MARKETING FOR ICOs AND BLOCKCHAIN ​​PROJECTS

MARKETING FOR ICOs AND BLOCKCHAIN ​​PROJECTS

2017 was the year of the madness of the ICOs , with more than 400 ICOs that raised almost 600 million dollars, a madness that continues in 2018. With more than 1500 cryptocurrencies and tokens exchanging in more than two hundred exchanges and new candidates appearing every day in the field blockchain (not s or the tokens but all kinds of businesses and related ideas that revolve in around this new industry) , if we have visibility in this space increasingly competitive with an existing project or one new project , we need to understand well the marketing possibilities that this space provides us .

At the same time, a singularity of this vertical market is the recent (arguable) prohibition of the large intermediated traditional online advertising agents (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter ... ) . This measure is indisputable , since several of these agents are experimenting and assembling internal teams for the exploitation of blockchain , something that, besides, being eminently centralized means, can suppose a future risk in their hens of the golden eggs.

It is also true, in defense of these advertising platforms, that in this world of easy money ( ICO and related) there has been and there is a lot of pirate, corsair and buccaneer. It seems that anyone with an idea embodied in a whitepaper and a professional-looking website can raise a good amount of crypto - income and run away with the benefits.

Personally , I think that this , despite being an important barrier to entry for new players , is not necessarily a negative thing , since it strengthens the position of the already consolidated and in some way protects the space of scam and spam. In turn, and in spite of advertising ban on these well-known platforms, there are still many ways to exploit marketing and give visibility to your blockchain project .

I also think it is too early in the scene blockchain and once you have more security, regularization and buy n sion industry globally, Google and the rest made more flexible its current editorial guidelines and will reopen the closure to this new industry.

So, 2017 was the year of big budgets and PPC campaigns ( pay per click ) on these platforms:Sponsored search ads on Google and Bing / Yahoo .

• Display  campaigns (banners) of the GDN (Google Display Network) and similar .
• Adwords for Video    campaigns (ads on YouTube ) .
• Campaigns promoted on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin . etc .

All these channels (which are open and accessible , since they do not require a minimum amount of investment and anyone with a credit card can access them , and who also have a good return) are currently banned and are not likely to return to open in the short term.

So , what can I do nowadays to promote and give visibility to my project related to blockchain ?

Web

We start with the base : any current project must have a good, usable web, that provides a good mobile experience, with a professional aspect, secure (https) , with a message and a clear call to action that complies with the fundamental SEO requirements ( I will expand the information on this later).

If it is an ICO , the web must link in a visible way to the whitepaper (of equally careful and professional aspect in format and content).

The web should be the hub principal on which pivot all our strategy generation and acquisition of traffic and visibility online and has to have a successful deployment of software analytical (eg Google Analytics ) that we allow to have visibility into the performance of same and associated campaign traffic to make informed business decisions.

SEO 

While it is true that it is no longer possible to run paid search campaigns (PPC) , since the search engines have banned them , Google and other search engines have not banned the fact of appearing in organic results ( traffic that is also free ).

The world blockchain is j or see and there is as saturated as other sectors and therefore (depending on the language) it is feasible to position your business words in good organic positions. So therefore r is ulta essential:

• Make sure that our website complies with the fundamental SEO technical requirements .
• Conduct a study on possible keyword words c ore of your business with search demand and character transactional .
• Take care of these words in the tags of your site while establishing a strategy for generating your own content around them (a blog rich in content and a content strategy scheduled based on your keyword research is not a bad idea) .
• Take care of this strategy both on site and off site (links and mentions in other media and social networks linking back, and in a relevant way , to your site ) .

Social media + community Community is fundamental in any project related to blockchain. In addition , the blockchain world has its own ecosystem , so it is essential to understand it well and to manage in a correct way the presence of your project in the different existing networks:

- Reddit . It is an important community in the crypto world . The creation of a subreddit of your brand and the proper management and revitalization of the same r is ulta fundamental. In turn , it is also important participation in other subreddits relevant (non - intrusively) and give information about your project (linking back to your website) s or so when it informative and relevant.

- Telegram . It is advisable to create one or more segmented channels and , as in Reddit , generate community and link back to your site when relevant , as well as participate in a respectful way in other related channels , d o Where we can add value and give us visibility.

- Medium . Profile creation and generation of content compatible with the generation strategy existing content on our blog (not duplicate) , links NDO back to our website for further information or mention related articles where relevant. Dynamizing the conversation in the comments. Participation in the comments of other relevant Mediums .

- Steemit . Similar to Medium : profile creation, generation of compatible content and generation of conversation.

- Discord . Creation of community and conversation .

- Quora . Similar treatment , providing value .

- Relevant specific forums (c or mo Bitcointalk ) . Creation of profile and dynamization of the conversation linking back to my content when relevant . Possibility of promoted space , either in the forum's own promotional space or in the signatures of its participants.

While it is true that platforms like Google or Facebook has banned ads, we can still use the car to social character of these platforms organically to generate conversation and mentions that direct back to the web. Other possibilities are:

• Creation and dynamization of specific groups of Facebook and Linkedin linking back to relevant content of my web / blog. Participation in other relevant groups .
• Creating channel YouTubee , content generation vi deo (here you can also apply SEO , prior keyword research , optimizing channel, videos and associated text), generating conversation through comments ... Marketing influencers with and outubers known space blockchain to generate patroci no content video .
• T witter . Creation and dynamization of profile, generation of conversation with influencers of the blockchain space . Sharing interesting links (linking back to my web content or other spaces online in around my brand) as well as of relevant content from other players in the sector.

Promoted campaigns (paid)

While it is true , as we have mentioned , that the traditional PPC channels for the crypto world are currently closed , there is an opportunity to promote ad- networks relevant to the crypto space with a lower volume of impressions, but more targeted .

Some of these specialized networks in which we can buy advertising space are:

• Bitraffic.com . Network of 2 . 700 sites .
• A-ADS.com . They say they can get more than 149 million impressions in the crypto space per day.
• CoinAd.com . Very exclusivists of who they accept.
• Cointraffic.io . 400 sites .
• Coinzilla.io . 300 million monthly impressions
• Other networks that are worth investigating are Coinurl , Adbit , Bitmedia , Mellowads ...

There are also numerous sites and platforms in different languages ​​with which you can negotiate advertising space individually (such as A gora Chain ) .

Listing s ites

If your project is a ICO , there is also the possibility to be listed on some of the pages of ICO ratings and lists of ICO s existing (there is a wide and growing variety) . Some are free inclusion, others as I corating.com , Icobench.com or Digrate.com pueden give enough visibility to your project (although not exactly cheap - from 0.4 to several BTC - ), and many of they accept payments in BTC .

E - mail marketing

A good management of the database of your users is essential, since it allows you a direct communication with them and it is a promotional and additional traffic channel. A technique used is enough to provide some incentive value (such as a book or report in pdf that provides value) , prior Subscribe for the newsletter .

Some platforms e - mail marketing widely used as Mailchimp have joined the bandwagon of Google or Facebook and no longer allow their use in projects Cry p to but there are still many other alternatives.

Marketing of a filiation

Consis you to give a percentage of your sale / target / benefit users / members of the community that relate. The exchanges , especially Coinbase , they do very well, giving a small amount of money to use in his service as both referring to he said.

P ress r eleases (PR)

A very traditional form of marketing , but in this space can work very well, is the distribution of press releases. This can be combined with a guest blogging strategy : write relevant and valuable articles in other related blogs linking back to my site . PR is also a hybrid space that can with excta online and offline , since these press releases and notices can be both media online and print media.

Events

Connecting or n line and or ff line is also the world of events (which can be in webinar or face-to-face format ). There are numerous events that are already CONSOLID I walk in the field nationally and internationally. There are different ways in which you can have visibility with your project in one of these events , either by organizing it yourself , being a sponsor to a greater or lesser extent, giving a talk, participating in a panel, et c.

Meetups

Small scale events, cheap to organize and suitable to promote community and local brand awareness .

Training programs, m asters , pos degrees cUrsos related to blockchain

In an area in which specific training begins to appear, the different universities and business schools involved in these programs invest in visibility campaigns to attract students to their courses. Participating (representing a blockchain project ) as part of the faculty or as a guest in one or more of these programs has the double advantage of giving or knowing your project while giving it a dye of solidity and reputation (not counting the economic and reputation / personal brand incentive) .

Bounty p rograms

The b Your_County programs (reward programs) consist precisely reward in an economical manner (through tokens ) in return for a goal achieved. Within the world crypto (especially ICOs ) , the b Your_County programs have become a part essential for marketing . The ICOs usually book a small part of its market value in tokens for (ideally through smart contracts ) reward users who have achieved goals Marketing marked.

In reality, these programs fulfill a dual purpose : to publicize the project through the objectives and generates r a very involved community. The objectives to be met can be many and varied , and in reality most of them can complement the marketing strategy already marked. Examples of objectives can be:

• Creation of articles, content, blog entries ...
• Creating content as vídeos on Youtube .
• Creation of infographics .
• Posts on Twitter, Instagram, etc. Viralization ( likes , retweets ... ) .
• Signatures in forums such as Bitcointalk .
• Community dynamization in Reddit , Instagram ...

Some good examples of successful bounty programs (which can serve as a guide and inspiration, since they are still available online ) are those of Bancor and Iconomi .

Airdrops

In the ICO s world , as we have already mentioned , it is increasingly difficult to have visibility and to stand out . A method are to airdrops , which do not stop being an aggressive technique of marketing. Basically it consists of n to give an amount of tokens (in an initial state, with little value) with the idea of giving visibility to the project and involve the community. Normally , to access them you must already have a quantity of another currency on the same network in a wallet or exchange , and they are usually announced in advance.

As we have seen and although the big players of online advertising have closed their doors to the blockchain, there are still many valid alternatives to publicize your project.

Happy marketing!