10 Steps to do an ICO Series: Step 10 Get to work!
Read this article in 中文 / 日本語 / 한국어
First of all, congratulations for making it this far! You now have your MBA in how to run a blockchain business.
Your post ICO strategy should be focused on delivering on the promises that you made during your ICO.
ICO participants basically want to know these two things.
- What the heck are these guys doing with the money that I gave them?
- When the heck will this token get on an exchange so that I can get a bit of money out?
Of course doing these two things is important, but actually getting the message out that you’re doing these two things is equally as important. Admittedly we are not as good as we could be with the former.
New users want to know.
- What is this product?
- Does this product fit my needs?
Here are a few things that you can do to effectively market your product post ICO.
Continuous communication channel
During your ICO you may have focused on a few communication channels. Most ICOs focus on Telegram, WhatsApp, LINE, Wechat which is live real-time communication. This is fine, and it’s a good idea to keep your community managers, however it can be expensive and a bit overwhelming managing real-time communication indefinitely.
I propose you put your focus into slower communication channels such as Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or other communication channels.
Regularly update these with not just text but photos and video to show your community that your company is active.
Don’t take your existing community for granted. They are not only educated, but they like what you’re doing. Why not build a brand ambassador network and empower members of your community to be more involved with your project?
Educate your users
Post ICO we have put quite a bit of resources into this blog which has two purposes. The first is to educate blockchain companies on the most efficient way to conduct an ICO. The second purpose is to educate newbies on the blockchain and crypto. In my opinion the blockchain is one of the most important inventions in human history. I aim to make this technology as inclusive as possible by translating difficult concepts into an easy to understand language. We do all of this into Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and of course English.
If your project engages with engineers, you may want to hold hackathons, or reach out to the developer community with events similar to what Ethereum does with their Devcon event.
Feel free to get creative with this. For example, hold a joint event with an exchange or other blockchain companies that have synergy.
Your brand ambassadors can help with educating users.
Thought Leadership
You wouldn’t have gone through all of this trouble to get to this point unless you have strong opinions about the problem that you’re trying to solve. Let’s tell the world about it!
Speaking at blockchain events, speaking on podcasts, doing AMAs and YouTube interviews works to raise visibility of you and your project.
Have the management team speak at blockchain events to elevate your project’s profile.
Regulators
The governments where you live and or where your company is located are most likely either debating or in the process of drawing up regulations around cryptocurrency and ICOs.
Engaging regulators is important since they need to properly understand the multi facets of blockchain as from my experience most regulators only see one dimension of the blockchain – cryptocurrency. For example regulating all paper as money ignores the many of it’s other convenient uses.
In Conclusion
Now that we have finished this series, if you have some tips based on your experience please reach out to us via Twitter @zillatoken and/or reach out to us on Telegram!
We are also starting our Founders Spotlight series where you can hear about the experiences and get tips from other project founders.
