How NFTs change how brands think about customer appreciation gifts
An NFT to your brand’s most loyal customers and fans this holiday season can create a deeper connection to your brand and open a new channel for future value exchange.
Looking to build an authentic connection with your customer through a year-end gift? Look no further than this self heated mug. Throughout all of 2023, your best customers can thank you for never having to suffer through lukewarm coffee.
Most year-end gifts from brands suck. Soon, marketing teams will be scrambling to pull something together despite knowing this. Often overlooked, they are usually the last thing that marketing teams want to do, which results in these gifts being the last thing customers want to receive.
Worse still, the gifts carry little connection back to the larger brand experience you’re trying to build. The gifts are often a waste of resources and bring little to no value back to the brand beyond some mild appreciation. The initial value is low and the long term value is nonexistent.
Maybe I’ve just not received a killer year-end gift from any of my favorite brands, but I don’t think I’m alone here.
Enter NFTs
To be clear — I’m not advocating simply sending an email to your customers telling them to “claim your free NFT” from us. The days of NFTs being cool just because you mention the acronym are long past us. Like any meaningful gift, there should be some thought behind it.
What the NFT represents depends on your brand. Could be art, a new collectible, a membership pass, a 3D wearable in the metaverse…the options are endless. Wow the customer with something cool. There are many reasons customers might value NFTs. There may be sentimental attachment, or, more tangibly the NFTs can open a variety of opportunities and benefits including exclusive access to events, promotions, merchandise and discounts.
An NFT to your most loyal customers and fans this holiday season can create a deeper connection to your brand and open the channel for future value exchange.
The magic really happens once your customer redeems — and now owns — that NFT. Customers now hold something of value and marketing teams get a new marketing channel for a highly engaged customer. NFTs are an invitation for active participation between brands and customers.
Now what?
The gift is a simple activation with endless opportunities for marketing teams. Here are three simple ways you can engage customers that own your NFT in 2023:
- Rewards: Airdrop new rewards and benefits (i.e. NFTs) at any point in the future. These NFTs may commemorate events or unlock new benefits for the customer.
- Exclusive access: Turn those NFTs into keys — keys that unlock benefits or access to special experiences in real life or online.
- Partner comarketing: NFTs are interoperable. They travel across the internet with the wallet, free from any walled gardens. What this means for marketers is that partnerships are now more accessible and easier than ever before. Brand A can provide a benefit to owners of Brand B’s NFT without ever needing to share any customer data between the brands.
Over the last 12–18 months, during the hyped rush of NFTs, we saw many brands deliver one-and-done projects — the digital equivalent of that self-heated mug. NFTs are an opportunity to build customer relationships based on shared value. Your customers may not really know what they’re getting into when they claim that NFT gift from your brand but they won’t be disappointed when they discover what it unlocks for them later on.
We’re actively building out holiday campaigns through Gigantik and leveraging the platform features to build meaningful customer relationships that last beyond the holidays. Those activations are likely simpler to execute than you think. Learn more here and reach out if interested in discussing how your brand can deliver authentic brand gifts as NFTs.
Gigantik is a web3 engagement platform built for enterprise brands. It empowers brands to own the experience of creating, selling and distributing NFTs while enabling marketers to generate repeatable community activations. The platform helps brands enhance customer relationships through built-in loyalty tools such as snapshots, airdrops, challenges, and gated access campaigns.
