Crypto Marketing 101: A Comprehensive Guide for Business Owners

Is crypto marketing the lifeline of every crypto project? Definitely, business owners should be prepared to bury their projects if their marketing isn’t successful.

Regardless of how great your project is, whether it’s an initial exchange offering, an NFT marketplace, or a coin offering, it will fail if nobody knows about it. The value you’re providing is only as good as the number of people that adopt it. That’s why every wise person must take crypto marketing seriously. 

What is Crypto Marketing?

What is Crypto Marketing

Think of cryptocurrency marketing as a trumpet that announces crypto projects to a global audience. Without such an announcement, people might not even know that such a project exists or know its use. Marketing attracts attention and retains your audience through compelling strategies. 

Successful crypto marketing draws people in and makes them trust a particular project so that they can adopt it. It covers all the marketing efforts tailored toward promoting a product, creating brand awareness, reaching an audience, and facilitating the project’s growth. 

According to Statista, as of February 2022, there were 10,397 cryptocurrencies released, compared to 4,501 in February 2021. The number of projects in the crypto industry has practically doubled in one year. Despite the increasing number, just a few are successful. It only implies that for crypto businesses to stand out among the lot and be successful, they must do something different. This aspect is where marketing comes to play. 

Crypto Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing

Crypto Marketing Vs. Traditional Marketing

Crypto marketing is a niche-specific type of digital marketing that goes beyond merely throwing some ads around to gain leads. Although there are areas where they intercept, crypto marketing requires extra effort that is unnecessary with traditional marketing.

Here are some differences between traditional and cryptocurrency marketing. 

A Distinct Culture

Successful crypto companies focus on building a community while using marketing tactics to make that achievable. The crypto space has a distinct language and culture that marketing services must convey. To achieve a deeper connection with its audience, a crypto business must pay attention to the ways of the space through an effective marketing strategy.

Traditional marketing, however, focuses on reaching individuals through various communication channels. It means there’s no requirement to “speak crypto” or understand a specific culture to reach prospective clients.

Dynamism

In many ways, the crypto market is like an infant. The space is in a relatively early stage, making cryptocurrency marketing a dynamic system subject to constant change. There’s still no fixed technique that’s a one-size-fits-all for crypto marketing. Trading cryptocurrencies also influences the nature of blockchain marketing, because it is a highly volatile craft. 

A particular system can rise in popularity shortly and then disappear into thin air in days. It is why crypto brands should work with a cryptocurrency marketing agency to navigate through the nitty-gritty of the market.

On the other hand, traditional marketing has been around for a longer time. There are already tested systems that have produced results over time.

Skepticism

Blockchain technology opens a world of financial possibilities through cryptocurrency that disrupts the regular narrative. However, the space has witnessed different scams and rug pulls that have caused many to lose their money.

One of the biggest scams in the crypto space remains OneCoin, which led to a loss of $1 billion. These situations make crypto investors skeptical about adopting crypto projects, which makes crypto marketing quite different.

Marketing a crypto business demands more effort toward building credibility and trust than traditional marketing.

How To Build A Crypto Marketing Strategy

How To Build A Crypto Marketing Strategy

Marketing blockchain projects requires that you have an overall plan that details how you will reach prospective clients. A crypto company cannot afford to go about marketing haphazardly because it will waste time, money, and energy. You need to draft a marketing plan that documents the measures you’ll use.

Here are some crypto marketing tips to guide you in building the right strategy.

Study Your Audience

Many crypto projects fail terribly because they fail to study their audience thoroughly. You have to put your audience first before you go about marketing your product.

Get their age, interests, location, and pain points. You can also use AI to gather this information or hire a marketing agency to handle this aspect. Knowing your audience will allow you to figure out where your target customers hang out. This way, crypto marketing efforts can place your product in their faces.

Know Your Competitors

The success of a crypto marketing campaign relies on the strength of your competitor analysis. An effective crypto marketing strategy requires knowing how your competitors target cryptocurrency users with content creation.

Spend time on their blogs, study their community management techniques and check out their social media accounts to remain updated. Knowing their crypto advertising tactics will inform you on how to create a better strategy and generate organic traffic to your project.

Set Definite Goals

Crypto marketing goals are the compass that will guide you through reaching your target audience. It will help prioritize the suitable activities that can promote your crypto company. Your goals must cover the way you’ll walk your audience through the sales funnel. It should take them on a journey through the awareness, interest, and decision stages.

Create A Reasonable Budget

Calculating the amount you are willing to spend on marketing your crypto project plays a significant role in guaranteeing success. With a budget, you can determine how much you’re willing to invest in running successful marketing campaigns across various social media platforms.

Track Your Performance

Building a crypto marketing strategy requires that you keep an eagle’s eye on your project’s performance. This way, you’ll know the areas that require more effort and the ones to adjust. Working with a crypto marketing agency can make the process seamless.

6 Major Types of Crypto Marketing Strategies

Types of Crypto Marketing Strategies

There are different crypto marketing strategies that you can leverage for the success of your project. You can decide to combine all of these strategies if your budget can cover it. 

Content Marketing

You may mistake content marketing for simply posting on blogs and various social media platforms. However, it goes beyond that. A creative content marketing strategy details how you’ll effectively distribute your company’s content across different platforms. It covers the unique value and education that you’ll be providing.

Building a successful content marketing strategy also includes the different formats you’ll adopt, the topics you’ll be discussing, and the storytelling techniques that will portray the values of your crypto project. The ultimate goal of content creation is to inform, entertain, educate and compel an audience toward a particular project.

Influencer Marketing

With influencer marketing, Dogecoin flew over the moon when Elon Musk supported the meme coin. The billionaire’s influence has shown crypto influencers’ relevance and how they can help promote projects. One tweet from crypto influencers can either make or mar a crypto project. The Shiba Inu community even signed a petition to get Jeff Bezos on board to drive traffic. Undoubtedly, the community must have seen the level of impact that Jeff Bezos can provide.

Influencer campaigns provide crypto businesses with credibility. Collaborating with crypto influencers who have a massive following on Twitter or TikTok can help you convince their audience to adopt your project. You can enjoy positive public relations by relying on the image of your influencer to reach your target audience and generate leads.

Search Engine Optimization

When people first hear about a new project, they search for it on Google. Search Engine Optimization makes your project visible and facilitates trust. When searching for specific projects, you must use terms that people in the blockchain industry frequently use.

Using tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs can also help you find the keywords your competitors are using so you can follow suit. Crypto startups can leverage long-tail search terms that are less competitive to make their project discoverable by their audience.

Email Marketing

One significant aspect of digital marketing, that involves sending personalized messages to recipients, is email marketing. However, sending emails as a crypto marketing strategy requires extra attention because most users in the blockchain industry are skeptical about sharing their personal information. Offering rewards alongside can make them more willing to share their details. 

You must have a clear objective that you’re planning to achieve with your marketing campaigns. Alongside, you need an outline and compelling copy to keep your audience hooked. Here are some metrics that you must monitor:

  1. Open Rate: The number of people who open the mail.
  2. Click Through Rate: Those who click the call-to-action.
  3. Unsubscribers: Those who opt out of the mailing list.
  4. Conversion Rate: This accounts for those who reach the decision stage.

Companies send different types of emails to their audience. These include: 

  • Welcome Emails: This email is usually the first one people get after subscribing. It’s a great opportunity to build a profitable relationship between an audience and a crypto company. Businesses can further include additional information about what their audience should expect subsequently. Coindesk, among other high-performing crypto companies, uses this to engage their audience. 
  • Onboarding Emails: The content of this mail aims to teach users the best way to use a product. It helps users when they encounter difficulties while navigating through a new project. Binance uses onboarding emails to provide precise instructions that users should follow after verification. 
  • Newsletters: Newsletters are easily the most fun part of email marketing because most people look forward to receiving them. It’s a good way to entertain your audience and drive traffic to your website. Think of it as killing two birds with one stone. Coinbase Bytes is a great example of a fun newsletter that users look forward to reading. 
  • Referral Emails: Referrals deal with incentives that people gain for introducing their friends and family to a particular project. Most people are most likely to trust a company when a close pal refers them.

You can leverage tools such as Active Campaign, Mailchimp and Hubspot to automate your email marketing campaign. That way, your work can be easier. 

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a powerful strategy that helps you engage with a community of users. The social media platforms that make crypto marketing effective are pretty unpopular among regular users. Running social media campaigns on platforms like Instagram and Facebook has less reach than on platforms where people in the crypto community hang out.

Here are the social media marketing platforms where you can find crypto users:

  • Twitter: This platform is a crypto village where you can find your target audience. All the big guys hang out on Twitter; if you want to reach them, you must gain visibility on the platform. Using hashtags and jumping on recent crypto trends can help you find a unique voice for your crypto brand and set you apart from the lot. Optimizing your profile will also make it easy for your audience to find you. 
  • Discord: Are you looking for a hub for crypto enthusiasts, developers, and gamers? That’s Discord. Crypto users love Discord because it makes it easy to acquire information. Running a successful campaign on Discord requires that you create a server (community). It works like a WhatsApp group and you can easily invite people to join. This way, you can build a solid relationship with your audience. You’re not limited to only one group with Discord, as it gives you the liberty to create several groups within a community, more like Slack. Afterward, you can host events, giveaways and promotions that will help you attract a new audience. 
  • Telegram: Cryptocurrency Telegram groups are powerful for community management. Telegram is a social media space you can use if you want to engage your audience continuously. A Telegram group can take up to 200,000 members at the same time without any hitches. This platform uses bots and tools that allow you to automate certain processes in engaging your community. Telegram stickers are also popular among the crypto community for gaining traction and having some fun. 

Other platforms like YouTube, Reddit, Steemit, and Medium can help you run successful social media marketing campaigns.

Affiliate Marketing

Another aspect of digital marketing that works effectively for the best crypto marketing campaigns is affiliate marketing. Companies can leverage affiliates interested in promoting blockchain projects and offer them a commission in exchange. 

It works similarly to influencer marketing; however, it is open to all regardless of the number of their following on social media. Affiliates are responsible for finding a product that suits them and creating content around it. Partnering with crypto marketing agencies can help blockchain projects attract more users through an affiliate marketing strategy.

Top 10 Crypto Marketing Channels

Top Crypto Marketing Channels

Although a crypto marketing strategy serves as a game plan for promoting a crypto project, you still need channels to help execute the plan.

Brand

Imagine you enter a room full of strangers and want to make a lasting impression. You’ll have to look the part because how you present yourself to others will determine if they will like you or not. That’s the same way branding works.

A crypto brand has to create a particular feel and experience for its audience. Every element from the crypto project’s name, logo, design, topography, aesthetic, and color must have a unique character that distinguishes your brand from others in the crypto community.

Utility

Utility in cryptocurrency is simply the real-world relevance of a crypto project. Crypto firms can make a powerful tool out of their tokens’ utility to drive organic traffic. The industry has advanced beyond the time when people purchased tokens only to leave them in their crypto wallets. There must be a specific problem that your project solves.

For example, Ethereum is key to unlocking the world of decentralized finance, while Solana provides the same utility but with faster speed and lesser costs. These two projects solve problems in the space, and they’ll always remain tools that make their marketing tactics effective.

Whitepaper + RoadMap

Crypto startups without a clear roadmap and whitepaper will never gain credibility. A whitepaper is a document that details the problems of the crypto market and the way your crypto project aims to provide creative solutions. In many ways, a whitepaper is a manual showing the function of crypto businesses that helps convince crypto investors. Potential clients need to know your project’s security and the technology used in securing it before they buy into it.  

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, became a crypto advocate after reading Bitcoin’s whitepaper; imagine how much impact he has had since then. This shows that a well-structured whitepaper should convince your audience – crypto native or not – about the value your project offers.

On the other hand, a roadmap depicts a company’s long-term and short-term goals within a specific timeline. It shows the required steps that a company has to take before reaching the desired goal. Roadmaps are primarily included in the whitepaper to help investors track the product’s progress.

Website

Crypto websites are the face of crypto companies. People will be out in seconds if your website is dull and unappealing. Here are some tips that will keep you on top of your game:

  1. Upload recent and compelling posts on your website to keep your audience interested.
  2. Invest in user-friendly and responsive design that facilitates easy navigation.
  3. Educate your audience via blogs and case studies.
  4. Use your website as a house for your whitepapers, press releases, news, and publications.

Remember that business-related websites are a go-to resource for clients seeking project information. Treat it like a garden by constantly tending it to make it look and function optimally. A good website also plays a major role in boosting search engine optimization. 

Public Events

Attending public events will help you meet leading crypto companies and build valuable relationships with members of their teams. One of the ways crypto startups can move up the ladder quickly is through collaboration. Public events serve as a means of promoting your project, meeting investors, and also finding partnerships.

Community Building

The best crypto marketing plan succeeds through the strength of community building. The crypto community is so peculiar that meme coins thrive primarily because of the community despite lacking utility. That’s how powerful community management is. It integrates your audience and brings updates about your project to their fingertips. Hiring a professional to handle Telegram and Discord groups for effective community management creates a high-quality user experience.

Press Releases 

Crypto press releases can help you establish your identity within the crypto sphere. With press releases, you can portray your project’s unique selling points and get ahead of your competitors. If you don’t know how to draft a successful PR campaign, you can get a crypto PR firm to handle it.

Articles + Guest posts

Collaborating with partner websites can help you drive organic traffic to your page. This channel works best with crypto businesses that offer primary services different than your own. You can get their email address and request to post articles on their site. For guest posts to be compelling, you must choose a catchy headline that will spark interest. Don’t forget to include a hyperlink that’ll lead them back to your website. 

Airdrops

The mere mention of airdrops makes the ears of every crypto lover tingle. Airdrops are free rewards given to people who are part of a community. You can create easy registration tasks that your audience will engage in for airdrops. Harnessing social media’s power to create some hype when announcing airdrops can increase brand awareness. 

AMA sessions + Podcasts

New projects spark curiosity which makes sessions that create an opportunity for users to ask questions popular in the crypto space. “Ask Me Anything” sessions and podcasts increase trust in crypto projects because people get to meet the brains behind the project. In addition, some people find listening to podcasts easier to handle than reading long articles. Audio sessions will help you reach people in that category. 

Crypto Marketing Agencies vs. Independent Marketing: Which is Better? 

Crypto Marketing Agencies vs. Independent Marketing

Do you think marketing your blockchain project all by yourself will save you costs and time? If you think so, here are a few things you must consider before you leap.

Deep Industry Knowledge

Do you have deep knowledge of how the cryptocurrency space works? Cryptocurrency marketing requires that you speak fluent crypto. If your internal marketing team doesn’t know the difference between Polkadot and Polygon, you might want to step aside for a crypto marketing agency to do the work.

A top crypto marketing agency knows the leading crypto practices that hook your users. Many crypto marketing agencies have spent ample time with crypto users, so they understand their behavior to a large extent. They can communicate in a language that those both within and outside the blockchain space can understand. 

Simple Communication 

One significant barrier preventing cryptocurrency’s mass adoption is the complex ways people explain projects. Developers and project managers tend to communicate information in a complicated manner that the layperson cannot understand. 

On the other hand, crypto marketing agencies are skilled in simplifying concepts for a global audience to digest easily. With a crypto marketing company, you can reach a larger audience through strategies like social media management. 

Cohesive Strategies 

A full-service marketing agency can combine various strategies across different channels to create a unique flow. Working with a crypto marketing agency can help crypto startups build their marketing strategy from scratch that has a higher chance of succeeding. For already established crypto businesses, owners can harness the vast knowledge of crypto marketing agencies to gain a competitive advantage within the niche. 

Cost-Effectiveness 

On the surface, independent marketing seems cheaper, but that’s far from true. With crypto marketing agencies, you never worry about getting office space, insurance, or training new team members. A full-service marketing agency already covers the costs for these. 

Also, the best crypto marketing agencies have deciphered the correct techniques required to sell to those using blockchain technology. Independent marketing comes with much trial and error, which can incur high costs in the long run. Hiring a crypto marketing agency is safer for your pocket. 

Better ROI 

You’re running a business, not a charity organization, and with businesses, you need a great return on investment (ROI). Crypto marketing agency experts have a proven track record of working with crypto business owners. This expertise can mean more profit for your company. Marketing agencies offer fresh perspectives and bright ideas while using the right resources to help you reach your financial goals. 

A cryptocurrency marketing agency helps you set realistic expectations and calculate the metrics based on the peculiarity of your project. For example, if you’re launching a crypto exchange, the ROI differs from an NFT campaign. Agencies help you subtract the total income from marketing strategies from the amount you spent to gain your ROI. They’ve developed a keen eye for keeping track of your expenses and ensuring that you don’t exceed your budget. 

Final Thoughts 

Despite the ups and downs in the blockchain industry, it is without contention that cryptocurrency has come to stay. The growing popularity means new products will keep entering the market, especially with Web3, Metaverse, and NFT projects taking the lead. Effective crypto marketing techniques can help your project shine bright among the lot. 

However, if you think that your internal marketing team cannot effectively promote your project, it is best to settle for top crypto marketing agencies that have a proven track record in helping businesses scale. 

Author

  • Gabriel Cross used to be a bank officer for an international bank for many years. From this point of view, he says the time spent obtaining a degree in economics was a waste of time. A few years back, he decided to quit his job and start trading. He is obsessed with decentralized finance, but he often plays with the stock market, investing with great pleasure into ground-breaking tech solution startups.

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