ICO marketing instruments list (add yours)

[stuartgh]

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/

[hpmp]

The best influencers and the most credible are the ones found from within your own network, where you already have a relationship.

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

[DariaPT]

The best influencers and the most credible are the ones found from within your own network, where you already have a relationship...

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

[stuartgh]

The best influencers and the most credible are the ones found from within your own network, where you already have a relationship...

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.

[sumrub]

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

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.

[sumrub]

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

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.

[nongrada77]

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

[artbtc]

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.

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

[stuartgh]

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?

 

[rustypac]

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.

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...).

[Blake_Last]

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

I agree with this. This is actually one of the important marketing instrument you forgot to add to your list. You see, listing an ICO in an ICO listing platform will help a lot considering that majority of public investors review them first before going to the ones you mentioned. They use it to search for ongoing, upcoming and active ICOs that they can invest in. Give it a priority and apply for premium and not only basic exposure for your project.

For that, you may want to check the following sites where you can add your project: TokenMarket, ICOBench, ICObazaar, ICO.Newbtc, Smith and Crown, ICO rating, ICOtracker, and ICO Alert.

Hope this helps.

[rustypac]

Can anyone recommend some influencers with a high targeted audience?

Thanks

[stuartgh]

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? 

[brillarinal]

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

[rustypac]

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? 

Thanks. I sent you PM.

[stuartgh]

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? 

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;-)

[DariaPT]

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

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

[oil.vision]

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.

[kseniya.pride]

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

I agree with this. This is actually one of the important marketing instrument you forgot to add to your list. You see, listing an ICO in an ICO listing platform will help a lot considering that majority of public investors review them first before going to the ones you mentioned. They use it to search for ongoing, upcoming and active ICOs that they can invest in. Give it a priority and apply for premium and not only basic exposure for your project.

For that, you may want to check the following sites where you can add your project: TokenMarket, ICOBench, ICObazaar, ICO.Newbtc, Smith and Crown, ICO rating, ICOtracker, and ICO Alert.

Hope this helps.

I would add ICOAdvert, 52ico, Coinclarity.

[JoinWell.io]

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