That’s when a solid marketing strategy can come in handy. You may have the most promising and disruptive project ever, but you need to tell the world about it in an effective way. Otherwise, all that effort is going to waste.
But how can you market your NFT project? What strategies should you follow? In this guide, we’ll explore some of the most efficient tactics to promote your NFT project.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
- Why you should do competitor research before planning your NFT marketing strategy
- How to build a solid online presence for your NFT project through a website and social media
- Why your NFT community is a powerful marketing tool and what you can do to grow it
- What type of content you should create and share with your audience
- Why and how to establish key partnerships with industry leaders
- How airdrops, giveaways and contests can help your NFT project grow
- Why you should work with an NFT marketing agency
Proven Strategies to Market Your NFT Project
1) Competitor Research
Did you check what your competitors are up to? Designing a marketing strategy begins with a clear understanding of what other players in the industry are doing right and what you can do better than them.
Start by googling some keywords to find your competitors and check out their website, product, social media, style and tone of voice, and involvement in the Web3 community. See what hashtags they use, who they engage with and how, and what strategies they use to promote their tokens and work.
This will give you an overview of the possibilities available to your brand and will help you identify market gaps you can fill with your project.
2) Build a Solid Online Presence
Long gone are the days when social media and marketing were two separate things. Brands from all industries have harnessed the power of these platforms to offer products and services in a way that resonates with their audience.
From solopreneurs to startups and big organizations, everyone needs a solid online presence to thrive. People spend over two hours a day on social media, so you can’t afford to miss out on that huge audience.
There are two key pillars to a well-rounded online presence: a website and social media. And both are a must.
Your NFT website
A website is the primary source of information for your potential investors, and it will be the go-to place for everyone who wants to learn about your NFTs.
Nowadays, building a website is not as hard as it used to be. There are many platforms where you can create an engaging page, putting blocks together in just a few clicks. With some clear branding guidelines and compelling copy, you’ll be good to go.
To build a highly converting website, make sure it features everything your community will want to know about the project clearly and concisely. This means that, at the very least, you’ll need to include your story and vision, a description of your tokens, a realistic roadmap, a FAQ section, and social media links.
Social media marketing for NFTs
There are endless possibilities in the realm of social media. But it’s important to carefully choose the right platforms for NFT marketing and have a good grasp of their nuances to leverage their full potential.
These are the top social media platforms to market your NFT project:
- Discord. This should come as no surprise. Discord has become an NFT powerhouse over the years. It’s essentially a group-chat platform that hosts communities where users can interact, share content, and talk about whatever they are interested in. NFT developer teams and founders have increasingly adopted Discord to share and discuss their projects with other people in the space. Also, it has proven very valuable as a community-building tool.
- Twitter. When it comes to brand awareness and reach, Twitter is one of the most effective social media platforms out there. It’s perfect for NFT projects looking to engage more closely with their community through short content —memes included. Twitter has several features that make it an ideal space to market NFT projects, such as Twitter Spaces —where you can chat live with other members of the NFT space— and threads —which allow you to go into further detail about the specifics of your tokens.
- Instagram. Although Instagram offers less organic reach than the other two platforms, it’s still a valuable tool for NFT marketing. It boasts a huge number of users that spend hours and hours a day browsing, watching reels, and liking pictures. NFT projects can benefit from all those eyeballs by populating their Instagram profiles with valuable content. As a visual-first social media, Instagram is perfect for showcasing NFT artwork and growing a loyal audience. Also, the platform is currently testing an NFT integration, so we might soon see this space slowly transforming into an NFT haven.
- TikTok. Although the NFT community hasn’t established itself on TikTok yet, this platform offers something that the other three lack: the possibility of going viral almost instantly. So, by creating engaging TikToks —and maybe dancing a little— you have the chance to reach a large audience almost immediately and raise awareness of both your brand and the NFT space.
It’s essential to have a solid presence on as many platforms as possible and to do so sensibly. Take time to understand the ins and outs of each channel and the benefits they offer.
3) Build and Foster Your Community
Now that you’ve established a solid online presence, it’s time to grow and nurture a closely-knit community around your NFT project.
Enough has been said about a community's power to drive initiatives forward. But a somewhat overlooked advantage of an NFT community is that it can boost marketing efforts.
Think about it: an NFT community is like a group of ambassadors for your brand. They are co-creators of value. If you work hard to develop a strong relationship with them and deliver on your promises, they’ll be happy to discuss your project with the world.
But how can you develop a strong bond with your community? Easy:
- Be authentic. The key to a solid relationship with your community is to be authentic. Engage with them in a genuine way, answer their questions about your brand, make yourself approachable and available to them, and show them your appreciation for their support.
- Deliver on your promises. To achieve long-term success, you must look after your community by delivering on your promises. This will help you build trust and credibility, so follow your project’s roadmap to the letter.
- Promote active engagement. Your community should be vibrant and make all members feel welcome and excited to be part of it. You can achieve this by hosting AMAs and Q&A sessions, events, contests, raffles, daily discussions on a given topic, pay-it-forward channels, and so on.
- Reward loyal members and OGs. Once your community has been established, it’s essential to properly reward early supporters and loyal members of your community. This will help you build a stronger sense of belonging. For instance, you can establish a reward program with exclusive perks based on how long people have been members.
- Foster community co-creation. Make your community feel part of something bigger by organizing projects that they can contribute to or allowing them to vote on initiatives that will directly impact your project or something they are interested in.
Regardless of the tactics you use to build your NFT community, it should always be at the core of your strategy and guide every step of the way. They are your brand ambassadors and a reflection of the value of your project.
4) Create and Share Valuable Content
Don’t underestimate the power of valuable content. In a young industry such as this one, there’s a lot to be said. People want answers to their many, many questions regarding NFTs, and you can fill that knowledge gap with helpful content that subtly redirects them towards your project.
There are two critical pieces of content you should start with: your white paper and your roadmap. Believe it or not, these two are major marketing tools. Your white paper outlines your NFTs’ mission, and your roadmap explains how you’ll get there. Get these two right and set yourself on a path to success.
Apart from your white paper and your roadmap, you should work on offering consistent content across all your online channels. You can start by planning your social media strategy and setting up a blog. Then, craft and share valuable content that is helpful and relevant to your audience and addresses their questions. Talk about NFTs, how they work, and how they can help people and organizations overcome their challenges.
Once you start growing your following on social media and your blog, you can begin putting together an email list and send out insightful newsletters to investors and members of your community.
5) Establish Strategic Partnerships
Web3 is flooded with leaders and authorities that are leading the industry into its promising future through their insight and content. And partnering with them can be a great way to promote your project.
What do these key partnerships involve? You can make them part of your marketing efforts by hosting Twitter Spaces or podcasts to interview the leaders and influencers in the field and leverage their valuable insights. You can also organize Q&A sessions or AMAs to draw attention from your audience and provide them with valuable content that they’ll love.
It’s essential to be sensible when reaching out to leaders and authorities in the field, though. Here are some tips to successfully approach them:
- First things first: don’t be spammy. No one wants to receive a boilerplate LinkedIn message with no value whatsoever. Do your research and engage meaningfully with your target partners. They’ll appreciate your authenticity and be more inclined to collaborate with you.
- Offer value. It doesn’t necessarily have to be economic value, but you definitely need to show the people you reach out to that they will get something out of the partnership. For instance, you can credit them as guest writers on your blog or allow them to promote their own projects during an interview.
- Make sure your offer resonates with them. Don’t reach out to just anyone in the industry. If your NFT is a PFP, connect with artists and creators in the field. If your project is related to real estate, make sure you partner with experts in that area. Otherwise, they might not be so keen on collaborating with you.
6) Organize Airdrops, Giveaways, and Contests
Airdrops, giveaways, and contests should be part of your growth strategy, especially when you’re starting out and want to raise awareness of your brand. Let’s see what these concepts are all about:
- Airdrop: An airdrop involves distributing NFTs to web3 wallet addresses for free as a promotion or added value. Their purpose is usually to draw attention to a brand or experience.
- Giveaway: A giveaway is a marketing initiative in which brands give away NFTs to boost awareness and user engagement. Giveaways, unlike airdrops, usually involve giving tokens for free to only a couple of individuals if they meet specific criteria, while airdrops are more extensive.
- Contest: An NFT contest can involve any type of competition or game to help you bring visibility to your project while engaging your community members in fun experiences. Think raffles, quizzes, art or meme competitions, etc.
With so many social media channels available, it’s easy to organize airdrops, giveaways, and contests and get the word out about your project. But it’s really important to set clear rules to avoid any misunderstandings.
7) Work with an NFT Marketing Agency
NFT marketing is a lot of work. There are many bases to cover with limited resources and a lot of unfamiliarity with the field. On top of that, there are very few specialized marketers in the NFT and Web3 ecosystem, so building a team to promote your brand can be complex.
Faced with this challenging scenario, many projects are starting to work with marketing agencies that specialize in NFT promotion. With a solid understanding of core NFT audiences and technologies, an agency can provide a comprehensive marketing strategy that will take your project to the moon.
At TGR, for instance, we can help you create long-term strategic value for your community and your brand and find growth points for your NFT project through paid media, influencer marketing, content, and community management.
Get to Work!
These are only some of the many tactics you can use to tell the world about your project and make them want to join in the fun.
There are many more you can look into, but one thing is key: purpose. Society is built on a common purpose that drives everything we do. So, before venturing into complex marketing strategies, make sure your project’s purpose is clear. If it’s not, your marketing won’t either.
And if you want your project to succeed but don’t feel like learning how to market it, let us do the heavy lifting for you.
If you want to find out more about NFTs and how to market yours, you can start by exploring our blog posts.
Also, join us on LinkedIn and Instagram to get more NFT insights and be part of our community.