At the end of July, top managers of Go Mobile visited the Blockchain Economy Istanbul Summit 2022. In the article, we share our impressions and insights from the conference.
Why did we want to be at a blockchain conference?
We went to a conference in Istanbul to solve two problems:
- Find international clients;
- Get to know blockchain better (Web3, Cryptocurrency, NFT).
The first task is understandable and measurable at close range. We wanted to get contacts of potential clients, briefings, bookings, and projects.
The second one is not so clear and will show itself at a long distance. We believe that blockchain as a technology has proven its effectiveness, and Web2 should be transformed into Web3. Sooner or later.
How do we rate the conference itself?
Most likely, this article will be read by those who are thinking about going to such an event or planning annual marketing activities. Therefore, we will answer your questions first.
Blockchain Economy Istanbul Summit is definitely not the most amazing conference we’ve visited.
Pros
- There are a lot of delegates, and everyone is set up for networking.
- Externally, the event looks very decent: a large venue at the Hilton hotel, lots of visitors, and a large impressive stage.
Cons
- Weak program. 90% of the speakers are sponsors of the conference. Judging by the preparation, the organizers did not check the content. The most interesting performance took place on Zoom.
- The audience (expected, but still) is 90% Turkish. Many representatives of global companies are responsible for business development in Turkey.
- The organizers saved money on food — participants had to pay for almost all of it. Pretty surprising for a big event with $700–$2500 tickets and a bunch of sponsors.
Our experience attending and organizing events shows that our investments in this conference were excessive. From a business point of view, they can pay off by launching one large client.
Web3-marketing
A great topic for discussions about what does not exist yet. Here is an example of our typical conversation with a crypto marketer:
— Do you believe in Web3 marketing?
— Of course, I’m doing it!
— Tell me what you’re doing.
— Well, I run social networks for our crypto-blockchain-nft-meta-project, I buy traffic by CPI/A …
— So this is the usual Web2 promotion of Web3 projects.
Experimentally, we managed to find out exactly what colleagues are ready to attribute to Web3 marketing right now:
- Promotion without the mediation of global platforms. For example, cross-promo projects in communities on social networks. It turns out that although you post your advertising message on Twitter, you do not pay the advertising platform itself. It also includes crops and influencer marketing.
- Promotion within Web3 virtual spaces. Previously, you placed a banner on a billboard, then bought the Yandex home page. Now you can buy the same banner but inside the metaverse. The options are more complicated: special projects or product placement in metaverses.
- The principle of transparency in marketing (and in other areas of business). According to one of the delegates, it is important for him to build relationships with partners so that they are mutually beneficial, honest, and transparent. He took this principle from the Web3 philosophy.
Marketing for Web3
Cryptocurrency is a promising direction that has its own promotion features. We talked about this in more detail in our article.
Not all countries allow crypto advertising, and advertising networks have their own requirements. Some products and services related to digital currency can be promoted freely, others are prohibited from advertising, and some projects need to be licensed. It all depends on the site’s rules. For example, Telegram allows any kind of advertising, Google and Twitter have several restrictions, and TikTok fully prohibites any promotion of crypts.
Also, crypto projects are a rather complex product for the audience to perceive. Advertising campaigns should inspire users’ trust, and banners should be understandable and not misleading.
In addition to advertising in large publishers, marketing projects from the crypto sphere includes promotion through communities, for example, in Discord, Twitter, and Reddit. You can gather a base of loyal users who create a whole philosophy around the project. Also, a large community is a sign for investors that you can invest in a product or coin.
Attracting the community becomes an important task for marketers. There are various mechanics, from NFT sweepstakes to early access to news. The main thing is that they create the value of participation in the community and increase the engagement rate.
Integration with bloggers is another available promotion tool. Influencers help to build a trusting relationship with a crypto product and also attract an additional audience to the community and fuel the interest of the existing one.
An invitation to participate in a blogger’s stream or a Q&A session works great for engagement. The blogger can also connect to Discord chat, and respond to comments on the client’s Twitter and Telegram pages. Bloggers can stream such interactions on Twitch or YouTube.
Preparation for the launch of advertising cryptocurrency projects is not easy and lengthy. We know how to make this process easier and clearer. To promote your project, write to us by email at hi@gomobileagency.com
Main insights
Insight 1
98% of products do not have a unit economy in marketing, as they pay for increasing knowledge about the topic, and not for the end user. Since the crypto sphere is new, it is necessary to promote not the product in the subject, but the subject itself and explain why it is needed at all. It turns out that CAC (the cost of attracting a client) is higher than LTV (the lifetime value of the client, that is, the profit brought by him for all time).
Insight 2
Only 5% of Internet users use blockchain technologies. Since this is not a mass product, its target audience is narrow. Therefore, the main problem with crypto projects is there is no mass adoption. To promote, you need to individually create a strategy and choose the appropriate methods, since mass marketing and its usual tools do not work in the crypto sphere.
Insight 3
The industry is young, and the crypto party is still small, which means you can easily get through to top managers. Plus, the community is open for networking, everyone knows each other, so it’s easy to establish contacts with potential clients and partners. The threshold for entering the sphere is still minimal.
Insight 4
It’s not a shame to be a beginner here. It is difficult to imagine a specialist in digital who comes to a top client and says from the doorstep that he has just started his way in the industry. In Web3, they treat this with understanding and are ready to invest in training newcomers.
Insight 5
There were many startups without good funding and a business model. They have a great product with a small number of users that need competent promotion.
Insight 6
Local Turkish performance agencies are 1/5 of the expertise of Russian ones.
Insight 7
It is worth investing in the promotion of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies because:
- Their strength and attractiveness lie in decentralization and the absence of regulators. There are fewer risks of changing the rules of the game and management mistakes, more freedom of movement, and transparency.
- Web2 platforms integrate Web3: there is already an initiative from Facebook to create a metaverse and implement NFT. Soon, Google will also share advertising revenue with users.
- Web2 corporations will buy Web3 projects if they manage to transform and see a strong request from users.
Insight 8
If you’re doing something, someone else is probably also doing it. The multibillion-dollar company Microstrategy, whose CEO spoke at the conference, stores all the company’s reserves in bitcoin. We made a crypto fund for employees back in 2018, and now we are increasing the volume of digital assets and implementing them on the current team.
