IEO Marketing — Insights from working with more than 45 blockchain projects [2019]
The world of blockchain marketing is changing rapidly. In less than three years we have shifted from ICO to STO and IEO.
The names may be different but the challenges behind them are pretty much the same:
How can a company in the blockchain space (that is filled with competitors), make enough buzz, create a strong active community and gain investors trust in a relatively short time?
In this quick IEO Marketing Guide, I will share with you insights from my experience at GuerrillaBuzz. This article will focus on insights I have learned after helping our clients raise more than $150 Million and dealing with more than 45 different blockchain projects from all over the world.
If you are looking for a definitive guide that can take you from A-Z when it comes to launching an IEO and running a marketing campaign you can check out:
How much does IEO marketing cost?
That’s one of the first questions that our clients ask.
It usually depends on how much buzz you are looking to generate, which publications you want to be mentioned in, and how long the campaign will last.
For example, an article on Tier 1 publications (Techcrunch, Forbes, BusinessInsider, etc…) can cost up to a few thousand dollars per article.
If your budget is pretty humble you shouldn’t aim to get a mention in these publications.
For low budgets campaigns, getting mentioned on a few T1 publications can cost thousands of dollars and the return (in terms of traffic) might not satisfy you.
Instead, I would recommend you to focus on creating high-quality content in your blog, distribute it in the relevant communities and aim for smaller publications (a few hundred dollars per article).
IEO marketing campaign budget can start around $5000 and go up to $2,000,000.
There is no end to how much money you can spend in a marketing campaign, so it’s important to know what you’re doing, be focused and talk with experts (feel free to reach out to my partner Asaf).
Which social networks should I focus on my IEO marketing campaign?
There are too many different social networks out there.
Focus is the key.
So which one is the most relevant for the crypto world?
Bitcointalk — That’s is the first crypto community in the world. Satoshi Nakamoto was active there in the early years.
With more than 6 million page views per month and a few of the first bitcoin pioneers still active in this community, Bitcointalk is an integral part of your marketing campaign.
In the last few years, Bitcointalk began to ‘lose’ its glory. Bounty hunters and signature campaigns kind of destroyed the vibe of this vital forum.
If you want to make the most out of Bitcointalk, I recommend you interact with the community members, share your project there (ANN post), get feedbacks to turn it into actions.
One post a day about your progress or brainstorm related to your niche can help your marketing campaign (Don’t push a link to your site everywhere, only in places where it gives value to the community).
Reddit- This one is definitely my favorite place on the internet. Reddit is the largest content website in the world.
Billions of people each month (mostly from English speaking countries and western Europe) sharing articles in groups called ‘Subreddits’. Each group is a whole community that stands by itself.
Just as an example: — /r/cryptocurrency has almost 900k members!
- /r/bitcoin has more than 1 million members!
Making it the largest and most active crypto communities around the internet.
How can you leverage Reddit for your IEO marketing:
Start by creating high-quality content that focuses on bringing value to your readers rather than talking about how you are going to change the world and why your project is the next bitcoin.
Post it on Reddit and if the community thinks the content is good enough, they will upvote it, causing the post to get closer to the top ranks.
If a post reaches the top 1–10 places the exposure is huge and can get your company into the daily conversation of the crypto community.
Remember: Quality content reaches high locations on Reddit because it deserves to be there.
Steemit: In a short period of time Steemit was able to attract many people from the crypto community to open an account there and become an active member. Steemit might look complicated but it’s actually pretty simple.
You need to open a wallet to become a member and by being active you can get STEEM token.
The benefits of running a marketing campaign on Steemit is that all the users there are into crypto.
The cons: people are less likely to get to your site from Steemit because they get incentives from staying on Steemit and being active.
Quora: I must admit, I’m addicted to Quora. In my opinion, it is one of the best platforms for self-branding, which directly impacts your company’s branding as well. With more than 550 Million page views per month, Quora is the largest Q & A site in the world.
By finding relevant questions to your niche, and writing high-quality answers you can gain authority within your niche.
You can even tell each person in your team to write 1 answer per day.
For example, Your developer can answers questions related to blockchain and tech. Your designer can answer questions related to UX in the crypto world and how to improve it.
You get my point ;)
There are more important social media for your IEO. You can check an article I wrote here about the different social media you can use for promoting your blockchain project.
Blog vs Medium:
Most of the companies in the blockchain world are using Medium as their primary channel to publish articles. As an active Medium writer (Hackernoon The Startup) I understand the value that Medium brings to my company.
People can find my content on Medium itself and it usually gets ranked pretty high on Google because Medium has high page rank and domain authority
But it’s not all pink.
If for example I write a great piece of content on medium and 1000 people read it, and inside the content, I insert a link that leads to GuerrillaBuzz (homepage or one of the guides I write there pretty often), How many people actually get into our website?
Answer: maybe 5%
On the other hand, if I write a great blog article on my site and it gets 1000 views, all those views are in my website, making it easier to convert them into clients.
So why are companies writing mostly on Medium and not blogs?
In my opinion — Lack of basic understanding of SEO. In 2017 many new companies showed up in the ecosystem. All of them wanted to be part of the rising blockchain economy.
Hundred of ICOs tried to create a lot of buzz FAST.
Writing a blog article in a new site, waiting for it to get ranked might take months, ICOs didn’t have months, they needed to create buzz NOW.
Medium is the perfect option.
You write something, and it gets indexed and ranked pretty fast (manner of days)
The result: most of the blockchain companies continue to write their content on Medium. Instead of building their own brand and focus on high-quality content on their blog, they create content mostly to medium, leading to low traffic in their site.
Trust is something you can’t buy:
Trust is something you can only earn. The way to earn your target audience trust is to actually care about them (sounds a bit hippie, I know).
How can you build trust: — Write high-quality content (in the first body). Try to use the word ‘I’ (personal pronouns) instead of ‘We’, sharing your LinkedIn profile and your face will tell people that you’re a real person.
- Engage with your community: On Telegram, Bitcointalk, Reddit, Local meetup and conferences. Use those channels to talk with your community, get feedback from them, let them ask questions and get involved in the process of making your community great.
- Linkedin/Twitter: Try to share some interesting insights with the community. If you’re in the banking industry, find some cool statistics about banking and crypto, share it with your target audience on a daily basis to build trust and authority in your niche.
There are plenty of more IEO marketing insights I could share with you but I promised at the beginning that this guide would be quick ;)
Feel free to PM me here or go to GuerrillaBuzz and leave your details there.
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