How We Marketed Our Product: Insights, Mistakes and Working Strategies
Part 1: Social Media
While the first half of 2018 was dedicated to the launch of our product, the second half was focused on announcing it to the world. In other words, we created a buzz and built a community. The process was both fascinating and challenging. We’ve made mistakes, then even more mistakes, learned a thing or two and finally have managed to attract 50,000 active users. Now we want to share our story.
Looking back at the USDX Wallet app promo campaign, I can’t help thinking: wow, we did quite a job! And in a very short period of time. I have this enormous spreadsheet with data on channels, lots of numbers and stats. It looks dull and raw for an outsider, but for us, it’s like a mood board filled with visuals and memories. So, let me spell it out for you.
Social Media
The obvious step to start with, right? And the one which seems to be easy, because we all use social media daily (or, hourly) and know how stuff works. Well, no. That one appeared to be the most challenging. It all started with mapping a pool of social media platforms which will perform most efficiently. We excluded Instagram/Snapchat/YouTube/other visual social media right away since our product is under FinTech category and, well, we didn’t prioritize sexy content. So we were focusing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora and Reddit.
The first trio is very obvious — we wanted to target as many different audiences as possible. Facebook and Twitter present a more relaxed way of throwing in information, while LinkedIn opens the doors to the lavish world of investors, FinTech pros and like-minded crypto evangelists. Quora was one of the hottest platforms according to tons of How-To articles we read. And they also say that it’s a must to have a Reddit account if your startup/product deals with crypto.
Let me remind you, that we launched our marketing campaign in the second half of 2018. Google banned crypto-related ads, with Facebook and Twitter following the lead. We still decided to give it a go.
We already had a Twitter account and tweeted on a regular basis. We lacked followers, and those neat big numbers make your account look tempting, right? So we started to experiment with different strategies: increasing number of followers, outreaching the audience, engaging a growing community. Buying those followers is a well-known option, which we tried but canceled almost immediately. For a hefty price tag you’ll get the influx of new members, but zero conversion. Since we have a working product — an app — we were also interested in converting followers to users. Twitter didn’t cut it for us. So, if you have a spare $500–1000 you can play with various types of campaigns for attracting a more refined and responsive audience. But if you’re looking for that sexy number of followers solely, don’t waste your money on Twitter campaigns (CPC $0.69) — Airdrop will drive people to your account almost for free.
Facebook has banned all ads for crypto-related projects. There are options to bypass this limitation, but only after your tokens are listed on exchanges or with the help of an authorized agency. We tried to play with the wording and CTAs of our ads but got rejected by Facebook moderators. We didn’t try out the agency, because of significant minimal budget required — around $5K. Our followers came through organic traffic and Airdrop campaign.
This story was a very short-term one. LinkedIn offers several ad placements for businesses (they call it “targeted self-service ads”), we tried them all (CPC $11.80), but didn’t get any result at all. With LinkedIn, the best strategy, which is working for us, is to address people directly. Yes, it’s a scrupulous and time-demanding work, but it’s an effective one.
Quora
We’ve got 3 app installations, with $0.79 per CPC. Our strategy was the following: the content manager searched the platform for topics, related to our product (mobile payments, crypto, blockchain, money transfers), and answered questions. We decided to act discreetly and didn’t go into aggressive promotion of USDX Wallet app in our answers. Still, we got some traffic. This platform is useful for guerrilla marketing, but expensive and rather ineffective in terms of conversions.
This is a strange one, at least for our liking. Maybe the community is great, but the way Reddit itself functions is confusing. There are numerous limitations for accounts with low karma and to get one you have to meet lots of requirements. The effect will be mostly a “PR” one — your account will look cool with high karma, but will it boost your app installation numbers? Big question. If you still need that magically high karma — we did — it’s better to work with an agency. We worked with guys from Reddit Marketing Pro who posted our articles in different subreddits, and then they left comments under those articles. We replied back, trying to start a discussion. The effect is a very short-term, so once your monthly credit expires (it was $600 in our case), be ready to face super-low/zero activity again.
Currently, we’re very active on Twitter — posting daily news and product announcements, we have pages on Facebook and LinkedIn for big corporate news or significant product updates. It’s a routine work which should be done, and it’s a no brainer. Regarding marketing campaigns on either of these platforms — it was not worth it in our case. Stay tuned for part 2, where we’ll talk about crypto-related media. We’ll disclose the names, yes.
