The Best Crypto Marketing Guide For 2023

Editor's note: This post was originally published on June 17, 2022 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensivenes.

The Crypto industry has experienced enormous growth in the last two years, leading to new blockchain-based businesses popping up all over the globe. At present, there are several business opportunities in the crypto industry, however, the founders in crypto space need to develop a well-defined marketing strategy that can build an online presence for their crypto projects.

In order for these startups to succeed in crypto world of web 3, marketers should view marketing as if they were promoting an ecosystem rather than a product. Involving marketing early in the planning process can also help you define your business goals.

While the basics of digital marketing are more or less similar across industries, there are few marketing strategies that are specific to crypto marketing. Moreover, executing digital marketing campaigns for your own crypto businesses might be difficult if you do not know your target demographic or the dos and don'ts of a crypto marketing campaign.

This in-depth guide will teach you all you need to know to make your crypto project a success.

Common pain points that should be addressed in your crypto marketing plan

1. Crypto startups are often considered scams

A big problem for any crypto-related business today is the widespread mistrust in the industry caused by the many crypto startups that have turned out to be scams. Through your marketing, you must convince your target audience that what you're offering is genuine and not another rug pull.

Source: Couponfollow Survey

2. People have a hard time grasping the technology

Source: coolcoffeedan

Since cryptocurrencies and blockchains represent a technological paradigm shift, another key issue that blockchain projects face is that users frequently find it difficult to understand blockchain technology or how these DeFi and DApps work. 

3. High market volatility

The cryptocurrency market is highly volatile and the price of a cryptocurrency can drop significantly. This makes it riskier for people to invest in a crypto project, especially in the bear markets. It becomes important for you to send out the message that you are here to stay and your investors don't have to concern much about the market volatility.

Crypto marketing channels and strategies to boost your blockchain project's online presence

1. Create a compelling whitepaper

A whitepaper is a document or a webpage that contains all the information about your project. Satoshi Nakamoto began the tradition of publishing a whitepaper for a blockchain project, which was eventually followed by practically every recognized cryptocurrency and became a major component of your token launch strategy. It is perhaps the most important document for blockchain projects and hence needs to be written properly.

Your whitepaper should include a full description of the product or service you are providing, as well as your ideas and philosophies, project tokenomics, and so on. Check out this guide for more information on how to write a whitepaper.

Read more: How To Write A Perfect Litepaper For Your Crypto Project

2. Create a Mobile-friendly website

Crypto projects are internet-first businesses. Having a website set up for your cryptocurrency business should be the first step in your marketing plan. When people and potential investors want to learn about your project, the first place they will look is your crypto website.

Your website is the spot where you can provide accurate information regarding your project. A user-friendly and mobile-responsive website with all important information can make a good impression on visitors. Include a section of commonly asked questions on your website, as well as your whitepaper, information about your team members, your community, and links to your social media channels.

3. Create your presence on social media platforms

Every social media site has a specific audience that is there for a specific reason. Twitter, for example, is a microblogging website where individuals can share updates and conduct real-time discussions, while Instagram is better suited for sharing visually appealing stuff. The first step is to determine which platforms your target audience is most active on and prioritize those channels.

Some of the important social media platforms where the most crypto audience is present are:

• Twitter
• Discord
• Reddit
• TikTok
• Instagram
• Facebook

A typical mistake that almost every crypto startup does in their social media marketing plan these days is attempting to be present on all major social media platforms at the same time. While it is true that you should be omnipresent in order to develop an online presence, you must focus exclusively on platforms where your audience spends the majority of their time. Otherwise, you will be wasting time, resources, and energy.

4. Focus on community management

To be successful, crypto projects rely heavily on their community. Almost every successful crypto project has one thing in common: a healthy and committed community of crypto enthusiasts that believes in the project. The goal of a community is to keep in touch with your audience and to develop two-way interactions in which your audience can tell you what they think about your project.

There is no purpose in establishing a community if your community members are not engaging. To avoid this, keep your community informed about the progress of your project and conduct community engagement activities on a regular basis.

Read more: Discord Guide: How to Build an Engaging Community for Your Blockchain and NFT Project

5. Content marketing: Educate your audience about your blockchain project

Due to the complexities of blockchain technology, it may be difficult for users and potential investors to comprehend your project's offering. Therefore, content is of utmost importance to develop the best crypto marketing strategy. Content marketing can assist you in informing your target audience about your project's offerings and benefits. Furthermore, if your content is interesting, you will likely attract more traffic to your online channels and communities.

In 2023, hosting podcasts is an excellent approach to educate your audience and promote your project. You can host podcasts with your team members to discuss your project and niche, or you can appear on different podcasts to promote your project.

6. Influencer marketing

Collaborating with influencers and content creators is essential when marketing your project. Influencers have a following and authority in the niche in which they create content. As a result, if they promote your project to their audience, you're more likely to gain followers and quality leads, as well as positive sentiment from your target audience.

Choosing the proper influencer and launching a successful crypto influencer marketing campaign can be challenging due to variables such as audience, location, engagement, etc., which is why we've put up an influencer marketing guide to help you along the way.

Read more: How To Use TikTok Crypto Influencer Marketing To Reach New Audiences In 2023

7. Increase organic traffic on your website through SEO

Search engine optimization has been a cornerstone of digital marketing for a very long time, and it remains one of the most important aspects of building an online presence and promoting your project. As long as consumers use search engines to find information and products, SEO will continue to be one of the most important aspects of any online marketing strategy.

SEO is likely the least expensive and most effective channel of all the crypto marketing strategies discussed in this article. If your audience is searching for you or your topic on a search engine and you're not available there, you're missing out on a chance to generate traffic to your website and, maybe an opportunity to get a quality lead.

Read more: SEO For Crypto Projects

8. Launch airdrop campaigns

Airdrops are a form of online crypto marketing in which you distribute free tokens to your users. It is one of the most effective ways to launch a cryptocurrency project and generate initial liquidity. With this crypto marketing strategy, attracting potential consumers is simple.

This is also an excellent method for promoting your next drop and rewarding your supporters. To market your airdrop campaign, you can use airdrop calendars, which are websites providing information about all future airdrops.

Reward early members through surprise airdrops

Offering additional rewards to your earliest supporters is the most effective approach to building trust in your crypto project and generating word-of-mouth. The strategy has been implemented successfully by a number of well-known cryptocurrency and NFT projects in the past.

For example, Azuki holders were rewarded with a surprise airdrop where they received 2 BEANZ NFTs for every Azuki NFT they owned.

Source: Azuki

Read more: Everything you Need to Know Before Launching an Airdrop Campaign for your Blockchain Token or NFT

9. Referral marketing

Referral marketing is an online marketing strategy in which you ask your existing community members to spread the word about your project and incentivize members for successful referrals (by offering whitelisting spots or airdropping tokens in their wallets). Referral campaigns give your existing community members to earn monetary rewards for recommending the idea that they believe in.

Apart from referral campaigns, you can also run affiliate marketing campaigns where you pay a commission for every successful lead you get from a certain individual or website. Affiliate marketing can help you get more traffic to your website. Major brands like Binance, Coinbase, etc. are successfully running affiliate marketing and referral programs for a long time now, indicating the effectiveness of affiliate marketing.

Read more: How To Build An NFT Loyalty Program For Your Brand

10. Email marketing

Through email marketing, you can stay in touch with your investors, followers crypto influencers, and users and inform them about the latest news and updates related to your crypto startup. Sending emails will need more than just writing about you, it needs proper copywriting to keep your audience engaged and excited about your emails.

Email newsletters are a tried-and-tested method for keeping your audience interested in your project; nevertheless, there is a narrow line between informing and spamming, so you should not overdo it when executing email marketing campaigns. Define the frequency of your newsletters as weekly or monthly, and you can ask your audience how frequently they wish to receive emails from you.

Read more: Valuable Email Marketing Strategies for Crypto, DAO, and Web3 Projects

11. Do a press release for your product/service

Press releases are an effective marketing strategy to spread the good word about your crypto project when you are just launching or introducing a major update to your project. The purpose of a press release is to educate people about your product, build brand authority and establish a positive image for your crypto startup.

You can publish press releases on popular crypto-specific websites such as CoinTelegraph, CoinDesk, CryptoPotato, etc which can increase the credibility of your project.

12. Paid advertising

Truth be told it's not easy these days to grow a business without paid advertising even if you have the most amazing idea it'll still be difficult.

You should allocate a budget for paid crypto ad campaigns on platforms such as Meta, Google Ads, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Reddit. However, most of these platforms are highly regulated for crypto advertising, and it is highly recommended that you work with a crypto marketing company that has experience running successful PPC ads without getting ad accounts suspended.

Alternatively, you can run advertisements on crypto ad platforms that are niche-based and already have a crypto-loving audience.

Read more: An Introduction To Decentralised Advertising And Its Benefits

Wondering where should you start?

If you're just beginning the marketing of your crypto project it can be hard to decide where to begin. Well, the good news is we have created a step-by-step process that you need to follow to create a robust marketing plan for your crypto business.

Step 1: Define your brand identity and your north star metric

The first step of creating a crypto marketing plan is to define your brand identity. Your brand identity is defined by what your purpose and values are, how you want to communicate with your audience, and what you want your audience to feel when they interact with your brand.

A north star metric is the growth marketing term which means the one metric that can track your startup's long-term success. A metric can be a north star metric if it can track three things: increase your revenue, reflect the value you're providing to your token holders, and measure your progress.

Read more: The Ultimate Guide To Building A Personal Brand In Web3

Step 2: Create your user persona

For creating an effective crypto marketing strategy you need to know the people you want to bring into your web3 ecosystems. A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal audience(s) who are most likely to use your offering or become investors.

To create a buyer persona, you need to collect information like:

• Age group
• Locations
• Hobbies and interests
• Pain points
• Their preferred platforms, etc

Step 3: Define your marketing goals

Brainstorm and define your marketing goals based on your identity and buyer persona. Your marketing objectives should be linked to your overall business goals.

For example, if your business goal is to get buyers for your cryptocurrency, your marketing team's goal might be to increase brand awareness about your project in front of your potential investors and the cryptocurrency linked with it.

A clear and measurable marketing objective helps you determine in the later stages whether your marketing efforts are working effectively and if you are going forward in the right direction.

Step 4: Decide your marketing strategies and channels

Define your primary digital marketing channels and strategies based on your target audience, where they spend their time most, and your marketing objectives. We have already defined some of the best crypto marketing channels and the best crypto marketing strategies that you can choose from.

Step 5: Set your budget

The next step is to calculate and define a budget for your crypto marketing. This is important as it defines how much you are willing to spend on your crypto marketing efforts and what are the best results you can get from your budget.

Having a defined budget also helps you distribute your money for different strategies and channels effectively.

Step 6: Create your content strategy

Once you've defined your channels and target audience, create a well-defined content strategy based on the goals you want to achieve and map out a content plan for at least 6 months. For content, ideas look at what your audience is talking about, analyze your competition, and check what influencers in your niche are talking about.

As much as you'd like to promote your crypto marketing company yourself through your content, talk about the crypto industry and your niche, and address your potential user's pain points and how you can help them with your product/service.

Read more: The Ultimate Guide to Crypto Marketing Strategies for Twitter

Work with an expert crypto marketing agency

A successful marketing campaign can act as fuel for the growth and profitability of your project strongly and it depends on the crypto marketing strategies you choose to execute which can be a challenging task as most of the skills require specific skills and marketing experts.

A crypto marketing agency can help you with your cryptocurrency marketing by promoting your project in front of the right crowd so that you can hit your milestones faster and in an efficient manner.

About GrowthChain

GrowthChain is a data-driven, full-service blockchain and cryptocurrency marketing agency that specializes in paid advertising, PR campaigns, crypto community management, and consulting for crypto companies, DAOs, blockchain developers, and growing businesses in the cryptocurrency industry.

We can assist you in maximizing the ROI of your paid advertising and traditional marketing campaigns without risking account suspension. Schedule a free consultation with our crypto marketing experts today.

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