What Actually is Blockchain Marketing? – 2 Different Meanings

Blockchain marketing has become a separate segment as global crypto adoption is constantly growing, reaching over 420 million crypto users worldwide. However, the opinions on what is blockchain marketing divided into two groups. Let’s shed light on two different meanings of blockchain marketing and explain how it works nowadays.

Definition #1

Well, the first definition of blockchain marketing refers to the following:

Blockchain marketing is performance-based marketing with the use of decentralized blockchain technology.

Blockchain marketing is performance-based marketingPerformance marketing is a type of marketing oriented on the result. with the use of decentralized blockchain technology.

But what exactly does it mean? Blockchain marketing is similar to the typical digital marketing ecosystem; however, blockchain technology brings some innovations. 

The key feature (and probably disadvantage?) Blockchain marketing is data privacy. Due to decentralization, nobody owns the user’s data as it is stored on-chain; meanwhile, familiar ad giants store our data on their servers and various DMPs and use it for their benefit (sometimes for our benefit as well due to precise targeting). 

The main idea of blockchain technology here is decentralization and anonymity. That’s why blockchain marketing refers to cookie-less advertising, which has pros and cons. 

Merits of Blockchain Technology in Marketing

As you already know, blockchain marketing refers to the usage of decentralized blockchain technology. Let’s take a deeper look at its advantages for businesses and users. 

Ad Fraud Prevention

According to Statista, the cost of ad fraud in 2022 is more than 80 billion dollars, which will continue to grow in 2023. In other words, advertisers will lose more than 100 billion dollars on invalid and non-human traffic, which is around 40% of all internet traffic globally.

Blockchain brings more transparency here, saving the anonymity of users at the same time. As all the data is stored on-chain, advertisers can verify that their ads were really delivered to the real person, not the bot.

Third-Party Sides Cannot Use Your Data

Due to data anonymity and encryption, it will not be stolen by any other third party. It still belongs to you, and nobody cannot use it for its purposes. 

Rewards for Users

Although ads may be helpful sometimes, nobody actually likes them. And blockchain marketing takes this into account as users get a share from ad spend. This is how the advertising platform of Brave browser works. Users get 70% of ad revenue in Brave native token. 

Demerits of Blockchain Technology in Marketing

Well, the benefits are pretty straightforward. Let’s find out what cons it may hide.

How Precise Will It Be?

Cookie provides advertisers with almost unlimited targeting opportunities sacrificing the users’ privacy. As already being said, with blockchain technology, users’ data is protected, but what happens with the targeting option in this case? No doubt it will be less accurate, as the less personalized data available, your targeting will be less precise.

It Is Still Under Development

Although blockchain technology in marketing seems valuable, it’s not widely spread right now. Blockchain marketing is still in the early stage of development and it requires much time for implementation and adoption.

Definition #2

There is another definition of blockchain marketing, which is more widely spread than the first and takes place nowadays. Here it is:

Blockchain marketing is the process of promoting products and services in the blockchain market. 

Like the fashion industry, restaurant business, or gambling, blockchain marketing has already moved into a separate niche with its specifications, methods, and tools for marketing products and services. 

If you’re trying to build your blockchain business, marketing is crucial. An appropriate blockchain marketing strategy will help you to stand out from the competition, increase awareness, and set up a stable flow of customers in the long run.

7 Steps of Blockchain Marketing Strategy

These steps will help you to create a marketing strategy in a simple yet effective way:

Set up your goals

Setting the right goals for your marketing strategy is a crucial factor. You have to understand what exactly you are striving to achieve. To make it easier, focus on your key performance indicators. Here are some examples of how your goal should look by:

Remember to set up goals following SMART criteria. Your goals have to be:

Conduct competitive research

When goals are set try to figure out what your competitors do to achieve similar objectives. Find out what marketing channel they use, their Unique Selling Proposition (USP), what kind of unique features they have, etc.

Discovering competitors online may be tough, but this tool will make your research easier:

Create a unique selling proposition (USP)

You know the goals and what your competitors do in the market; now it’s time to develop your USP. This is necessary to maximize the performance of your marketing strategy, as a well-designed USP can help you stand out from the competition and increase your conversion rate and close rate.

Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for creating USP, so you have to put some effort into making it right. Here are some points that will help you:

Explore the unique features compared to competitors – find out what positively differentiates you from your competitors.

Tell about problems you solve – highlight the problems which your product and services solve.

Focus on your advantages – tell your audience why they should choose you and what you can offer them.

Make it clear and easy to understand – USP has to be clear, easy to read, and noisy. It must instantly provide the idea of what you do and why to choose you.

Use numbers and facts – People tend to trust numbers and facts. “Our blockchain consumes 30% less energy than others.” – this is a good example in this case. However, always remember that you have to prove your statements. 

Define the marketing channels.

To implement your goals and propose USP to the target audience, you must define the marketing channels for blockchain marketing strategy implementation. 

The choice of marketing channel varies depending on what you are striving to achieve. It may be Pay-Per-Click or SEM channels if you’re looking for customer acquisition or PR along with influencers if you’re looking for awareness and outreach.

Create a customer journey map (CJM)

A customer journey map is necessary when it comes to dealing with customers. By understanding the whole way and all touch points with your potential clients, you can reduce the sales cycle, increase conversion rate, increase up-sales, improve client satisfaction, and do even more, depending on your business type and structure. 

Sounds good, isn’t it? But what is a customer journey map, and how can it be created? 

Definition…..

The process of building CJM varies on business type, but in general following points are necessary:

Implement multi-channel analytics

Multi-channel analytics can provide data insights on what channel is performing better. Without multi-channel analytics, most companies see the statistics based on the last-click attribution, which means that the conversion value is set for the last channel. This may harm your business, as you can make decisions based on inaccurate data and don’t consider all other channels that lead users to the conversion.

By implementing multi-channel analytics and various attribution models, you’ll have a full picture of your potential clients’ actions before they make a conversion. This will help you to optimize your budget planning and reduce your costs from the channels that don’t bring value to your business.

Best-Performing Marketing Channels in Blockchain Space

SEO & Inbound Marketing

Search engine optimization, along with useful and engaging content, are extremely important marketing tools in the blockchain space. In such a new niche where blockchain technology is covered by the mask of uncertainty for the ordinary user, creating valuable and educating content is necessary. 

After analyzing some major crypto projects in the industry, you can see that organic search traffic takes a significant share among other marketing channels.

Email marketing

It is hard to over-rate the impact of email marketing on business. According to Hubspot, 37% of brands increased their marketing budget in 2022. Data & Marketing Association research stated that using email marketing increases Customer Lifetime Value by an average of 33%.

Email marketing can help you improve a range of business metrics, as it allows you to interact directly with an engaged audience and provide personalized offers due to detailed segmentation. 

Performance marketing

Although blockchain and crypto-related products are prohibited in the most popular advertising platforms like Google Ads, it does not mean that you still can’t utilize them. 

There are some specific regions where financial products, crypto exchanges, and products are allowed with restrictions, which means you must provide necessary documents from local jurisdictions. Here is the full list of regions where you can promote blockchain projects if you meet Google requirements.

If your products don’t fall under the categories listed, there will be no troubles with Google Ads advertising.

Community building

Community building is one of the most popular ways of marketing blockchain projects. Twitter and telegram became a spot for the web3 community, and plenty of blockchain companies tried to engage its target audience.

Similar to inbound marketing, community building actually follows the same goals – growing customers with educational content. However, some companies prefer a more aggressive way of promotion, using giveaways, airdrops, and direct advertising.

Putting ads in some channels will give you outreach but will not drive a loyal audience to your project. You have to build it yourself by not only promoting your products but also giving something valuable free of charge.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing has always been popular in this niche. Find any popular crypto exchange, wallet, brokerage, or other projects, and you’ll find an affiliate program on their website or app. And this is not surprising, as 84% of businesses use affiliate programs. There is no doubt that affiliate marketing is one of the most effective tools for blockchain business, so if you’re going to utilize it, keep these formats in mind:

Influencer Marketing

There are dozens of crypto influencers on YouTube and social media with a huge cumulative reach of hundreds of millions. Creating buzz and trust around the project is a must for blockchain business, and here is where influencers can definitely help.

By utilizing influencers, blockchain projects can boost awareness and build credibility. The implementation of an influencer marketing campaign involves the following steps:

The Bottom Line

Blockchain marketing is a relatively new field, and marketers have not come to a single opinion yet. The only true thing is that both definitions take place nowadays. Marketing with the use of blockchain technology is in the development stage, and we may see it live in the nearest future. Meanwhile, we can already see how the second meaning works and how companies adapt their approaches to market their products in the blockchain space. We’ll see which definition is more relevant in the near future, but for now, the second one prevails.