More than 80% of ICO-projects are using ICO Marketing services during the preparation to their token sale. Some of them are satisfied with the results and reached their soft/hard cap. Despite of many positive reviews about ICO support services and ICO agencies, there are hundreds of projects who were not so lucky and became victims of scam-agencies. Let’s get another opinion about working with ICO-agencies from one of the most successful projects.
We had a talk with Nikita Anufriev, CEO of DateCoin. DateCoin is the world’s first dating service that uses neural networks and artificial intelligent algorithms based on working business model with clear buyback on blockchain.
Did you use a support of ICO Agencies or you made all marketing by yourself (while preparing the ICO)?
At the Pre-ICO stage, we had experience of work with one of the ICO-agencies, which I and the entire team really regret. We were inexperienced startup team in the cryptocurrency area that time and we believed the loud promises of millions of USD investments, which we will get after the ICO-services. In fact, it turned out to be just words, as the agency did not fulfill its obligations. Some of ICO-agencies train their sales skills on the ICO-projects but not on the potential investors — in the end they earn on you, not with you.
That is why it is necessary to have the opportunity to mobilize your own resources to solve the main tasks during the preparation and launching an ICO. Otherwise, if you rely only on the agencies, you may never reach success.
I am sure that the current crisis on the ICO market will have a good influence on the market sanitation — after the scam projects, unfair agencies will also go away. Despite the fact that it is becoming harder and harder to raise money during an ICO and reach Soft/Hard Cap, the agencies are increasing prices even more.
Which marketing tools did you use ?
During the preparation and launching an ICO, we used really different instruments. We attracted hundreds of different specialists, dozens of consultants, prepared dozens of videos and hundreds of texts, regularly distributed newsletters to various cryptomedia, paid for the sponsorship materials, launched advertising campaigns in social networks and much more.
When you are preparing for an ICO and you have really tight timeframes, you are sorting through all the possible tools with one goal — to collect as much as it possible for the future development of the project. Realizing that there will be no second chance, you concentrate all your efforts on finding new advertising platforms that you have not used yet.
Moreover, your e-mail after your project becomes famous and well-known in the crypto community, begins to literally “explode” with the thousands of letters from people offering different services. In all this crazy number of scam-letters sometimes there can be really interesting and valuable offers. Find them, contact them and make sure that they are not scammers — this is necessary part of the project’s work.
Which tools were the most effective in your opinion?
The main attention we paid on our community in social networks. This tool worked perfectly. In our groups in social networks, we have a real cryptoarmy of people who care about our project. So, for example, in May 2018, our English Telegram group became the largest group in the cryptoindustry (according to the statistics of ICOWhitelists). Currently, only in our Telegram-communities we have about 200 000 people. It is the strong community that gives us serious results. Also in our community promotion, a special role is played by the project consultants, who are real influencers in crypto. By the way, dozens of people from different countries performed as consultants for our project. We still maintain contact with them, and they are helping us.
Moreover, after an ICO, we did not abandon our channels (which often happens), on the opposite, we started to inform our subscribers about the project’s news even more and answering their questions.
Which instruments were not so effective?
Unfortunately, crypto-media which state themselves as large platforms that collect an impressive audience of crypto-investors and crypto-enthusiasts, didn’t show really good results. Mostly everywhere the prices for publications on these websites are even higher than for publications in international newspapers and magazines with a long history and a serious reputation. As a result, the placement of sponsorship materials does not pay off in any way — the costs do not correlate with the results.
What would you recommend to new ICO-projects? On which aspects while preparing ICO they should mostly pay attention?
It is necessary to understand that today’s realities are very different from the realities, half a year ago. After all, according to statistics, the profit of ICO-projects in August 2018 fell to $ 326 million, which is the lowest since May 2017. For comparison: for first months of 2018, ICO-projects raised $ 3 billion every month. This is almost ten times less than before. The same fall during the year demonstrated Ethereum, which is actually the main “fuel” of the ICO.
A huge number of tokens, which were sold to investors, were not even brought to the exchanges. How will investors act in this situation? Of course, they will invest very carefully next time and insure themselves.
When preparing to launch an ICO, it is necessary to understand that today any ICO-project can become a victim of scam-companies offering their services. To m-ake a video, sell a base, write, publication in a listing — all this is only a small part of what many people offer all the time.
The only recommendation for teams is to carefully immerse in all processes — technical, marketing and others. Do not rush to pay money without figuring out each small detail.
How do you think, what was the most important factor for your success at the ICO?
The most important is economy of the project (tokenomics). We proposed a model according to which, tokens are created for real use in the product — that means that we didn’t create tokens just for tokens, but we made tokens which can be useful for people.
In our current service, MVP Denim, we have already implemented our coins — DateCoin. They were used by hundreds of users. We implemented over 180 thousand tokens, which indicates the relevance of this tool. This became possible because we provided a transparent mechanism and became more profitable for people to purchase the services using our tokens — a discount up to 50%. Thousands of people have learned about cryptocurrencies and tokens, who have never been familiar with such an economy before.
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