“You want to start a marketing agency in the ‘bitcoin’ industry? Don’t waste your education, start something long-term,” said my business school marketing professor in 2016.
This was a time long before Web3, NFTs and DeFi. Back then, while there were plenty of developers, the industry lacked digital marketers.
Fresh out of a business degree in digital marketing, I knew crypto marketing was my calling. So, I sent my resume to hundreds of crypto brands hoping to learn the tricks of the trade and start something of my own in the near future. Fast forward seven years and I now run a crypto marketing agency.
Here are some lessons I’ve learned along the way.
The community could give better ROI than influencers
I cringe every time a client asks us to spend 70% or more of their marketing budget on influencers. I notice this trend, particularly in startups that lack a marketing co-founder.
Don’t get me wrong, throwing big money on influencers worked like magic for your growth KPIs till 2018. This was a time when we only had a handful of opinion leaders to follow the industry and reliable Web3 communities did not exist.
To get the best results, marketers need to reach where their users are most active.
In 2022, crypto users are far more active in Web3 communities like Discord, Telegram, Reddit and TikTok. Hence, integrated omnichannel campaigns offer far higher campaign conversions than influencer campaigns alone.
SEO is an untapped goldmine
From experience, I can tell you that it’s possible to bring centralized exchanges, NFT projects and metaverse brands from 0 to 50,000 active monthly users with a $5,000 monthly budget. And, this is using nothing but good old search engine optimization techniques used by digital marketers since 2010 to rank companies better on Google.
I’m surprised how many crypto marketers still ignore SEO in their growth plans, making it the perfect untapped opportunity. Yes, SEO is slow and isn’t as exciting as running fancy paid ads, but it sure can get the job done.
All you need is a qualified SEO specialist to run on-page and off-page SEO activities for six months. Voila — you’ll start getting free organic visitors on your site. If that isn’t exciting, I don’t know what is.
Factor in bots
You’d be surprised how much of the crypto space is just bots. From influencer video views and comments to telegram communities, you’re already spending thousands of dollars and countless hours interacting with bots.
A seasoned crypto marketer smells bots from a mile away and will have historical campaign performance to make sure you spend your hard-earned money on real humans, not bots.
Good marketing is the fastest way to kill a bad project
If only I had a satoshi for every time a client told me, “We are a (insert popular trend) project. We want to follow exactly what (insert project that mooned) did.”
No matter how well you market your project, this will not end well.
There’s a reason their project mooned. They were the first movers. Instead, project yourself as something completely different — that’s what makes marketers excited and your campaign ROIs soar.
The 25x, 10x and 5x growth rule
Your compensation, company growth targets and campaign video views depend on the current state of the crypto market.
Knowing this, as the CEO of a crypto marketing agency, I set three very different growth targets for clients.
- The potential for 25x revenue if Bitcoin surpasses an all-time high and holds
- 10x in a ‘boring’ stable market
- 5x if Bitcoin crashes by more than 70%
But something’s not quite right
Let’s face it, crypto marketing has not evolved beyond digital marketing. Looking back at how digital marketing evolved over the last two decades will reveal how we could utilize Web3 to power the next wave of innovation in marketing, unlocking what I call Marketing 2.0.
When Web2 brands like Facebook began, digital marketing did not exist. Facebook relied on traditional advertising on TV and in newspapers. Google then launched search and display ads, allowing brands to promote themselves online.
This kickstarted innovation in digital marketing over the next two decades. Similarly, Web3 brands today have only been promoting themselves on Web2 platforms like YouTube and Twitter. Web3 marketers in 2030 will look at this the same way we look at Facebook promoting itself in a newspaper.
The future of crypto marketing
With more and more users spending their time on Web3 platforms, crypto marketers will soon get better campaign conversions by running ads on Web3 platforms directly. Why run crypto ads on Google when you can directly promote yourself on Web3 platforms like OpenSea?
As the CEO of a crypto marketing agency, getting the opportunity to participate in the marketing revolution is the most exciting part of my job and I can’t wait for marketers to make a bigger difference in an already rapidly evolving Web3 industry.
Dev Sharma is the founder and CEO of Blockwiz, a strategic crypto marketing agency trusted by over 250 Web3, NFT and Metaverse companies.
This article was published through Cointelegraph Innovation Circle, a vetted organization of senior executives and experts in the blockchain technology industry who are building the future through the power of connections, collaboration and thought leadership. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Cointelegraph.
Learn more about Cointelegraph Innovation Circle and see if you qualify to join