In the competitive crypto market, developers need STO, IEO, IDO, and DeFi marketing strategies to stand out. Both startups and established businesses can leverage marketing to remain relevant in this space.
The right marketing strategies provide a business with exposure and put it in front of relevant audiences. Let’s talk about how to leverage IEO, IDO, STO, and DeFi marketing strategies.
Optimized marketing
In general, marketing helps businesses achieve their goals and meet their objectives. However, how fast you achieve your target with this strategy depends on the consistency and techniques you’re using. A relevant marketing technique is even crucial when marketing crypto ventures like DeFi and ICOs.
Keep in mind that blockchain projects are tainted with mistrust due to theft, fraud, and scams. In addition, the marketing limitations put in place by major platforms and channels are crippling this industry.
Furthermore, the crypto industry is still expanding, The industry currently has over 4000 cryptocurrencies and more are launched every day. Moreover, there has been a dramatic expansion of this space in the last couple of years. Due to its immense popularity, new startups are constantly popping up. As new businesses yearn for a share of the market, the space is becoming highly competitive.
As a DeFi project developer, gaining traction is essential when you’re competing with rival businesses. Leveraging a blockchain marketing strategy is an important step toward business promotion. However, before leveraging marketing strategies or hiring marketing services, having a basic understanding of this industry is important. Having said that, let’s define STO, IDO, DeFi, and IEO before we go any further:
What are IEO, IDO, and STO?
These are popular fundraising models in the crypto space. If you’re launching a crypto startup, you may need one of them. For a detailed understanding of each model, let’s look at the following definitions:
What’s an Initial DEX Offering (IDO)?
Initial DEX Offering is the favorite choice for crypto businesses nowadays. It’s a successor to other financial models in this space with new technology and opportunities. To launch a project with an IDO, you’ll use a decentralized exchange.
What’s a Security Token Offering (STO)?
STO is a financial model that uses a similar concept as the IPOs we know so well. When using this model, the business will have to let go of a fraction of its shares in exchange for funds. As a startup owner, you’ll offer some of your tokens or coins and get cryptocurrencies with more value. Oftentimes, you’ll get Ethereum or Bitcoin in exchange for your coins.
The concept of STO is different from other financial models such as that of the ICO. That’s because it relies on security tokens.
What’s a security token?
Well, it’s a representation of investment assets in form of a contract. These assets can include Real Estate Investment Funds (REITs), funds, stocks, or bonds.
What’s Initial Exchange Offering (IEO)?
An Initial Exchange Offering uses the crypto exchange as the middleman during fundraising. In other words, the developer and investors are not in direct contact throughout the fundraising event. Even so, it’s a popular model with a lot of users.
What’s Decentralized Finance (DeFi)?
DeFi is the present-day means of payment in the crypto space. To be more specific, it’s a virtual currency system backed by cryptography. As such, there’s no way of tampering with it. It’s highly secure and counterfeit-proof.
You can run various operations with DeFi. For starters, you can use it to earn profit through trading. Additionally, you can use it as a currency to purchase services or goods. Companies in this sector issue tokens that holders can use to pay for services and products from that company.
Oftentimes, people think of IDO, ICO, DeFi, IEO, and STO as the same thing. That misunderstanding often leads to miscommunication between different departments in a crypto company. To avoid such costly confusion, double-check your project requirements before contacting a marketing agency.
To assist you in this critical step, here are the top IEO, IDO, STO, and DeFi marketing strategies:
IEO, IDO, STO, and DeFi marketing strategies
All these fundraising models cannot work optimally without marketing services. What marketing does is boost their potential for success. Speaking of which, here are some top marketing strategies for IEO, IDO, STO, and DeFi:
1) Bounty campaigns
Bounty campaigns primarily use incentives to attract participants and potential users to your project. With this strategy, participants receive incentives as tokens/ coins for promoting your project. Before that, you must declare the promotional tasks that participants can take part in to earn rewards.
Some projects don’t consider using bounty campaigns, but those that do reap massive rewards. For this reason, you should think of bounty campaigns as one of your marketing strategies, especially for project offerings. Oftentimes, the participants would promote IEO, IDO, STO, or DeFi on their platforms with crypto followers. When the project gets promoted through token sales, traffic, or community members, the participant receives their rewards.
2) Collect emails
The introduction of push notifications was a major threat to email marketing. Many thought this would be the end of email marketing. However, the proponents of email marketing proved everyone wrong. Email marketing has survived and still ranks among the top marketing tools for crypto projects.
During project marketing, you should always gather prospect email addresses. Your marketing team can help you with this from the moment you announce your project to the public. Of course, gathering email addresses is a time-consuming process. However, the potential for a good email marketing strategy encourages marketers to find creative ways to collect email addresses.
3) Landing page
Your landing page is a page on your business website that provides all the basic information about the company. In this case, it should include coin sales and general information about the crypto project. The landing page is often the starting point for research when an investor wants to learn more about a project.
Every business needs a professional website. If yours doesn’t have one, then that’s probably the reason why your business has not been progressing. Serious investors will never take a project seriously if it lacks a landing page or business site. Considering the fact that the crypto market keeps being targeted by scammers, you may not get even one investor willing to invest in your business.
When developing the landing page, always check the platform and framework. You need it to have a solid foundation that portrays you as a professional. From expert observations, a site with a single page is as effective as those with multiple pages. If you can include the latest blog posts, this will offer a significant boost to your site. It’s an audience magnet.
4) Social media marketing
Most social media platforms no longer support crypto ads, especially the giants like Instagram and Facebook. However, you can still promote coin sales indirectly without interfering with the platform’s regulations. IEO, IDO, STO, and DeFi projects need to be on social media. It’s among the ways prospects can learn about your venture.
Creating a social media outreach strategy offers a chance for direct interaction with potential consumers. Through social media forums or communities, your target consumers can interact with your project directly. Some of them will even contribute through suggestions.
For starters, you can introduce your project on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. While you can use the available communities and forums, it’s important to have a dedicated channel for your project. Keep the channel up to date and regularly engage the audience consistently to avoid losing them.
Giving prompt responses are always important on these channels. Immediate responses show your dedication and help establish a positive reputation. Continuous engagement and connection with crypto users are both vital when developing a dedicated community. In the crypto space, a loyal community is a powerful tool for promoting project launches and offerings. Social media channels provide you with that opportunity.
5) LinkedIn
Businesses in all industries need networking to progress. For an industry like the crypto industry where trust for new projects is low, it’s even more vital. Thus, every business in this space needs to establish relationships with other experts in the niche. LinkedIn presents the perfect opportunity to do just that. It’s the most efficient place to connect with prospects due to the significant number of consumers in this space. With the assistance of influencers and marketers, your business can earn community trust.
6) Airdrops
Airdrops still maintain their potential to promote IEO, IDO, STO, and DeFi projects. More specifically, the Airdrop campaign model offers the quickest means to develop a project community. It’s also a powerful magnet for new users. It’s known that the more free tokens and coins you offer, the more crypto users your project attracts.
7) Media outreach
Media professionals, especially those in the crypto space have a massive audience that your business can benefit from. While there are many crypto media to leverage, the type of content your share is vital. For maximum influence, you can share press releases, guest posts, and email pitches to reach target users. When you use media outreach effectively at the start of the project, then awareness will build up naturally.
8) Event announcements
When your project is still new in the blockchain space, publishing upcoming events is important for gaining exposure. That includes IEO, IDO, STO, and DeFi events. You can use major crypto sites for announcing these events and gaining attention in return. While this will provide visibility, it’s not enough for gaining trust and credibility. You’ve got to combine this strategy with a few others on this list to position your project as a reliable one. In addition to launching events, updates are also worth listing on crypto calendars.
9) Press release
Every crypto business needs a press release. Once you have it, there are many crypto agencies and websites that will be willing to publish it. Moreover, there are several crypto media searching for new projects to publish for their audience. These crypto publishing companies often have defined audiences with a profile that matches your target market.
Creating a press release requires dedication. You can find some templates online to guide you if you need help. However, you still need the experience to transform this template into an engaging press release announcement that highlights the unique selling point (USP) of your project and earns the trust of the public. A public relations expert knows what points of a crypto press release to focus on to make your release newsworthy.
10) Podcasts
Podcasts are a reliable marketing tool for crypto businesses, and they’ve proven their effectiveness over the last few years. There are many crypto enthusiasts who would rather learn about your cryptocurrency project via an informative podcast instead of reading masses of text about the project. Since the content on a podcast is in audio format, this medium allows you to deliver complex information in a more engaging way. Besides promoting your business, you can use podcasts to share informative blockchain content. If possible, you should host interviews with influencers and thought leaders in the crypto realm.
11) Influencer marketing
There’s hardly any blockchain startup that’s not using influencer marketing as part of their key campaign strategies. It’s an important marketing tool for all industries. That’s because of the massive reach it provides for businesses. For example, crypto influencers have a massive following that includes crypto users and investors.
Partnering with the right influencers gives projects access to a market with great potential. However, the biggest challenge is choosing the influencer. If you bet on the wrong one, you can lose your investment and compromise your brand image.
Over to you
These strategies are the best for promoting IEO, IDO, STO, and DeFi projects. Even so, the crypto space is always changing, so it’s important to keep yourself informed on how these strategies are evolving and what the most effective iteration of each strategy is. Moreover, when you’re marketing an IEO, IDO, STO, or DeFi project, relying on your skills alone is often not recommended. You need help from leading companies in the industry.
Are you wondering how to go about promoting your IEO, IDO, STO, or DeFi project? Launching any of these is an extensive process that requires lots of attention to detail and hands-on work. For this reason, you might find it helpful to hand the responsibility of generating publicity for your launch over to seasoned PR and marketing experts like the ones at Pressfarm.
The team at Pressfarm can help you create quality content that can attract media attention and earn public trust. With a professional press release, some engaging guest posts, and a branded media kit, you can earn credibility in your niche and excite potential investors. In addition to creating this content for you, the team at Pressfarm can distribute it widely, thus boosting your online visibility. The PR specialists at Pressfarm leverage their industry connections to send this content to the right media outlets, startup directories, and professional networks.
Pressfarm can make it easier for your target audience to find you through organic searches on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing!
Once you sign up, the account executive at Pressfarm also builds custom media lists containing the best media professionals in your niche. You can combine the use of these media lists use of with Pressfarm’s media database of 1 million+ journalists, bloggers, and influencers. With all these media contacts, you’ll be able to continue doing extended media outreach for your brand long after Pressfarm has wrapped your PR campaign up.
One of Pressfarm’s PR packages could be just what you need to generate some buzz for your IEO, IDO, STO, or DeFi project.