Simplifying ICO Terms For The Mainstream Entrepreneur

Blockchain marketing — unlike hyped up pump-and-dump ICOs — is only lucrative if it delivers actual value for a project. And the numbers don’t lie — a company launching an ICO will know exactly what results can be attributed to your services.

Simply put, either your campaign is a success or a flop.

Information Overload: you’re doing more harm than good

Here’s what everyone needs to know about effective ICO marketing — we need to cool it with the technical talk; we need a time-out on all the tech buzzwords; instead, we need to ease people into it.

For the mainstream audience, one of the main barriers to entry is the amount of technical knowledge required to even begin to grasp what blockchain technology is, and what exactly it does.

At this point, a majority of the world has become jaded with tech jargon like hashes, blocks, mining, smart contracts, cryptographic proof, Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-Stake — it’s mind-numbingly endless.

What some fail to understand is that the initial information a person encounters about a project — usually through a website — is in itself, already a part of the user experience. Similarly, if it’s too hard to understand and too intimidating from the beginning, then there’s a good chance the viewer will hover up to the exit button on the web page.

When I was young, my journalism adviser told me that the mission was to express, not impress; this holds true especially in blockchain communications. Explaining a field that is already complex enough is no place to be showing off your tech vocabulary.

Sometimes, the audience doesn’t even need to know all the technicalities of the project. They just need to know the essentials. Of course, you still have to provide technical documentation for those who want to analyze it. But it’s best to save it for those who can understand it — the tech crowd, software engineers, blockchain developers, and analysts.

One thing you need to convey — and you need to do so quickly — is what you do and what that means for everyone — why should anyone care?

This is why there’s something called a lite paper. A lite paper is a version of the white paper for those who do not have the time, the patience, or the technical capability to understand the full version.

Substance trumps sales talk

Compelling and captivating science and tech communicators have a special place in marketing, yet, they are in scarce supply; this is why blockchain marketing is an industry that PR professionals shouldn’t dismiss, especially at a time when the market is busy.

I’m not going to lie; the pressure is quite high. A lot of technically proficient minds have invested themselves in blockchain projects. These are the early adopters of Bitcoin or those who “speak code.” Understandably, the expectations (and again, the pressure) for marketing firms has been raised several notches. Because of this, sales talk alone doesn’t cut it; you need to show a deep understanding of tech concepts too.

There are a lot of challenges ahead, but it’s not a lost cause. First, you need to understand what you’re talking about, you can’t explain something you don’t understand — and you shouldn’t jump in head first unless you do.

Apart from the tech jargon overload, I’ve noticed that marketing companies are starting to look generic — disruptive, decentralized, distributed, immutable, global cryptocurrency, “this will change everything.” These words and phrases have been thrown around so many times to the point where they no longer mean anything.

To the untrained ear, sure, you might get nods of approval. But when you’re talking to well-versed investors — people who have been investing in the space for a while, people whose attention and consideration are highly valuable to the project you’re working on — you aren’t adding anything new to the conversation, and your knowledge will look superficial.

As a professional, there’s nothing more embarrassing than that.

The art of science and tech communication

In a pool of about 600 ICOs (and counting), the work of PR professionals and marketers gets harder. How do you get something to stand out when everything and everyone is starting to look the same?

Admittedly, not everything can be salvaged — even by the world’s greatest marketers. Value has to come from within the project itself. Afterward, we do the best we can to convey and exude the core values of the project to the outside world.

Scientists and developers are best left doing what they do best — building things. But marketing and communications is a job that has to be done, and that’s what we’re here for. We have people who understand these things and are proficient in simplifying technological concepts and architecture into layman’s terms.

Storytelling for science and technology is an intellectual art — one that can’t be easily replaced — even by AI. Communicating complex topics to the general audience can get quite difficult, not just for blockchain tech but for science in general.

Someday in history, we may be able to relay messages telepathically instead of verbally, at that point, information transfer and comprehension may become instantaneous; by then, storytellers like ourselves will be out of jobs, but until that happens, we’re happy to do the work.