-mint strategy is crucial if you want to be in the NFT game for the long-term.
So, what constitutes a great post-mint strategy? How does it differ from the tactics you employ pre-mint? Let’s take a look.
What should you be doing pre-mint?
Let’s start at the beginning — unless you’re successful at launch, you stand no chance of doing great business after. Your work pre-mint strategy also builds the foundations of what you do afterwards so what elements should you consider?
A big part of your work pre-mint is to build buzz and excitement — to find your community (using Twitter and Discord) and engage with them, creating hype about what’s coming down the line. Clever creators will tease a collection pre- launch — providing sneak peaks of what potential buyers can expect. And of course, you’ll need to get the nuts and bolts right — your website ought to look great, your price points attractive — and you’ll need a good roadmap that shows holders what you’ll deliver and when (more on that here: How to engage your NFT holders by building a great roadmap)
How can you build a workable post-mint strategy?
Great news, you’ve done everything right and you’ve sold out at mint! So, what’s next? Your post-mint strategy needs to focus on keeping holders engaged, while ensuring that your collection is dynamic — offering people reasons to keep on buying, swapping and selling.
1. Bet big on the secondary market
It’s no secret that the top NFT collections make way more on secondary markets than during primary sales. It only takes a quick look at the Volume Traded tab on OpenSea to see how much in royalties creators are making when they sell on the secondary market. A great example of this is World of Women, a community celebrating representation, inclusivity, and equal opportunities for all — featuring artworks of diverse and powerful women. On the primary market their initial collection of 10,000 artworks sold out, but they’ve since made royalties from 67,000 sales on the secondary market.
Of course, collections need to work hard to keep interest going — but if they do it right they can make profits which beat the primary market hundreds of times over.
And we think the secondary market is only going to get bigger, too. Just last month, OpenSea set a new record for NFT trading with $467 million of business done in just one day. That’s huge!
2. Keep engaged with your communities
The best creators are those who are in touch with their existing holders and their potential customers. They have an active presence on the social media platforms their holders use, and they’re listening to what their audiences want at any given time. They’re also keeping an eye on the competition — looking at those inspirational creators who are doing great things and winning big.
Want some inspiration on who to follow? We’d be remiss not to recommend the Bored Ape Yacht Club — perhaps the biggest creator in NFT history. The digital collectible brand by Yuga Labs has been making waves in recent weeks, having launched a brand new NFT project called Otherside. The project offered 100,000 ‘deeds’ for virtual land in the form of NFTs. The original Bored Ape NFTs can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars — and so it’s perhaps no surprise that cryptocurrency investors lined up to try and score at least one of the latest series — causing Ethereum fees to soar to astronomical levels when they launched.
We also love Robotos — a collection of droid characters designed by Pablo Stanley and minted as NFTs. They are constructed from various metal outfits, tin faces, digital accessories, top pieces, faces, backpacks, arms and colours. And the sheer number of different attributes you can collect makes for a thriving secondary market where holders can buy, swap or trade their droids.
3. Harness utilities to keep users sticky and engaged
We think that adding utility — real-world value — to NFTs is a great way to keep users engaged and sticky post-mint. From bonus features to exclusive access to events, you can read more about adding utility to your NFT collections with our ultimate guide to Utility NFTs.
There are plenty of ways you can harness utilities to keep your holders coming back for more. From tickets to virtual or physical events, to whitelist opportunities for forthcoming releases, to the ability to redeem NFTs for physical goodies, the possibilities are endless.
And the good news is that there is loads of inspiration to get you started, not least Dour Darcels — a collection of 10,000 moody characters from the world of Darcel Disappoints — which is backing the idea of using NFTs as virtual tickets. By buying a Darcel NFT, you not only get a collectible to keep, swap and trade, you get access to a series of digital events.
There are also plenty of examples of NFTs which are redeemable against physical or virtual goodies. KryptoGO, for example, launched the Metaverse’s first redeemable ‘Lucky Bag’ NFT campaign earlier this year, where participants were able to redeem physical perks simply by flipping NFTs and scanning QR codes.
Another great idea for a utility is appealing to your holders’ altruistic side with charity donations or other good causes. For example, mutant ice-cream collectible brand Creepy Creams supports children’s charities for every NFT purchased. They describe themselves as a “community-first, metaverse-first project with a fully-doxxed team” and their performance speaks for itself.
And finally, you might want to check out The SandBox for inspiration. This clever game includes a shop where you can buy digital properties such as wearables, foods and more in the form of NFTs. By allowing them to ‘own’ a part of the game, they’re keeping users invested and loyal — good stuff.
Over to you…
So there’s plenty to consider — and hopefully lots of concrete advice to get going with building your post-mint strategy. But we have even more resources available to help you put those great ideas into action. Check out our blog for more advice and get in touch with us to start you on your journey in harnessing utilities to keep users engaged and happy.
And remember to share your experiences with us too. We’d love to hear what you’re doing and about the collections which are inspiring you today.
Connect with us:
- Check out our website: www.tropee.com
- Join Discord: https://discord.gg/z6x6yRskNQ
- Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tropee_NFT
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