Failure is a fantastic teacher. I’ve recently watched a promising ICO fail, and it has taught me a lot — including why you shouldn’t hire a marketing team from the outside.
There were no marketing professionals among the founders, so they asked around. Soon they were recommended a marketing team that had worked on a reasonably successful ICO in 2017 (well, it had raised $7 million, which for 2017 wasn’t huge, of course). And you know what? A recommendation like that — “Yeah, I know those guys, they are ok” — was enough. The marketing team got hired. No due diligence, no video conference calls, no request to provide a preliminary plan of activities or budget. The marketing team lead (a Russian lady) didn’t even speak English that well, but the founders (who were themselves Russians) didn’t think it was a problem.
Once the team got down to work, it quickly became clear that their leader wasn’t easy to work with. She was unnecessarily tough, often bordering on rude. She would not accept any criticisms. To any proposal or idea concerning marketing, she would reply, “Let us do our job”.
Look, I understand that the ICO industry can be a difficult environment for a young lady, since it’s dominated by male founders and project managers. But it is also an industry where human relationships mean a lot.
No matter what your role is— founder, advisor, team member, service provider — you need to get people to like you.
But the lady in question wasn’t likeable (even though the rest of her team were very nice).
And the marketing activities themselves? Things weren’t great on that front, either. The mysterious and mighty Content Plan ruled — a plan that the founders apparently weren’t allowed to see. It included frequent postings on the project’s blog (exactly three every week, on exact days) and in the social networks, paid publications in the crypto media, and even a crowd marketing campaign. It was detailed, time-tested — and rigid.
The time wasn’t chosen well (the ICO market was very slow), but the marketing team advised the founders not to postpone the ICO, since the great and awesome Content Plan was already in full swing - and that mighty machine couldn’t be stopped. Conversion rates from the social media accounts were tiny, but the team placed its hopes on a series of publications ordered at a price of about $1000 each. It was supposedly a great deal: all the articles would be native, without the note “this is a paid press-release” or “sponsored”. But there was a condition: none of the sites would publish the press-release prepared by the project team. Instead, their own copywriters would prepare new articles based on the materials sent to them. In most cases, the result was disappointing: the articles weren’t even written by native English speakers! I’ve seen those “press-releases” — there were a dismal affair. No wonder that conversion was terrible: each article brought only 20–30 new followers to the project’s Telegram channel.
And then there were the YouTube reviews. The marketing team was adamant: video reviews are necessary and worth the thousands spent on them. Needless to say, it was a disaster. YouTube “experts” (who clearly saw the project website for the first time and could hardly read the founders’ names) limited themselves to reading some sentences from the site and add wise comments like “this sounds good” and “I think it’s promising”. Conversion? Zero.
The pre-sale went on, the great and unassailable content plan was meticulously followed, and investors… simply never materialized. After several weeks of spending a lot and earning nothing, the founders offered the chief marketing lady to pay the next installment of the fee in tokens. She refused, scandalized. Apparently, none of what happened was her fault. That was the end of the collaboration. However, the damage had been done: the token sale raised less than what had been spent on it.
Does it mean that ICO founders should never hire marketing professionals from the outside? No. What I mean is that the person chiefly responsible for the marketing must have a real stake in the project AND think outside the box. You do need a plan — but also be ready to change it as often as needed, look for low-cost solutions, pivot, try new things all the time.
Essentially, what you need is not a marketing manager but a growth-hacking manager.
If you absolutely have to hire a marketing manager/director/team from the outside, invest some time in your search. Don’t take someone on board just because some friend recommended them to you. Remember: just because someone works as a marketing manager doesn’t mean they are really good at what they do. Actually, most of them are just average — like in any other profession. But if you are planning an ICO, or a startup in general, “average” is not good enough. Even “good” is not good enough. You need someone who is great.
Of course, picking the wrong marketing team is just one of many errors that ICO founders make! If you’ve witnessed an ICO/startup fail, then share your story in the comments. Have you had any experience with hired marketing teams? I’d love to hear about that, too!
