7 junk and 7 healthy pieces of advice on crypto startup promotion

So, let’s sum up a bit another series of articles released during the last couple of weeks. And now I offer you 14 pieces of advice on how to promote a crypto startup. Though it’s up to you to decide whether I added them to the right group. 😉

7 junk advice

#1 Make bloggers hate you

Here I am talking about very popular guides on influence marketing that offer standardized emails to send to opinion leaders, bloggers, and popular media persons with the request to write about your project.

From this letter, it becomes very evident to any influencer that you’re simply trying to use him for your personal goals and do not want to spend even a couple of minutes checking his profile, finding more about his activity, and writing a personal letter appealing exactly to this person.

Do it if you want to spoil your reputation and forget about influence marketing forever.

#2 Limit your audience and possibilities for further promotion

Do not attack all social networks at once, choose one and work there. Sound like a wonderful plan to save some time and energy, doesn’t it?

On the one hand, there is no use to run after 10 rabbits: you risk falling, tearing your pants, and eating dirt.

It’s no doubt, that no startup owner who is dealing with product development and sales can still have time to make regular posts and promote tens of accounts. But still, this advice leads to numerous questions. How to choose one channel? What criteria should be applied?

A profound analytical work must be done to select those channels that will work for your particular product. And here come specialists, or even a team of marketing specialists. Moreover, take into account that in most cases one channel will not be enough, the most effective strategy is usually to “seed” promo materials in different sources.

#3 Launch marketing activities only when the product is ready

Startup project promotion cannot follow a regular procedure of traditional business marketing since before selling a product, startup owners face the problem of heating the interest, explaining the functionality, showing the value, gathering a community, testing a product, and collecting feedback. Very time-consuming process.

You are to spend lots of effort on product development while ignoring the marketing aspect, and then poof, you’re ready to enter the market and impress the crowd of users and clients.

But what do we see? There is not a single person ready to have it. No channels for user attraction, no social media accounts with a loyal audience waiting for the release. Only you and your product. Enjoy it!

And so, you must spend another impressive period of time creating a marketing infrastructure around your product instead of gaining profit right after the release.

#4 You must try new approaches to management

There is no startup without a team. And as we’re leaving in a constantly changing crypto world, we are to adjust to them. What sounds like the best plan? Try every new trend at once.

Who needs a bunch of specialists if we can hire 5 universal soldiers and desperate enthusiasts? We thus save money for salary, avoid misunderstanding and complexities connected with huge teams. A small team equals perfect interaction. And 3 working days a week, please, since we respect personal time and want to stay more productive.

It all sounds good until we face burnout and a lack of professional knowledge of narrow areas, as it’s impossible for a specialist to be good at everything. Every business area must be covered by an appropriate person with the required skills.

Let’s not forget that new trends also exist for workflow. Every working week should have new rules, new tasks managers and methods of working communication. We cannot use artificial ones because every day there is a new product released ready to optimize your startup.

#5 Create a product suitable for everyone

Your solution should work for everyone — both large and small businesses, people aged from 5 to 89. And let’s not forget about wide geography. What do you want to do today? Try to take over the world!

Each product should have a clear portrait of a user. Not a vague or abstract one. No one can create something everyone will be fond of. The best strategy a crypto startup can have is to choose a particle niche, group and target them.

#6 Try and do once for all

All companies dealing with online promotion have this pain. Usually, startups develop based on SCRUM enabling the changes of the product in the process of development. Both its target audience and ways of communication can change in parallel.

Promotion strategy is an obligatory element of marketing work on the startup, but! A specialist or an agency must ensure advising and flexible control when implementing a marketing strategy. Naturally, some channels may appear ineffective, but the base, the strategy itself, and product positioning, usually remain monolithic.

#7 Do not pay too much attention to the budgeting of the internet marketing

Money is only money. Why spend them on marketing when there is so much to do in product developing? We can promote the product for free and spend all the money on product development. Who needs social media when we can add more features to our app?

Wait, wait, let’s put all the remaining money into growth hacking? I am not quite sure what it is, but it’s the hottest marketing trend. Everyone does it!

Here we have two approaches, and both are wrong. The first one is a false interpretation of the growth hacking principle. Hope for rapid growth can lead to fast and thoughtless wasting of investors’ money and leave a company with no money and no clients. Money is gone, growth is absent, startup is dying.

The second wrong approach is the use of only free methods of promotion. No matter how genius the startup is, no promotion is possible without at least minimal ad investment. Therefore, PR and social media are good, but you will still have to spend money on advertising.

7 healthy advice

#1 Focus on the target audience

As soon as a team started promoting its company in the market, it becomes so easy to overdo and spend all effort at once. Here, it’s essential to focus on the target audience that is likely to contribute to the development and growth of a startup.

Instead of trying to attract every potential client, investor, or token holder, it’s better to focus on the target segment. It will help to achieve short-term targets. Moreover, you will thus use your limited resources more optimally.

It must be forbidden to target all at once — the risk is too high to dump the budget, gaining no representative results.

#2 Invest in things that save your time

In the world of entrepreneurs, there is nothing more valuable than time. Time is limited and the tasks to be done are endless.

The ability to use your time wisely is an obligatory skill for every CEO, but most of them go on wasting their time.

Invest in things that save your time. Especially if they are not very expensive.

There is nothing wrong with doing everything yourself. But your time costs some money, and such tasks steal this time and money from you, your team, and your clients. The time that could have been spent on your business enlargement.

Analyze what you spend your time on and try to automatize these processes with the help of online tools. You will be surprised how many of them can work effectively without your engagement at every stage.

#3 Find strategic partners

Your startup is likely to be recognized if it’s connected with a famous brand. The owner must choose the company he likes and that can potentially be useful for his company. It would be perfect if this company offer additional services appealing to you. A bilateral reward for recommendation can be used to bring financial profit to both companies.

In my portfolio, there is one quite interesting startup. It is the concept of social media for the interaction between startups and investors. It is a whole ecosystem of partners who offer different services and products. When a project is elected by LaunchLab to go through incubation, it gets full assistance with all aspects of its growth and promotion in the market. A project thus gets a chance to not only rely on its own resources or have a long and excruciating process of building its in-house team, but use the benefits provided by various partners that can handle different types of work: legal guidance, development, PR, fundraising, listing, and many more.

#4 Develop branded content

Branded content development can be highly effective for startup promotion. The team must publish content and participate in discussions on various platforms. It’s a great way to be noticed in topics discussed in your industry and even become an expert.

It’s essential to remember that branded content should not be advertising. It has nothing to do with inbreeding your services and products. The examples of branded content are numerous: you can write an article on the topics related to your professional field, or conduct research and publish the results that can be interesting to your professional community. Your imagination is the only limit!

#5 Use of social networks

It may sound obvious, but we should always keep in mind that social media are among the best ways for crypto startup promotion. However, social network marketing must be wise. Posts must be consistent and attractive for clients.

Do not use Twitter and Facebook only for ads information about the company. Instead, publish appealing info users would like to share.

A client must have value — you must know your audience to offer the information that is useful and captivating for them.

You should analyze the platforms that will be the most effective for your particular startup. Always give feedback to your audience while communicating. Do not be afraid to enter dialogues, make reposts of industry leaders, and tell your opinion. It will attract an audience, and sometimes even may help you capture the attention of an influencer. Do not forget about communication with your competitors. It will help your brand get established in the market and build relationships with your professional social environment.

#6 Check the existence of your market

A unique technology is good, but what is the size of its market? Is there such a market? Is it local or international? The market needs a thorough analysis and measurement of its capacities.

Having your niche is not bad, but too narrow audience segment complicates the promotion, and sometimes the volume of users is so low that the whole idea loses its rentability and market perspectives.

#7 Make up exit strategy

In spite of the fact that you’re only at the beginning of your professional way, find time to think over the reason you need a startup and what your endpoint is.

Do you want to be a unicorn? Do you need to be a unicorn? Or is it enough to be a leader in the internal market? Do you want to develop and sell your company?

The answers lead to different business management strategies. The key is to understand where you go and what your goals are.

Conclusion

Of course, this is not the complete list of junk and healthy advice. More were described in previous articles, such as:

• How to build effective ad communication with audience in 2022?
• Blockchain project promotion — trends and focus in 2022
• Is it so simple to promote a crypto project?

And even with them, there are still more pieces to add. Maybe you have some recommendations to share? They can both be healthy and junk, the ones from your personal practice.