Rules of the game on the ICO market change every month. And the latest statistics of ICO projects says that many are not familiar with them. At the beginning of 2018, 44% of companies failed, never reaching a Soft Cap.
Chart: Dynamics of ICO success in fundraising. Source: https://blog.suicide.ventures/ico-analysis-april-2018/
Thus, today it’s possible to forget about the idea of conducting an ICO as a high-level phenomenon when the ROI was x400, but it is necessary to take this form of fundraising more seriously. The budget on marketing grows, and the average investment bill decreases. To succeed, you need to have a prototype (MVP) and get approval from the crypto community. And so, let’s estimate what marketing budget is needed for ICO this year:
1) ICO Listing Sites
Price: from 50 000 USD
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https://icodrops.com/ – free, but there’s a harsh project check
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https://www.icoalert.com/ – free
It is also necessary to consider rating agencies that will conduct an independent audit of your project and will issue a report about the investment attractiveness of your ICO:
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https://icorating.com/ – 20 000 USD per report + mailing through the base of investors
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https://icobench.com/ – from 0,05 BTC
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https://tokentops.com/ – from 0,5 ETH
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https://digrate.com/ – 1 BTC for the report
Our recommendations:
We recommend to get a conclusion by one of the rating agencies at first, this will help to correct the shortcomings of the projects, if any, and continue working with the project listings on paid and free resources.
2) Traffic
Placements:
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Advertising campaigns in Google, Facebook – despite the ban, you can still watch advertising banners in these networks
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Procurement of ads through specialized services:
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https://cointraffic.io/ – Minimal budget – from 10 000 USD
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https://coinzilla.io/ – Minimal budget: 0,05 BTC
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https://a-ads.com/ – Minimal budget – whatever
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More about popular media platforms you can read by clicking on the link: https://99bitcoins.com/best-bitcoin-ad-networks-reviewed/
Our recommendations:
Start working with traditional Google traffic channels, Facebook, and also connect retargeting, for example, Adroll. Closer to the beginning of the Sale, you can connect specialized crypto networks, but be sure to check the quality of traffic.
3) Road Show
Price from 30 000 USD
Perhaps the most basic thing with which to begin in 2018, it will go to the road show to attract VIP investors, funds and pools. Let’s interview, speak at conferences, blog. The task is to tell potential investors about your project by all possible ways.
Here you can find the list of upcoming events in 2018:
Our recommendations:
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During the search of the conferences it’s necessary to pay attention on speakers: if there are investors, members of the funds and important figures of the industry (they are also potential advisors) among them, you go there.
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Be sure to pay attention that the program have been organized pitch-sessions and opportunity to participate in it.
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Consult with the advisers – they are able to suggest conferences that are really worth of attention.
4) PR
Price from 50 000 USD
There was a time when ICO was so exciting that launching any of it was almost instant success. Unfortunately these days are gone. This means that you will need to work more to gain the support and trust of your audience.
A few recommendations to move in a right direction:
Form a strong team. This is the direction where extra hands are not superfluous. You must have several copywriters, translators, and managers who will look for the placements, negotiate about the accommodation, negotiate with journalists, check info guides, etc.
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Create content plan according to your product and market. Generate themes for the content, adhering to the product history, analyze the sites you want to be published, view the attendance, the number of pages viewed, the average conduct on the site, the publication policy of materials.
Life-hack: if there are problems with information guides, you can choose 5-10 telegram channels of the top projects, and after analyzing their timeline, choose more than 100 info-guides for the content.
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Write until your keyboard fails
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Tell wonderful stories. Explain audience how your project will effect on the world. Try to evoke emotions – the mass is always interested in blood, spectacle, some kind of drama, hype. If you can concentrate emotionality in your ideas and PR actions, massiveness will automatically apply to it, and hence financing of your product.
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Be consistent. Regular PR-publications allow you to track the course of events and reflect the dynamics and success of the project.
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Use services for the search of the virus content: buzzsumo.com and mediametrics.ru/rating/. Answer the journalists’ questions in special PR-services:
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pressfeed.ru
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deadline.media
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prprof.ru
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mediadigger.ru
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helpareporter.com
5) SMM and crowd-marketing
Price from 25 000 USD
Based on our experience, we will highlight several key areas: Twitter, Facebook, Medium, Reddit, Bitcointalk – this is must have. They are great for communicating with stakeholders. In addition to blogs and forums, you must have an operational response site: Russian Telegram, Chinese Wechat and Korean KakaoTalk.
It should be noted that success consists of the maximum lively and quick response of community managers. Inform the audience about the project’s progress, at which exhibitions and conferences you participate in, with which partners you have entered into a cooperation agreement, who joined the project as a consultant.
Also, do not limit yourself to conduct your pages, post interesting and useful content in thematic groups:
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Thematic subreddit: r/CryptoTechnology, / r / icocrypto, /r/Cryptocurrency, r/Crypto_Currency_News
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Discussion in Quora: this is analogous to mail.ru, there are a lot of discussions on crypto-topics in which you can take part, talk about your project. You can also run advertising through their built-in advertising cabinet. The main thing is not to use the stop word, according to their policy, to undergo moderation – experiment.
Little lifehack, there is an extension for Google Chrome – Data Miner, which allows you to collect questions on the keys you need, with statistics: the number of users and responses. By Unloading in the Excel, you can quickly select the target questions, which have more followers and few answers, and then start working with them. Write to me in the telegram @vlad_shostal the word “instruction”, in a response, I’ll send you a dock with the extension setting.
Professional groups in LinkedIn. There are lots of groups to suit all tastes, each with thousands of people. Here are just a few:
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Facebook groups: Look for not only groups related to the Blockchain, but also related to start-ups, investors, etc., where your target audience may be:
6) Webinars
Price from 500 USD
Trust and attention of customers is a thing for which all the project founders and marketers are struggle. Webinars, this is an excellent working tool in this case, which allows you to tell about your project, the company and the team, to answer the frequently asked questions of the audience, remove barriers and interest investors.
In our practice we use the webinarjam.com service, and we work in two directions:
Stage 1: we make live broadcasts on Facebook, after we do the promotion of the post.
Stage 2: we conduct a webinar, and put it on autoproduct, for example, every hour. On the website we hang a plate, that the webinar is live. When person goes to the webinar page, he/she can view the webinar as if in a real time, ask a question where the moderator can answer by writing a feedback.
The ICO market is a very dynamic environment. In a few days, legislation may change, and the policy of key channels for attracting investors, and as a result, will have to adapt the strategy to a new reality. In this case, you will get maximum information, the more instruments, cases, contacts you have, the easier it will be for you to cope with the difficulties.
Vlad Shostal – project manager and marketing consultant on Blockchain and ICO projects at Olshansky and Partners. The first who created a portrait of the ICO investor by conducting the research in the CIS market.
