3 secrets for marketing agency to make a partnership with ICO projects.

Chief Marketing Officer at Membrana.io Kirill Romanov told why ICO projects refuse to cooperate with some marketing agencies. Let’s see.

It’s not a secret, that projects at ICO stage have a much more budgets than on classic marketing market. At average, they are spending from $500,000 on marketing in several months. This market is too attractive not to pay attention to it. Despite huge competition in this industry I see a lot of agencies that literally don’t know how to work at all. I will tell you what you should do in order to get a partnership with an ICO client.

How do I know the answer for this question? I am actually managing marketing in the Membrana blockchain platform, which is going to run a tokensale. And I am really sick to find out with whom I can work in the pile of stupid partnership letters.

I previously ran my own digital agency and was selling its services: development, strategy and creativity. By the way, we worked with BASF, Bentley, Ferrari, etc. So I have a look at the situation from both sides.

1. Too late contact

The main mistake is that most of proposals from marketing agencies come in the moment, when projects already have formed their strategy and, usually, has a pool of partners. Therefore, it is almost pointless to attack those guys with letters, they do not need anything from you anymore. I got from 10 offers per day in mail and some more in Telegram. At the same time, I already have strategy and partners for advertising channels. Is it worth saying that I do not answer such letters.

You have to find out projects, which are just starting their work. How to find out these guys? For example, one of the first public actions we did, was an ANN post on Bitcointalk forum. This is a free solution for the project and almost all teams do so at the early stage.

2. Lack of expertise

The second mistake, which has a systematic nature, is the lack of analytics for already completed cases. The first thing a project looks at is relevant cases and work results. Therefore, in your letter, there must be a mention that you have experience working with ICO projects and indicating the channels you helped them in. If there is no experience at all, sorry, but no one will work with you now. If the experience is only in some channels, this is normal, with a high degree of probability, when you show results in one of the channels, parter will buy another.

By the way, the trick with NDA does not work. Many agencies are cunning, saying that they have cases, but NDA does not allow talking about them. If this is the case, then the email should be accompanied by an additional NDA agreement, after signing which I can see the case numbers.

3. How to determine the cost

Who gets the contract — the cheapest, middle or the most expensive performer? The market is young and cost of one service could vary from $10,000 and more. And now the most important answer for determining the price is: “what does the customer actually pay for?” — the customer pays for reliability, especially at the ICO stages. Me, as the head of marketing, do not have a chance to make a mistake and spend money ineffectively, there will be no second chance. When I have a marketing budget and choosing between a performer for $3,000 and $6,000, I will give the preference to someone who seems more reliable to me, even if he loses a bit in terms of performance or in the price.

The main triggers of reliability for the Executor are:

1. Case studies and analytics. I receive detailed answers to my meticulous questions;
2. Test campaign. The executor, who is confident in his own abilities, gives an opportunity to test a small budget.

In the next article, I will write down what is necessary to provide the analyst with the completed cases. Clap me, so I understand how interesting the article is.

Thanks, Kirill

Original publication: https://medium.com/@kirillromanov/3-secrets-for-marketing-agency-to-make-a-partnership-with-ico-projects-e8d5b3eacb2d