In our last post, we discussed how ICO advertising bans have created space for genuine ICO with real uses to dominate the market and relegate blockchain scams to the past.
But how do how get around the bans and market to your audience without using the major digital advertising channels? Our top tips provide the answers you been waiting for.
1. Make sure you’re ready for an ICO
The first step is to make sure you’re ready. Have you considered if your project is right for an ICO? Have you got a team you know are committed for all the right reasons? Check out our blog to find out if you are in fact ready to launch your token sale!
2. Back to the basics. Focus on your product
While publishers have banned ads surrounding ICOs and cryptocurrency, you are still able to market your core product and solution. The door is still open to educate potential contributors. If you are building a strong product that solves a genuine problem, this should be enough of a hook to gain the interest from the community you want.
3. Don’t forget the power of brand recognition
It’s as simple as it sounds—if people see you once, they’ll recognise you the second time. After they see you a few times across different mediums, they might decide to investigate the project themselves.
4. Get out there and meet real people
We have spent some seriously big budgets on AdWords, double-click and social media. By freeing this budget up you can, and you should, use it to go global—literally.
There is undoubtedly a cryptocurrency or blockchain expo, summit or meetup happening somewhere today, take a moment to do a quick search on some of the best events out there, purchase your tickets and spread your team in all directions.
While you will reach much lower numbers with your brand and solution, nothing beats having a face-to-face conversation and seeing your logo or flyer around an event with potential investors. This adds authenticity and credibility to your project in a space that is hinged on trust! It will also will give you some great content to share to your social and community channels.
5. Invest in public relations
Yes, PR does work and you should not only be focusing on cryptocurrency and blockchain media outlets. Get your message in industry, business and local media publications.
The same applies for influencers. Find a list of influencers that echo your message and brand. A strong list of credible influencers will take you a long way because nothing is more powerful than word-of-mouth advertising.
6. Be advertising savvy
Remember, when your ad gets rejected, there’s a good reason for it. You have probably triggered a keyword that the bot army is closely monitoring. Be smarter with the keywords you use, the design you create and the landing page you bring people to.
You may want to think about creating an secondary educational landing page that doesn’t mention the word ‘ICO’ to prevent any crawling issues or simply link people to a Medium blog which explains the benefits of your product and let users explore from there.
7. Focus on building a community
Building a community can be tough, but if you have the right product nothing will stop you from growth hacking a genuine community within 2 to 5 days. We know this as we have done it for Shping, Invox, MoxyOne and even for eBitcoin where we have grown their Telegram community from 5000 members to 55,000 members in just 7 days.
Nope, we didn’t purchase them! Instead, we got real people interested in cryptocurrency to join and sign up with their details so we can continue communicating with them. What’s the secret? An airdrop.
8. Go old fashioned, go bounty
A bounty program isn’t all about gold; a strategically executed bounty guarantees there’s an army cheering you on from the sidelines.
Maximise the reach of every piece of content you create and allow the bounty hunters to share it with their network in their languages. It’s a small reward for a large return.
9. Take the time to seek private investments
Let’s take a minute to be realistic, the ICO space has catapulted beyond our imaginations circa early 2017. It’s simply not the same.
Any successful ICO today would have put the time and effort into seeking private investments from their network and global events. The majority of funds today are raised from private investments, so go hustle!
There’s a multitude of avenues you can pursue to ensure the success of your ICO. If you’ve got a solid team and a strong product, there’s no reason why you can’t prosper even with the advertising bans coming into place. Put your head down and hustle—it’s the same as starting any other business.
By Mo Hamdouna