Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, you might have heard of a little technical innovation called ‘crypto’. Whether you’ve seen it plastered all over the Superbowl and Africa Cup of Nations advertisement billboards, or had the pleasant experience of scrolling through Instagram and seeing ‘Crypto.com’ on every other sponsored post, you are sure to have consumed enough crypto content (willingly, or otherwise) to keep you well fed for a fortnight. But, to the untrained (and arguably, logical) mind, one would ask: “Surely these advertisements are more costly to the entities involved than the revenue generated?”. Well, let’s take a look, shall we?
Let’s start with the aptly named ‘Crypto.com’. They have arguably been the market leader in terms of marketing and their overall existential growth model, expanding into channels that most ‘normies’ (the crypto communities nickname for non-crypto native, muggles if you will) and crypto veterans alike would have never thought possible. They allegedly spent $65 million on their advertising campaign with actor Matt Damon and over $700 million on the re-naming of the staples centre to the ‘Crypto.Com Arena’… and that’s just the start. Some other notable deals include: PSG: $30M (3 years) UFC: $175M, (10 years) F1: $100M (5 years) 76ers: $10M… and the list goes on. So, has this excessive expenditure paid dividends?
With an estimated revenue of $1.2 billion in 2021 (source: financial times), it is clear that the business is a commercial behemoth, with over 4000 employees listed on their website. However, anyone with a keen analytical eye would have picked up on the fact that just the marketing spend above would amount to $1.08 billion – a huge 90% of their revenue. So, it is obvious to state that they are amounting to large annual losses when including salaries, taxation, interest, depreciation etc. In a similar vein to the high growth tech start-ups of the past/present such as Deliveroo and Uber, they have such high conviction in the future potential of their product that they are willing to take consecutive annual losses, whilst investing billions of dollars to make sure that as many global eyes are on their brand as possible. Crypto users increased by 178% to 300 million worldwide in 2021, with many analysts and firms predicting this to rise by over 200% in 2022 to over 1 billion worldwide users. With such mainstream adoption forecasted, you can see why Crypto.com have gone down this avenue, alongside other huge entities such as FTX, Coinbase and Binance.
It goes without saying that 99.9% of crypto or blockchain based businesses do not have the crypto marketing war chest that crypto.com and these other multi-billion-dollar entities have the pleasure of spending. But does that mean that effective and ground-breaking marketing cannot be done via different avenues? Quite the opposite, we would argue that there are much more cost beneficial and innovative ways to market in this space without throwing money at every channel possible.
Firstly, it is imperative to identify your target market – ‘crypto’ is often thrown around as an entire ecosystem, but your project could be one of various in this space: financial services, a social platform, governmental services, sustainable solutions, community hub, yield farm, Dao… the list goes on. Trying to have a broad of a reach as possible would mean that a lot of what is good about your project will get ‘lost in the noise’ – whereas, targeting your correct clientele will allow for a much healthier brand image in the eyes of potential investors and customers alike, whilst allowing for a much healthier, disciplined and cost-effective marketing structure.
It is also vital to the marketing strategy of any project to break the structure down into 3 distinct phases:
Phase 1: Pre ICO/IDO Launch
It is in this stage that the aforementioned analysis on target market will take place and then tailoring the brand to fit. This is also where the establishing of a strong community takes place – presenting your project at conferences and events, reaching out to Venture Capital firms and other large backers for financial investments/advice and building long term relationships with other companies who will help you on your journey. This is arguably the most important stage, with the relationships and decisions made here having a long-lasting effect on the overall success of your project. We are huge proponents of giving stage one the time and effort that it deserves, and it is essential that this stage is not rushed in any way, shape or form. Consistent monitoring using analytics and data visualisation tools are imperative to see which channels are performing well and which aren’t – meaning that dead wood can be cut quickly, with high performing channels receiving more funding.
Stage 2: Launch
This is where all of the hard graft that has been put in in stage 1 will pay dividends (if conducted correctly, of course). As mentioned earlier, a high reach can seem great on the outside – but if this reach is to communities that won’t get behind your project, it will fall flat and the launch will not be as successful as once hoped. We will be able to help provide a bespoke list of channels and communities that will both provide reach, but also value, with the right eyes being pulled into the project. A combination of strategies such as pay per click, email marketing, SEO, influencer marketing, and content creation for social platforms will need to be tailor made for each unique project to make sure that the launch will go down with a bang.
Stage 3: Post Launch/Maturity
We have lost count of the number of projects we have seen in this space where 100% of the marketing funds are thrown into the above 2 stages, and once launch is done, their project fails to deliver and hype quickly dies – the fear of all crypto entrepreneurs. It is extremely important to leave a large allocation for post launch, especially within community management and engagement. The community are the backbone of any strong crypto project – think about it, would you want to stay involved in a project where the founders become less and less involved within a few weeks of launch? Of course not.
Clearly, we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to how one can effectively market in crypto. At the end of the day, this is a blog post, and not a one stop shop (yet anyway!). However, it is clear to see that marketing is of the utmost importance within this space, and if it is not treated with extreme significance, your project will fall by the wayside. Here at Blocksultancy, all of our co-founders and partners have multiple years of experience within crypto marketing and have seen how the best projects manage to launch well and maintain their strong performance. To gain our expertise and assist you with your project’s marketing (alongside community management, social content creation and much more), either fill out the application form on our website, email us on contact@blocksultancy.com or click here to book a free consultation.