Web3 Marketing
Note that every marketing needs a budget to run.
Africa has a large market for Web3 projects because it has the youngest population in the world; where 70% of the population is under the age of 30.
Young people are known to be quick to adopt new technologies and innovations. For a Web3 project to hit its goals of onboarding many users, its focus must be on reaching a percentage of this untapped population. This is inherently vital for adoption.
Opportunities and limitations:
Opportunities:
The typical African youth simply wants to work to earn money or find money making opportunities with minimal or zero loss.
Africa versus the rest of the world in Web3 Adoption:
1.
Marketing for a centralized exchange
What’s the appeal of a centralized exchange to young Africans?
Strategies
Note: Take a look at marketing strategies executed by FTX Africa and Binance Africa.
- Key performance Indicators (KPI) centralized exchanges look out for includes trading volume
- Use media houses, crypto influencers (Web2 and Web3 micro and nano influencers – 500 – 5k influencers)
- Track sentiment analysis on Twitter
FTX’s global marketing blitzrig
- Be a student of strategy
FTX wasn’t targeting crypto natives, instead they used non crypto influencers to reach non crypto natives. (Look at the Omni channel approach)
Types of influencers:
Macro influencer, Micro influencers, Nano influencers and celebrity influencer
Note that crypto marketing is beyond Twitter marketing.
Example of Celebrity influencers: Tracking Tom Brady, Osas Ighodaro to influence for FTX.
The FTX Africa Strategies:
2 major efforts:
- Education initiatives
- Community building
Education initiatives
- Africa crypto tour
- Campus events (ambassador sponsorships)
Community building
Online: content, podcasts – Twitter space, online training sessions to answer users questions
Offline: local crypto/Blockchain events and conferences
FTX Foundation: donated funds to provide relief items to local schools. NB: Charity helps with regulation.
Women who crypto: used top women to lead the initiative, inspiring women to get involved with crypto.
BINANCE AFRICA STRATEGIES
- Signing big brother Nigeria stars as brand Ambassadors
- Tiwa Savage ad
- Lead sponsor of Nigerian idols
- African Nations cup
- Massive billboard at the airport
2.
What your Web3 social media strategy needs
- Communication: how easy it is to explain a product without talking too much. Simplify
- Security and privacy communication campaign. Using an influencer that people trust and like. E.g: Aproko doctor
- User empowerment campaigns
- On social media, respond to users quickly
Collaboration:
Social media KPI: engagement, growth, impressions, reach
Collaboration is the quickest way to grow a brand on social media.
Strategies:
Ad collaboration:
Use influencers and managers to run ads for your brand.
When you create a video ad with a celebrity or influencer, instead of running the ad on your account, run the ad from the influencers account and lead to yours. Easier for people to trust the ad.
Always ask: What are you trying to achieve with every campaign?
Campaign example: street campaigns (asking random people on the street questions), get them to download the app and follow the social media handles. Video record the questions. Run ad to the content.
Start a podcast
Pay attention to product user experience to help your marketing and also improve the product. Marketing outreach and continuous improvement.
Successful Web3 Social media
- User education: animation, use human beings to show how to click , use jingles
- Look at traditional banking marketing strategy, adopt their strategies
- Beta testing of products/apps
- There should always be a budget for marketing
- B2C requires online marketing
- Use Small tech influencers and lifestyle influencers on Tiktok. Let them do the content in their own words. Give them time to understand it.
- Look into Tiktok for visual user education, use Videos over texts
- Breakdown strategy documents into days with action – channel – execution – result/outcome
Playbook: data entry, consumer insight generator. A successful We’ve social media strategy prioritizes transparency, security, user empowerment and community engagement.
What is the user proposition for the product?
Other ways to maximise KOLs: An example: Apple and Samsung war through KOLs, then in the comment section promote the product.
3.
Crypto ads:
Search for “FTX ads on YouTube”
Creating iconic crypto ads
Socio-cultural content/concepts is the best concept for ads.
Look for what is familiar to your audience then merge with what’s strange/different and create something new.
Example: Redbull ad
FTX ads as a case study for crypto ads
- Mind mapping
- Create ads to entertain
- Example: Echo
- Your content should be original. Use the creators in their original form.
- Hero construct: add something/someone that is important to the consumer, makes the consumer feel like they are part of the story
- Save ads that you love and use them to tell brand stories
- Use Activities that are common to people like parties/owanbe. What are the content marketing ideas you can get out of those activities that can create a relatable ad.
To create an iconic ad: always identify the objective. Do you want people to share it? Do you want to start a conversation? Etc
Another tip that will help: What is the culture of how Nigerians consume content/humour
4.
Community Building
To build and scale a global web3 community, you need to build a network state, an internet country.
Grow the community’s GDP
Focus on quality members – at most 150 members per online community. When the community grows more than this , you begin to have inactive people so you purge the inactive. Nothing motivates the community more than always shipping things.
Focus on the depth of the conversation that is happening within the community.
Give me people titles and make them feel important
As a community manager you don’t have to hold onto power, empower people in the community to handle different roles. Have people in charge of something.
- Small communities are more effective.
- While some communities are okay if they are open and decentralised
- If a community is noisy take the noise and turn into music
- Optimize quality over quantity in the early stages of community
- Focus on a small niche of people per time
- Create social bonds: social bonds sustain the community in the long run. For example: host real life events/meetups where people connect.
5.
Viral content
How to create viral content:
- What do people care about? What are the things people want to say but are reluctant to start the conversation?
- To create content that can go viral, you have to continuously create noteworthy and relatable content to your target audience. Know what triggers people. Create what triggers people.
- Create a lot of small great content that triggers your target audience.
Triggers:
- Connecting the unconnected. Eg: either you are cooking or you are cooked, choose wisely, Binance. Using unrelated to connect the relatable
- Stick to one or two proof of success (KPI) of content vitality
- Using controversy to create vitality must fit into the persona of the brand.
6
Personal branding in Web3
- Focus on a niche. What people know you for
- In niching down, start as a generalist then specialize
- Have a strong Marketing foundation
- Share day to day life outside of work to make your personal brand relatable. To show there is a real person behind the niche. This way you are genuine and authentic while building a personal brand.
Sharing things outside of your regular work content can serve as top of the funnel user acquisition strategy.
7.
Web3 Brand Strategy
- The reality of innovation adoption curve. The fact that you have a product doesn’t mean people will adopt it. Every technology passed through the innovation curve.
- There will always be a bubble, a burst and a recovery market cycle
- To create a web3 brand strategy, you must pay attention to the innovation adoption curve.
- The curse of the product life cycle. A powerful brand strategy helps products sustain maturing momentum without stemming towards decline.
- The existential threat of clutter
Brand strategy is a must have.
The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do – Michael Porter
Important: Always find out what success means to a project before drafting your plan
8:
Community building
When you are starting to build a community, find out the existing evangelist of that ecosystem and share the vision with them, assign roles and responsibilities and watch them become evangelist/foot soldiers.
In a community with many people and few active people, ask the active people why they have stayed active and commit them to making others active.
Case studies:
Study Red Bull’s marketing strategies & materials.
Study Diamond bank advert 2012 featuring Bovi
Find Ads on Youtube and Google, study them
I learnt a lot on this very course