// Category: Cryptocurrency
ICO Marketing Case Study: How to Raise $9M through ICO
// Category: Cryptocurrency
ICO is one of the most popular ways to get funding for launching your own startup. In its essence, does not matter if your startup is blockchain-based or other technology-based. If you truly want to get funding for a huge amount, from $1M, it will take a lot of effort and you may face pitfalls during your endeavor without having knowledge. Of course, our recommendations cannot give you a 100% guarantee on this however essentials some will help you definitely. Almost everything depends on the key items such as idea and positioning. Nevertheless, you can increase the chances by following our tips.
The idea is the essence and key important. Statistically, startups related to blockchain have higher chances of a successful launch ICO than others. This area has high risks, but it is possible to get an incredible profit of 100-1000%. Many investors understand this and realize that a right investment can be 1:20. Because $100 of the investor can be converted into $100,000. Therefore, innovative, disrupting ideas are being actively funded.
A user, first of all, visits the ICO project, and only then decide whether to finance this startup. Quality design, perfect UI, and UX, detailed description increase your chances of being funded. Please note, there must be a link to professional White Paper in PDF format on the page. The optimal number of pages is 20-30. Announcing on the page should be a section with the team, photos and social profiles links (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn). If you don't have them yet, do not waste your time and signing up immediately to build a personal brand. Clear call-to-action allows got what you're asking for.
Email campaigns play a huge role in the marketing strategy. Even before it starts, you need to create a landing page and encourage users to leave their emails. This will provide a launching of email marketing. User capture is important, increase CTR, set-up heatmaps, session analytics. You have to know the way the user thinks.
You have to be honest and do not deceive yourself. It is not so easy to urge people to invest in your idea. The average ICO investment in ranges from $100 to $1200 per one user depending on the project specifics and investors country. To get 9M dollars, you need a lot of traffic. Tons of visitors. You need to use all possible channels for commercial, promotion, PR, and advertising. You should aim at an indicator of 700,000 users per month. This number that will allow you to get all 9M dollars. If you do not have even half of this, so how did you consider getting funds? Use each and every possible channel (blogs, media, forums, social networks, paid traffic, organic traffic, video channels, omni-channels).
Given our experience, we recommend focusing on the maximum number of countries. Create a landing page that will be not simply translated but localized. Concentration on 10-15 most popular languages of the world covers almost 90% of its population. Important! Use the native speaker only services for content creation. So you can be sure that elementary errors in the text will not spoil the impression of your startup.
We recommend concentrating on the main marketing channels like Youtube, Twitter, Medium, Facebook, Bitcointalk, Reddit, Quora etc. Online marketing channels give many leads, but the conversion is not as big as we would like. These sources allow you to get 70-90% of all funds. Your goal is to build a strong brand. Investors should realize that they see a strong team with a bright future to succeed.
Use omni-channels. Participate in seminars, conferences and any other meetups and events anywhere. Talk about your project. Of course, you do not get many investors, but usually, these investors give much more money than any other does. Why? They know you and trust you. People get used to trusting the person they know.
Real communication gives the best result but requires a lot of effort. Behind every successful project, there is a charismatic, active and purposeful team. When investors see a digital startup real people that give more confidence. As I mentioned earlier, these people invest more in your project. Take the rule to attend at least 3-5 events per month. Build distributed promotional team across the country.
This will allow you to find an additional several hundred thousand dollars in a common fund. I bring to your attention a list of the biggest blockchain events on the meetup site and the best conferences of 2018. Be active and it will bring you closer to the hard cap!
You may underestimate the importance of a high-quality referral program. Well, at least 99% of people we've spoken didn't realize it. Give the chance for users to get more tokens by inviting their friends and personal network. Contact bloggers and invite them to participate in the referral, affiliate program. Just a couple of such sources can bring you at the table several tens of thousands of dollars. Not bad at all.
To get big money you need to be advertised on many sites. Ideally of course on every but too hard to do this. So, focus on the right ones. Download the full list of sites you can click on this link. Here's the list of the most effective ones:
1.coinmarketcap.com
2.bitcointalk.org
3.icodrops.com
4.eobot.com
5.febbit.com
6.cpuwin.com
Desirably to focus on organic search traffic. Its give higher ROI comparing by paid ads. Using Google Keyword Planner, you'll find important and key relevant keywords that can bring additional investments. Think bigger and you'll get bigger.
You can use the most popular social channels: Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Very good efficiency is provided by Youtube and Facebook groups. As a rule, there are placed paying users. But you need to work very actively to drive and convert subscribers and to create relevant content. Quality content is a key item here.
Well, it's not hard to raise $9M. Many companies do it successfully. The difficult to get $1B, it's a real challenge. Right strategy, key traffic, quality content, strong team wrapper by an awesome idea is a receipt. Brand and awareness need to be created carefully. Infect investors with your successes and belief in a brighter future and the money will come by yourself.