Web3 has witnessed extraordinary growth in the past year and DAOs, D-apps, and De-Fi projects are dominating the space. With new projects pooling in by the hour, the ecosystem is thriving with no signs of weakness. You can read our primer on web3 and its importance to get an in-depth understanding of the concept.
Web 3 projects are all about attracting the right set of people and building a strong community of like-minded people who share the same vision as the project. Because the soul of web 3 decentralized ownership and community governance. And therefore, it’s important as a web 3 project founder to know how to reach the right set of people and what strategies to employ to attract and retain them. To stand out from the rest of the projects, you must communicate the unique features of the project and convince them of the value your project adds to the ecosystem.
Let’s see how to do that…
Airdrops
The conventional meaning of airdrop is an act of dropping supplies, troops, or equipment by parachute from an aircraft. However, in the Web 3 world, a new definition exists.
Airdrop for Web 3 projects is a marketing strategy of giving away free tokens and crypto coins to their community members in their digital wallets. The main reason for sending these gifts is to create awareness for upcoming projects. But let me add a caveat, it’s not completely free. There are a few tasks that you need to complete to be eligible for an airdrop.
- Posting social media posts for the startup
- Following some social media accounts.
- Sign up for their website
- Completing some crypto transactions
Now you must be clear about Airdrop! But you need to know how airdrops can help your Web 3 projects get recognition.
So, let’s dive deeper into this….
Who doesn’t love gifts?
Cryptocurrency airdrops have emerged in the last few years as a popular and efficient strategy for Web 3 projects looking to attract new clients, foster their trust, increase awareness, and speed up brand expansion. An airdrop marketing strategy is quickly morphing into a game-changer for Web 3 projects, especially given how frequently new projects use it to create buzz.
Airdrop in Web 3 projects is not limited to boosting the value of your crypto and NFT tokens but even helps your brand to grow significantly. Their advantages extend far beyond sales. Airdrops have the power to advance a project, whether by luring in new investors or rewarding current ones to make more money.
2016 was a game changer for airdrops in Web 3 projects. Decred, a new cryptocurrency airdropped around 258,000, DCR worth almost half a million USD. The hype was real, Decred started trending on social media platforms, and crypto enthusiasts were actively involved.
During that time, Decred or DCR was at $1 – $2, soon the price skyrocketed, and April 2021 recorded an all-time high value of around $250.
Over time, there had been countless airdrops in the Web 3 ecosystem, some of these were massive marketing successes whereas others crumbled like a house of cards, but the hype or buzz an airdrop creates is something every web 3 project should try for themselves.
Use Crowdfunding as a Launch Strategy
Crowdfunding means raising funds from the masses to finance businesses. It involves garnering investment through the vast network of social media and crowdfunding websites where individuals, entrepreneurs, and investors contribute towards a common goal.
Although it might seem like it, crowdfunding is not just a tool for raising funds, it is instead a great tool for marketing Web 3 projects. Now, let’s understand how you can use crowdfunding as a marketing tool like a pro.
For Web 3 projects, focus on crypto and NFT enthusiasts where you need to communicate with audiences. Frame your projects, keeping in mind the following aspects.
- What is your project?
- How will it benefit the audience?
- What is the purpose?
Your Web 3 project should convince people to invest in it, and when someone decides to invest in your project, it’s not because they resonate with the product, it’s because they resonate with the idea. It creates awareness among the contributors and even results in excellent word-of-mouth marketing if they truly believe in your project. They will go out and tell friends and family about the project, and the cycle continues perpetually, increasing awareness among the audience.
Unlike other marketing strategies, you don’t have to fuel it with funds from your pocket, instead, it is one of those marketing tools that put some money in your pocket while spreading awareness for your brand. What more could you ask?
Oculus, an enormously popular virtual reality headset startup was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion. But even before that Oculus launched a crowdfunding campaign intending to raise $2,50,000 on the Kickstarter website. The campaign raised $2.4 million within 4 hours of its launch, garnering a massive buzz in the market.
Leverage the power of Social Media to build a Strong Community
Do you know how powerful social media is?
Let me tell you, according to the Oberlo 2019 report, around 3.2 billion people are actively using social media which is roughly 42% of the world’s population.
Keeping in mind the above statistic, it’s paramount to figure out how you can harness the power of social media for Web 3 projects.
Social media enables brands in demographic targeting or micro-targeting which is extremely useful from a marketing perspective. The additional benefit of demographic targeting is that it makes the targeted audience feel special and strengthens their feelings for the brand. Because of the open nature of social media, other users can view these brand-audience interactions, which can cause the effects of the demographic targeting to multiply.
Community building for the Web 3 project is another significant approach. The presence of Web 3 communities on Discord is real, and it’s massive. Your project can leverage the power of these communities to create a buzz.
Major projects begin with a lot of hype, but when people can’t see any recent activity or content, they lose interest in the content and ignore the notifications. Make a content strategy and share content frequently in different communities. Give them regular updates on the project and you can even curate and disseminate the discussions taking place in the community.
I think you might be clear about how building a community helps to create buzz for your Web 3 projects.
Even so, there are a few other interesting social media platforms with active Web 3 enthusiasts that could create a buzz for real!
- Odyssey, launched in December 2020 is a Web 3 YouTube version providing users a free speech median
- Mirror is a decentralized blogging platform on Web 3 where you can become part of the community by owning $write tokens.
- Supernova is a community built on the DeSo blockchain. It’s like Instagram for NFT communities. It is an extraordinary community for NFTs and art lovers.
Use Whitepaper to Create Awareness
In the general context, a whitepaper is an informational document in a long-form issued by companies and startups that highlights products and services and intends to provide a solution to the customer through it.
But the whitepaper extends even further in the Web 3 project creating a buzz!
A whitepaper is a lengthy piece of information that projects use to generate money and advertise their initial coin offerings (ICO).
The whitepaper is essentially resourceful for marketing Web 3 projects; it sits at the top in a marketing funnel (TOFU) where audiences do not know or have little idea about the brand. So it ends up in educating individuals about your product line.
Whitepapers are also a part of Middle Of The Funnel (MOFU) allowing readers to push hard and get involved in the sales process, using the contrasting views of projects.
You can create a buzz for your Web 3 projects through whitepaper by reaching out to people and industry influencers on social media and elevating your white paper marketing. Inform these influencers that something incredibly exhilarating is arriving soon, then drip-feed them teasers to keep them interested.
NFTs are Popular use them to Create a Buzz
NFTs are non-fungible tokens that you can purchase using cryptocurrencies and save in your digital or cold wallet. NFTs are a manifestation of an idea, thought, or design that has value because of their inherent uniqueness. NFTs are gaining value over time since they are non-fungible, which means they cannot be replicated.
The blockchain engineers explain NFTs as a wallet address on Ethereum or Solona blockchains or the blockchain upon which the project is built. The wallets on the specific blockchain hold some information or data that may vary on the constituents of NFTs.
People are crazy for NFTs because of their unique proposition in the market that crypto doesn’t offer. Opensea, the largest marketplace for NFTs has seen a recent surge of 23% in active users due to the launch of global brands NFTs like Adidas at the beginning of 2022.
Popular NFTs like “Invisible Friends” supported by investors like Garry Vee with an average price of around USD 3,500 is trending among NFT enthusiasts.
Levering the power of NFTs for your Web 3 project will draw significant hype. You can digitize a physical product and convert them into NFTs, and then promote it on Discord servers, making community members aware of the brand and its objectives in the process. This will help you create buzz around your project and earn additional revenue by selling NFTs. Free giveaway of NFTs is another splendid marketing gig attracting GenZ with the unique proposition of your Web 3 projects.
TL;DR
Creating a buzz for Web 3 projects might look like a challenging task.
However, because of the uniqueness of the domain, individuals are enthusiastic about all upcoming projects in Web 3. All you need to do is place your campaign in the right place at the right time and wait to enjoy the enormous buzz. Some key strategies you need to follow that eventually create a buzz for Web 3 projects are:
- Organizing powerful airdrops and targeting crypto and NFT lovers will create massive buzz among these communities resulting in hype for your project
- Using crowdfunding as a marketing tool allows patrons to understand the project’s idea and fund a small amount. When individuals love your idea they will advocate features of your project with family and friends and increase Word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing.
- Social media is the most powerful tool for creating a buzz in the Web 3 project and will help you boost awareness within the demographic community and target audiences.
- Using a whitepaper can create effective buzz to target the TOFU and MOFU in the sales funnel. The product line highlights are potent to influence the Web 3 enthusiast resulting in a massive talk.
- NFTs are popular these days, and people are crazy about them. So you can digitize your assets and list them on an NFTs marketplace to create buzz. Even an NFT giveaway is a great way to hype your Web 3 projects.
