The ICO Survival Guide – Launching a Successful ICO (Part 2)

tokentarget has quickly made a name for itself, working with many venues to help successfully launch ICOs (initial coin offerings) and other token sale initiatives. The group operates as a dedicated ICO marketing agency at a time when competition for the market is higher than ever.

Part 1 of its two-part series focused on a range of different attributes needed with ICOs, including whitepaper management, tips on maintaining a solid foundation with your team, and legal components. By extension, Part 2 touches on the merits of social media sharing and other marketing initiatives for maximizing your ICO’s potential.

Social media & community management

Firstly, it is important to highlight the main channels that work for ICOs and to talk about each one of the channels, the amount you should be posting and how you need to do it.

Facebook – Audience 2.7 billion

Facebook has nearly over threee billion users so you simply cannot discount it as a viable means of communication and promotion for your ICO. Remember that your Facebook audience didn’t like your page to simply see your website text reiterated. Facebook audiences expect something different and some ideas for posts include the following:

Twitter – Audience +300 Million

Twitter is seriously significant for ICOs and you need to be there, Unlike Facebook, you need to be tweeting more than once per day as your tweets will soon get pushed down in the Twittersphere. Here are some tips for promoting your ICO on Twitter:

LinkedIn – Audience 467 Million members

First things first, people will check the profiles of your founders and team so you need to get those whipped into shape. There’s no point in having a professional page if your CEO is listed as unemployed and photographed drinking a beer. There are a variety of tips for promoting your ICO on Linkedin.

This includes diligently picking key members of your organisation to publish thought leadership articles, connect with relevant communities and answering questions. Another useful pursuit is searching for the highest-ranking groups that are talking about Blockchain Blockchain Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned). In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data, making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tamp Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned). In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data, making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tamp Read this Term, ICOs and crypto, though don’t be too promotional once you’re in.

In this sense, answer questions and start thought provoking discussions. Moreover, it is important to create a page for your brand where you are updating your followers on the latest news and developments. Finally, it is paramount to keep all interaction professional. Your updates should be centred around investment, your team, awards you have received and industry accomplishments.

Reddit – Audience +243 Million users

Ranked is the fourth-most visited website in the US, so you cannot underestimate the SEO power of Reddit for your ICO launch. Reddit works a little like Quora and it can be difficult to navigate for the uninitiated. tokentarget focuses on monitoring the relevant subreddit discussions and inserting thoughtful, non-promotional answers. Here are some tips for navigating Reddit:

GitHub – Audience +26 Million

There are millions of open projects at any time on GitHub and with 26 million active users, this is a great place for you to be. Git is an open source control system created by the same guy behind Linux so expect a hub of tech savvy developers and coders.

GitHub is a seriously smart community and to succeed there, we need to play by some rules. This includes adding a community manager who understands the technical functionalities of your product. Furthermore, don’t be promotional and instead share innovations, findings and thoughts. The optimal course of action is employing other developers to work on your app, assist with coding, and answer questions on your project.

SteemIt – Audience +171,000 users

SteemIT was founded by Ned Scott and Daniel Larimer, the latter of which is the founder of Bitshares, which has the eleventh largest market capitalization amongst all Cryptocurrencies Cryptocurrencies By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the netw By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the netw Read this Term. Steemit is powered by blockchain technology and rewards users who upload articles or images with cryptocurrency!

Users are paid 50% in 'Steem Power' and 50% in Steem Dollars, which can be exchanged for US Dollars. SteemIT is a serious community and as with all the networks we mentioned, and as such there are some rules to adhere to.

This includes rules when posting, with the aim of contributing value to the source or author. It is also important to upvote material that contributes value. Of note, nothing you publish can ever be deleted – it is Blockchain after all so be sure about what you’re saying is correct and concise.

You have the right to remain anonymous, but if you choose to expose your identity on #introduceyourself, you could include a verification video. On SteemIT, tagging doesn’t notify other users if they have been tagged so you need to find other ways to mix with the community.

Telegram – Audience +100 Million

Telegram is a “must have” for your ICO launch and it is rapidly gaining in popularity among crypto and Bitcoin enthusiasts. Excessive posting is not a great idea on Telegram so an update once per week or a roundup of your weekly activities is best. Here are some Telegram rules to follow:

Bitcoin Talk Forum

As I write this today there are approximately 1,331,007 members within this highly targeted forum for anything crypto related. This is where the community lives and it is a great channel to engage users to setup Bounty Programs, AirDrops and to help achieve interaction with the community directly.

Bounty Program

The bounty program is the crypto currencies version of affiliate marketing whereby you utilize bitcoin and crypto user audiences within Bitcoin talk to help push your ICO and token sale within their social media like Facebook, Twitter, Telegram and other media channels.

This is a useful platform to help spread the word and bring some virality to your ICO.

And breathe! Social media management for ICOs is a tough and full-time job for at least one person if not more. If you need any help or assistance setting up or managing your Social Media or Community management our team is ready and able to help take the weight off your shoulders, work with your existing team or become your extended outsourced team.

Remarketing

In todays world it is hard to attract targeted token investors to come to your website so when you do get a user, you need to make sure you pickup this audience profile and retarget them across the major platforms such as Google, Facebook & AD Roll.

Here you can target the user when they are browsing thousands of websites around the Internet or even searching for keywords or competitors in order to build your awareness even further.

It is vital when utilizing re-marketing that you keep your creative banners fresh and engaging to bring the user back and give them a strong reason to interact with your brand again. We do this by adding at least 3 creative sets into the pool and optimizing towards the best converting creative by adding on a weekly basis.

TIP: We have seen that HTML-5 animated dynamic banners have a much greater impact in terms of both CTR – Click Through Rate and Conversion Rates of Click to Lead and Click to Token Investor.

Display Marketing Networks Push

Display Marketing with banners is a great way to target your users when they are online. In fact, you can utilize multiple ways to target the crypto community from users looking at competitors to users searching for specific keywords that allow us to understand and know they are in the process of discussing or investing in an initial coin offering.

Our team of analysts and marketers are constantly improving our data and our audience to make sure it is the most targeted for each push. It is a noisy sector right now but we have the ability to target quality token investors online.

Search Marketing Pull

Paid search marketing is getting more and more expensive by the day. Therefore, it is vital to make sure you are using the best set of targeted keywords as well as taking advantage of all the features to enhance your listing and get a better quality score and CTR compared to your competition.

Effectively, our team of PPC specialists are focused on improving the quality score, click through rate and ultimately getting you more targeted visitors with the lowest possible Cost Per Click.

The right balance of Push and Pull marketing is always needed if you want to succeed and make sure your results are achieved.

Direct Placement Media Buys

Direct media buys and placements although in many cases expensive, are great to build the needed trust, hype and awareness. However, you should be sure to conduct the right research before investing in your desired list of top crypto sites.

Make sure that you have a full understanding of the demographics, audience and geo-targeting of the website so that you do not invest based on data that you cannot acquire such as U.S or China etc. Also make sure you utilize effective banners that have been tested on other cheaper channels to make sure you are not guessing which banner will work especially when you are paying a high premium for direct placement.

Our team can make sure you have the full picture and perspective when it comes to the top websites and channels and how best to make use of these placements with discounted rates as well.

Social Media Advertising

Channels like Facebook have over two billion users so they are a great way to push your message out. Whether it is by boosting your posts or via direct image or video ads, social media marketing is a great way to get your ICO message out there.

Video ads done right can impact and improve results greatly as well as displaying your product offering in a visually stimulating way. tokentarget and its ICOs have enjoyed great success with this.

We utilize targeted audience profiles to ensure that the audiences we are investing in have the highest probability to become token investors for your project.

Email Marketing

Whether you are engaging with your own database of user via Mailchimp or you are emailing databases from portals or crypto sites you need to care about email marketing.

It is vital that you have a great message and visual style to engage your users. Make sure you have a great subject line and include a strong call to action within your email. People do not have much time nowadays so keep the email short, concise and with purpose. Avoid loading too much information on the email and remember less is always more.

Combine it with a good offer and CTA and you will be able to gain lots of conversions out of this channel.

TIP: Content and visuals are key to your email marketing success so if you don’t have the inhouse expertise, be sure to speak to our team.

Analytics, Reporting & KPI’s

This is vital to the optimization process of your ICO or token sale journey. So you need to make sure you have the ability to capture UTMs from Google Analytics to place within your CRM or any other types of analytics you may be using.

It is crucial to be able to track and optimize the entire funnel of your users from impression to click all the way down to funded ETH on a user profile. If you are not able to do this you will end up shooting blind so it is really a vital step to setup before you even invest $1 on paid marketing.

I know that all this information may seem daunting and it probably is. ICO marketing requires a combination of highly skilled professionals and a coordinator who brings them all together. Our team can help advise, give guidance, manage your marketing and even produce reports for your shareholders. Speak to the tokentarget team now about your ICO launch!

P.S The above is just my personal experience thus far working with many initial coin offerings, blockchain projects and token sales. If you are interested to learn more, please feel free to speak to me about anything blockchain marketing related. I’m always here, this is my passion and this is the future.

This article is written by John Lewis, CMO of tokentarget. tokentarget is a dedicated token sale, ICO and blockchain marketing firm specializing in strategy, brand, marcoms, channel marketing & analytics.