Blockchain Product Marketing Vs Digital Marketing: What's The Difference?

Introduction

The methodology and actions needed to run a successful traditional digital marketing campaign and a successful blockchain marketing campaign are very different. The main reason for this is the fact that blockchain companies face significantly different challenges in their marketing efforts when compared to more traditional businesses.

For example, usually, investors will not have to be incredibly wary about whether or not the business they are interested in is a scam. Whereas, in the blockchain market there is a well-documented history of investors being scammed by blockchain companies.

For example, one of the biggest scams in blockchain history was carried out by the Vietnamese company ModernTech. The company had managed to receive ICO funding from over 32,000 individuals for a grand total of $660 Million. Once the money was raised, the management team of the company disappeared with the money, leaving a trail of unhappy investors. 

The Differences

Traditional Digital Marketing

Firstly, the recipe for success in traditional digital marketing channels has been perfected and is widely known at this point in time. A company can even run a “pay-per-click” campaign and know that if they invest X, then they are going to get Y in return for their investment. In fact, you can even forecast conversion averages based on your industry and in 2018, the average PPC conversion was 2.70% on the search network and 0.89% on Google.

Furthermore, a large amount of traditional marketing involves the heavy use of social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, etc. Adverts and content will be distributed through these mediums to make the general public aware of the company, to entice people to buy their products.

(Source wordstream.com)

Whilst you could resort to this sort of marketing if you wish as a normal business, blockchain-based companies and marketing campaigns do not generally get afforded the same luxury.

Social Media

Blockchain companies face their own unique marketing challenges when attempting to build a brand. Firstly, a large facet of digital marketing is the utilization of social media, however, a large number of social media platforms and search engines have placed restrictions on the advertisement of cryptocurrency tokens. Another set of challenges were added into the mix, with the oversaturation of the market and the fact that ICOs limit the fundraising period of a business.

As a result of this, blockchain companies have to go about their marketing campaigns with a slightly different approach than what is normal. These marketing campaigns are conducted with the hope that users of the internet will express interest in their ICO/STO/IEO.

In fact, the failure rates for blockchain companies are incredibly high, by the end of 2018, more than 40% of 2017 ICOs had failed and one of the reasons for a large number of failures can be attributed to a poor Pre-ICO marketing campaign. A lot of this stems from the company either under hyping themselves (not putting enough effort into their marketing) or, overhyping themselves (which will leave investors skeptical and mistrusting of your company.

Rather than distributing content on traditional social-media websites, it is more common for effectively marketed blockchain projects to release their content onto platforms that are natural hotbeds for cryptocurrency enthusiasts such as Reddit, Medium, and Steemit amongst others. Project owners will also often have to get involved in relevant, hard-hitting conversations within those communities, so they can display their knowledge and credentials, which in turn will help to direct would-be investors towards their project.

Search Engine Optimization

A big difference in the arenas of traditional marketing and blockchain marketing revolves around the utilization of SEO. Most traditional companies that have an effective digital marketing team will place a heavy emphasis on SEO in an effort to gradually, yet noticeably increase the amount of traffic that goes to their website. This is in the hope that the buzz around the company will increase, causing increased sales.

In contrast to this, a large number of blockchain companies do not place enough emphasis on their SEO, and there is a serious lesson to be learned from the traditional digital marketing sphere. One of the main reasons that SEO is not as heavily utilized in the blockchain community is that a company’s SEO has to be aged like a fine wine, it takes quite a lot of time and commitment to create an effective SEO presence. Due to the fact that the nature of ICOs/STOs/IEOs revolves around the blockchain company having a very short amount of time to create a buzz, blockchain companies tend to shift their marketing power towards PR articles and other methods of creating hype.

More blockchain companies should make effective investments in SEO, building up their presence on search engines for a long period of time before their offering, whilst also using the aforementioned methods of generating hype. This is because it is a proven method of driving potential investors to a project and it should be in the mind of all companies from their inception.

When utilized in the correct way, SEO can actually drive a lead conversion rate of 14.6%. When compared to the lead conversion that is achieved through traditional PPC marketing campaigns, there is a noticeable difference and well-executed SEO will generate a bigger return.

When creating content as a blockchain company, there are a few things that you should keep in mind.

1. Will this content get ranked on a search engine? If so, which terms would it fall under?
2. Will this content help my company to increase brand presence.
3. Will my content show value to my readers? If this is the case, how likely are they to share it?

Within Blockchain marketing, it is absolutely critical that you attempt to create as much buzz for your project as you can, whilst not overspending to do so. This has resulted in the largely free/community-driven marketing environment that is found in the blockchain sector.

*I write about Blockchain, Startups and Marketing.
In 2017 I Co-Founded Guerrilla Buzz, an innovative growth and marketing agency for blockchain startups. You can find me here and also on Twitter, Linkedin and Telegram

**Here are some other interesting articles that I wrote:
IEO Marketing Checklist.
Things We've Learned From Working With More Than 50 Blockchain Companies
Hacking Your Marketing Campaigns With Data Science
The Rise Of Zero-Trust Architecture