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I start to do pre-ICO marketing & find out that it's quite hard: prices very, narrow expertise in agencies, no proper KPI's to be set etc. So I decided at least to collect all reasonable marketing (ok, including PR) instruments that will help to get the best results for ICO. Let's say one stop for ICO marketing:

1. Classic PR - press releases, interviews, Q&A
2. Banner advertising - display ads for extensive reach
3. Influential marketing - connect with opinion leaders.
4. Social media - connect with audience & opinion leaders.
5. YouTube - statements from founders, project introduction.
6. Bounty campaigns - referrals showtime.
7. Placements in blogs - native advertising.
8. Viral media - videos or pictures.
9. Community marketing - you know, Bitcointalk.
10. Events - meetups, conferences etc.
 
Contribute yours! Add instruments to this list.

Yours looks too comprehensive to add anything.  :) I knew there are multiple opportunities here but never thought of such a long list... Good job! But then, how many people should one have to arrange all these marketing/PR/advertising activities and where to find them? Are there any dedicated agencies that are good at that or what would you recommend?

Good job on the list!
Not all of the instruments should be used in all the ICOs, but all the instruments should be looked at from the start.

I'm still suffering from bounties ??? I can't find a good walkthrough on creating a campaign.
How are the bounties distributed among the people, technically?
I have seen people create google forms, where people apply to a campaign, but how the work is organized afterward?

1. Classic PR - press releases, interviews, Q&A
2. Banner advertising - display ads for extensive reach
3. Influential marketing - connect with opinion leaders.
4. Social media - connect with audience & opinion leaders.
5. YouTube - statements from founders, project introduction.
6. Bounty campaigns - referrals showtime.
7. Placements in blogs - native advertising.
8. Viral media - videos or pictures.
9. Community marketing - you know, Bitcointalk.
10. Events - meetups, conferences etc.

Exactly what you can do, but instead of the "what" more important is the "how". At the end of the day you want for every $ spend a Result. Think about your KPI's , check average conversions, find influencers with a high targeted audience and good conversion etc..

Don't focus on too many campaigns, focus on the campaigns you can run right.

Aside from the bounty campaigns, this list can be applied for any product / service in all industries. 

ICO announcement platforms are missing, like Tokenmarket, Smith&Crown etc.

I haven't seen anyone mention stackexchanges? These are great means to attract attention from devs and more involved individuals, if your current community is already dynamic and outgoing.
Again any sort of social media and marketing expert seems to be the way to go around getting the average joe, but when you really want large capitals you personally need to reach out to the big fish either in expos or via their PR offices.

Regarding stackexchanges, this is a nice thing to do, but won't give the necessary exposure

I think it's enough.

Maybe it's missing in the list a beta version of the product!

There are a number of paid sites... How effective would they be?

I thought it was so full and perfect, everything that was needed was out. I think they are enough to disseminate a project to everyone.

Guys, where do I find an ICO campaign manager?

Wow, thanks for the clue, that reminded me of ProductHunt (http://producthunt.com) - anybody ever tried submitting a profile there when doing ICO, were there any good traffic from there?

link exchanges

Did you try that? Any relevant traffic?

I start to do pre-ICO marketing & find out that it's quite hard: prices very, narrow expertise in agencies, no proper KPI's to be set etc. So I decided at least to collect all reasonable marketing (ok, including PR) instruments that will help to get the best results for ICO. Let's say one stop for ICO marketing:

1. Classic PR - press releases, interviews, Q&A
2. Banner advertising - display ads for extensive reach
3. Influential marketing - connect with opinion leaders.
4. Social media - connect with audience & opinion leaders.
5. YouTube - statements from founders, project introduction.
6. Bounty campaigns - referrals showtime.
7. Placements in blogs - native advertising.
8. Viral media - videos or pictures.
9. Community marketing - you know, Bitcointalk.
10. Events - meetups, conferences etc.
 
Contribute yours! Add instruments to this list.

Well done! Thanks!

minerium- erc20

I built BlockBounty.io

It's a platform where startups can post their ICO bounty. Hope this qualifies for your list

Good list for begining / starting .. everything is inside the list

List quite full. The main question is the quality of advertising or bounty campaign. It is the key point - one good realized instrument better than all instruments which performed in bad way.

Execution is always the key point. I wouldn't say the quality is most important only in advertising or bounties.

For me goodest one ICO marketing is collaboration with crypto makers  ::)

That's right, but the problem is still the same: Where to find them and how to quickly get them interested. So you are searching for channels, right messages, marketing tools, etc.

http://btcfarm.org has an ad widget and sim0le ref contest.   Generating sales already :)

I'd be interested in an expected breakdown of ROI from each of the channels.

View time versus money and find the intersection between the two.

Great list, BTW.

+ E-mailing and retargeting in FB based on collected emails database

I would add official account on Twitter, Slack and Telegram. Those are popular channels among crypto community.

We put together an actively curated list of promising ICO's at icohotlist.com (https://icohotlist.com) in addition to providing free email alerts!

We will also be selling banner ad space and doing social promotions & weekly newsletters... get in touch with us!

PM me or find us on twitter @icohotlist

Chinese and Russian social networks accounts are also a must have.

Usefull point
good luck :)

Have you got any reference to those social networks for us?

I think it's a very good list, we are also preparing an ICO, its a lot of work the list is complete in my opinion.

This is a good reference site, can anyone get me a invitation code? Pls PM for email address.

Where are you going to get the list of such(high relevant) emails?

Which Chinese social network is good for ICO presence?

none. Chinese marketing differs from Western. As i see there are only 2 ways for China now - personal meeting on events and posting in specialized WeChat rooms. Wechat шs difficult to control, only if you do not know Chinese.

in a good ICO, your team must do almost all the work.

You can hire some PR companies but still, you must put in a lot of effort to successfully present your idea to the people.

To run an ICO is very difficult and all the techniques and money won't help if the idea and the team is not good...

There are some marketing companies who assist ICOs but they cost $100,000 or more. I am not sure if you have the budget to risk that. Also, these companies carefully select which ICOs they assist.

Basically, the more you do alone, the better your results.

ICOs who raise $10 million or even more have a huge budget to spend on PR, marketing and so on. The average ICO does not have the resources to do so...

This would be a good sub-list or sub-section for this list.

Create a separate thread in services, I am pretty sure you can recruit them here

Having recently help complete a successful  ICO marketing campaign for Lampix which raised $14.2m apart from the list of instruments - what I believe it’s good as a general rule is to have a marketing plan set up in advance - with your relevant ICO campaign metrics, and ways to capture those metrics in order to guide the performance.

So you can see how social media channels are contributing, and which channels are most effectively driving investors, for example.

And so you can ‘double down’ on those which are working during the start, and at the end of the campaign when investor activity is often at its peak.

Plus with such a plan you can decide which instruments are going to work for your ICO before the launch.

 :)

This is a good idea, but I don't know if anyone tested it. Usually "hunters" doesn't like to submit projects without a beta on Product Hunt. Is it only in the upcoming line (by PH managers), in most cases. I have the right to submit projects, but I haven't used it yet and don't have many followers. Probably worth starting :)

Bounty is an effective ad ever. You can not match any campaign marketing instrument with bounty and banners especially on bitcointalk forum

Good list!
I think what's maybe missing is building trust. This can be done through a good whitepaper, trustful team etc. ... but also through listing on ICO review/rating sites like http://www.icorating.com (http://www.icorating.com)
There are some more of this platforms which (from my subjective perspective) do an objective review.  ;)

Great list. Probably cover's it all. Best thing, get some influence from someone in the community.

I used this list of marketing instruments to structure my detailed look at the ICO marketing for the $14.2m Lampix ICO, which includes a useful list of ICO resources at the end of the article:
http://www.stuart-hall.com/2017/08/30/ico-marketing-guide-updated/ (http://www.stuart-hall.com/2017/08/30/ico-marketing-guide-updated/)

pretty good article. Do you provide some marketing services yourself? pls pm if you do

Thanks I have pm'd you my services.

Interesting post on Startup Management blog about 'Safe ICO Practices' includes a short section on marketing:

Bad practice: Too much promotion and advertising. Statements that are forward-looking without concrete base of evidence or metrics.
Good practice: Organic spread of awareness about your ICO, backed by evidence of community and ecosystem support.

http://startupmanagement.org/2017/09/11/safe-ico-practices-sip/ (http://startupmanagement.org/2017/09/11/safe-ico-practices-sip/)

The best marketing instrument is team itself, if you have a very good team you don't need even any marketing to make a good ico otherwise I think the best one bitcointalk

the different schemes as telemarketer to work as displacing message on deliverance to reach the wider public of audience as

to occupy use of online media or more as distributing the higher stages on level of displacement

to gains with the work as collecting signs as following with the different choice on selection as

displacing more to improves the chance as closing with the minimum on terms as begins as entering exchange.

Swarm.fund! They are doing great work to develop new investement founding. I believe they will be succesfull. You can check them their thread. Mark my words....

how it is about marketing? don't spam pls

Honestly, if you want an ICO to succeed (and we're assuming here that you can pass some basic vetting and have a viable product), the best possible boost you can get from a pre-ICO marketing standpoint is to get on board with cofound.it. Every single ICO they've promoted on their platform has sold out thus far. Simply being associated with CFI guarantees access to 1) a huge pool of eager, sophisticated investors, 2) a professional team of experienced industry experts who have done this many, many times.

Thank you guys! This is helpful!

What I learned from Kickico marketing.

1. Build trust among community.
Investors want to see how team works, if CEO is alive, what company writes in social media and blogs.

2. Asian markets are different.
Classical instruments are worthless. They have WeChat, Kakao etc. Find a middleman - for a local representation.

3. Create useful content.
Videos, to do lists or valuable information. People love to receive added value.

4. Invest in marketing.
Don't dream that once you started your projects - money will pour on your shoulders.

Thanks for sharing the learning from the Kickico marketing Svyaznoy. On your first point about building trust among the community that makes a lot of sense.

I had an example of this when talking with a developer at the first EOS London meetup last night, who admitted he could have invested in EOS but got "put off". But he couldn't say why exactly, and obviously was kicking himself after such as successful ICO.

This reminded me of my days at eBay in e-commerce, and learning that online consumers don't make purchasing decisions by reading available info, but rather “tend to ignore most information available and instead ‘slice off’ a few relevant information or behavioral cues that are often social to make intuitive decisions".

When running ICO Marketing it's important to track the success of campaigns with metrics that show many people from any given channel such as social media invested in the ICO with conversion funnels.

But it's also valuable to understand why people don't invest and why. As what could be something small to the often technically-minded ICO team, in contrast to a community member that the same issue could act as a disincentive.

Sometimes having conversion funnels set up can spot that hidden 'blocker' like a difficult to use purchasing agreement form.

 :)

Thank you for sharing - all valuable insights.
and  the first point seems to be the most important - without that part well addressed the rest sounds useless 

I wonder if somebody here can share any experience for promoting project via direct publications by bloggers/opinion leaders. etc.? I am sure that most of the opinion leader overwhelmed with such kind of request for projects support? or is that mainly works when attracting people via Bounty campaign?

nice list but if u doing this alone just focus on the way u da best. or u need a team

I still wonder can someone share some clear ideas about how to approach the industry opinion leaders and how to get their support and which kind of support that can be? Will they post something in the blogs about your project? Or would they become advisers? Or something else ? And what is the most valuable contribution from the opinion leaders' side?

I also agree that ICO trackers/publish is a good tool to utilize here, as they also may offer additional promotion opportunities such as press-releases publishing or featured articles.

The best influencers and the most credible are the ones found from within your own network, where you already have a relationship. As an example see the video from influencer Jeremy Epstein for example in my ICO Marketing post on the Lampix ICO - http://www.stuart-hall.com/2017/08/30/ico-marketing-guide-updated/

That's pretty smart advice! One should exit comfort zone to get better results.

That's of course and for sure and you are absolutely right, but I think that we can also attract more supporters - advisers. Just wonder if you can share some "best practices" here

I think first you should focus on what type of supporters you are looking to attract and why in terms of your ICO, in order to create an effective influencer plan.

Yes. But it is prohibited to advertise ICO in the most popular Russian social network - VK. But Telegram messenger is quite good. It is very popular in Russian crypto-community. A lot of specialized channels and chats.

Retargeting is quite good, and nit only on FB based. Other SE and social networks have this option of advertising.

Email marketing is also good, but you need to give something useful in exchange for the email.

For Bounty campaigns use - http://bounty-ico.com
You can add yours or find a good bounty

Very good list to start with, but - and this was already mentioned above - it is more about "how" you do it and not "what" you do. Keep in mind, that to actually utilize all these marketing channels, you'd need quite a strong team / impressive budget. You'd have to pay for all ad placements, you'd have to coordinate all efforts, finally, you'd have to be able to analyze and optimize the whole setup. ICO campaigns, like all other marketing campaigns, are not a "set it and forget it" tasks :)

Therefore I'd suggest a more growth hacking approach - to test these channels if they work for a particular ICO first (and what results can you count on in terms of KPIs like CAC) and then scale-up the one channel that works best.

This is actually how we do it in http://hypergrowth.consulting (http://hypergrowth.consulting?utm_campaign=ico-marketing&utm_source=bitcointalk.org&utm_medium=post)

A growth hacking approach makes sense. Here's a piece I wrote a while back on growth hacking to explain what it means (before I got into the world of ICOs;-) on finding specific targets to focus on.

http://www.stuart-hall.com/2017/06/06/finding-a-metric-you-can-measure-early-in-a-users-lifecycle/

And talking about growth hacking ideas - how about creating a basic mobile app which allows an investor to join an ICO?

 :)

To get on board with Cofound.it you need to already have built community. They have inside investors yes, but this is approx 10% of investment and they take you up to 10% of the company. All of the important things you need to do by yourself. (build community, whitepaper, legal, smart contract, server security...).

Can anyone recommend some influencers with a high targeted audience?

Thanks

I have a list of US-based blockchain influencers for example. Depends on what you are specifically looking for - PM me?  :)

Almost all of this can be done through the bounty. Secondly, high-grade community marketing is very expensive, as it seems to me

Thanks. I sent you PM.

Great I have replied. One new tactic to consider is to create a bounty campaign targeting 'micro influencers' - which as well as this forum and social media channels like Facebook and Twitter - also includes the blockchain based community Steemit. (We've started doing that at BABB to good effect;-)

Oh...based on some observation with this forum, the bounty becomes less and less efficient and more nad more expensive :(....I think many projects will simply avoid running bounties in the future...doe snot make too much sense - the value gets so much dissolved :(

So far  paid signature campaigns work much  better

I would also add a good team of translators. I know that translation can be a decent bounty option, but if you want your white paper and web site look really attractive, i think, you should hire professionals to work with texts.

I would add ICOAdvert, 52ico, Coinclarity.

thanks for the info and your recommendations. that's helpful

Nowadays I am seeing that those projects which spend much money on marketing in this forum get a much faster response from the investors. First of all you have to focus on this forum for advertising after that shift to social media marketing and from there you have to focus on creating your own community.

that'a because NO ONE actually knows what to do. There is no specific way of throwing a bounty campaign, and every ICO does it a bit differently. my advice to you is to go over some bounty announcements, check out what you like and what you don't and don't be afraid to change the way something is being made! be creative if you think something is not working as it should.

Online games and etc.

Good list!
Adding the ICO rating and listing agencies is a good idea.

But ... what is important is to define who you are targeting.

Some ICO will attract a more institutional/crypto-enthusiast crowd. But some ICO should also target their future users to complement the later. In this case, different communities, media and social networks should be used.

My 0.02cts.

Agreed! Who's in it for the short run, and who's in it for the long run...

How about advertising on ICO rating site? Do you have that plan?
I think ICO rating can give a quite trust for the investors.

You should try for the social media services quck boosts. It works pretty good when combined with regular traffic, its like a simulator. http://try.socboost.su (http://try.socboost.su)
 

I was hired by a marketing company called TSM Global www.tsm.global to work on a gambling blockchain project. I hate gambling, and did not want to accept it, but the money were good so we do it.

They used personal networks and optimized that the reviews they get were not paid for but honest. McCain, one of the oldest advertising agencies says that marketing is about "Truth Well Told". So the more truthful you are in promoting your core product, the more likely is that you will find the core audience faster which is important post-ICO as well. Getting these stuff right:

1. List of past ICO investors that are fit for your genre
2. Strategic partnerships with other past ICOs that can share lists of media, investors, logos on website
3. Strategic partnerships with organizations outside blockchain that you will bring into the community making the community bigger
4. AdWords is better than most crypto ad networks, but soon, crypto ad networks will deflate prices and they will be better than AdWords for promoting ICOs
5. Deserved PR and proper usage of following, and


AIRDROPs! They work like magic when properly calibrated!

Remember, you don't want ALL investors, just the right ones.

So, take your time and read up. Also you can download a more detailed free ICO guide on TSM's website...

Hope this helps.

Wow thanks, that is some in depth list, truly helpful to a lot of us here. You dont seem to have left anything one can add to it that has not already been covered in one head or another.

Great advice - rather than starting from scratch, if you can partner with people that have done it before, you'll move much faster

Thanks!

Good info) for all beginner

I think the key is to find partners among other ICOs, exchanges, leaders. So, your network and speech are the main instruments.

My new blog article on why writing your ICO Whitepaper like an IPO proposal has a lot of benefits - http://www.stuart-hall.com/2018/05/10/icos-like-ipos/
 (http://www.stuart-hall.com/2018/05/11/icos-like-ipos/#sthash.kBzqql7i.dpbs)

I am currently with OpenCT, aiming to disrupt the telecoms sector with its highly innovative blockchain apps.

In 2017 I worked for fintech startups at Europe's largest accelerator space for finance, Level39, on crowdsale and ICO campaigns. including blockchain bank BABB which raised over $19m. I also provided marketing support for AR startup Lampix during their public ten-day ICO campaign in August 2017, which successfully raised over $14m.

Good marketing for your ICO might be suggested by different rating platforms, www.icoguide.com is one of my favorites.

Hi

Here is my checklist for ICO Marketing

1. Perfect marketing content
2. Aweomse community management
3. ICO PR campaign
4. Bounty/ Airdrops campaigns
5. Email marketing
6. Blockchain events

Here is a detailed guide about it and much more-
https://101blockchains.com/ico-marketing-checklist/

Hope it helps

Useful article! Liked this point: "Assuming you have done the legal groundwork and achieved regulatory clearances, proactively communicate your ICO regulatory compliance. Don’t leave anything to speculation."

When a new ICO starts, the social media accounts usually do not have prior followers and I was wondering, if someone do not want to use Bounty campaigns as a method for gaining audience, what other methods are available for increasing followers?

I don't understand why you should refer to it when the market is so bad. Most of them are failed, the listing will break, and the decline is still very large, it is impossible to make a profit. If you want to invest directly from the market, it is not better.

In ICO marketing, I always bear with social media since it is the best way to disseminate the information and provide a less cost in all transactions for it.
In this way you can inform others without paying too much.

Sure,

I established 101Blockchains.com (https://101blockchains.com) as a knowledge source just for this type of questions:

1) Top 15 YouTube Influencers (https://101blockchains.com/top-blockchain-influencers-youtube/)

2) Top 20 Twitter Influencers (https://101blockchains.com/top-influencers-in-blockchain-technology/)

I also recommend to check out our ICO Marketing guide Best ICO Marketing Strategy (https://101blockchains.com/great-ico-marketing-strategy/)

Would love to hear your feedback

Thanks

It is better to used the social media as a medium in marketing for cryptocurrency or any ICO,
social media is the fastest and yet the chepasest way to advertise the cryptocurrency in the public.

Exactly,

You can find a thorough list of ICO Listing websites here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4709660.msg42519748#msg42519748

Together with such a list, you can sell anything:) I mean seriously, a good project doesn't actually need all these marketing and PR tools. And such a program will cost you a fortune. But if you feel you have enough resources for such a big advertising campaign - go ahead with the best of luck!

Social Media Marketing seems to be the most effective way to market the ICO project due to its wide range audience and accessibility.

Agree! We are already on the digital age, so we must maximize the use of social media.

Correct. Aside from Social Media, others hired an Agency to handle the marketing. They also hire an Influencer to help them expose more the project.

If they have a budget, why not. It's better to let the experienced and professional do it, because they already gained knowledge and some connections on this industry.

True. For this, you can check Crowdcreate. They have years of experience and knowledge with this industry.

Yes. No clear field for game in crypto...Marketing all have to be on high level. Success depends on great ideas but not on quantity of marketing instruments

Social Media channel is the most effective way now, specifically Youtube platform. Many prefer this platform because of the fact that it is easy to understand  unlike on forums.

Yeah. There are many crypto Influencers now that already on Youtube. These influencers have already gained followers, so the chance that their followers might turn to investors.

Another thing is hiring professionals. There are many companies out there that is offering ICO development. Which means they will take care of your ICO project from start to finish, will do every aspect of the project.

What companies are offering these kinds of services?

Well, upon searching, here's the list of ICO development companies that might help your project. You can check it here. https://coinadvisors.co/2018/04/12/top-20-blockchain-and-ico-development-companies/. Hope it helps.