NFT Marketing Guide - The Most Complete and Detailed Playbook 2023

This is the most complete and detailed NFT marketing guide you will find on the internet.

Here, I have compiled all the essential and main mechanics of promoting and selling NFTs in 2023, based on my experience and work with projects.

You will also find a lot of useful links that will greatly simplify your work. Also, I’ve added some memes to add some more fun to the experience.

Without further ado, let’s go!

Mint Concept and Strategy

Here, I want to briefly recall the most fundamental things; after which, we will move directly to the marketing and promotion tools. In many ways, these things will largely determine the direction of your project and marketing campaign.

First, I want to remind you about the concept.

I think everyone has noticed that the NFT industry is changing. Now more than ever before, it's important to add value to your project, just pictures don't sell.

Come up with additional value, and let your community feel that your project will be in demand and needed. That the value will affect the price and demand, plus the mechanics embedded in the project will make people talk about your project and hold onto your NFTs.

I dwell into details in this article: Nobody buys an NFT just for art.

The concept also includes choosing a minting strategy. How will you issue tokens, on what platform, will they differ in rarity, and so on. I am going to publish a separate article about this; the link to which I will share on my Twitter.

But all these (concept and mint), though they greatly affect marketing, are still more basic elements. Next, we will discuss marketing itself. And this is the most complete and detailed guide on this topic that you can find.

Community

So, you have thought over the concept and mint, launched the website, and are ready to attract the first participants. We are starting to build a community. Next, we describe the different types.

Discord and Telegram

Most NFT projects now have a community on Discord. This is convenient - different chats, divided by topic, it is possible to assign roles, bots that help in work, and so on. Be sure to create a Discord with rules and invite people there.

It is worth familiarizing yourself with several project servers that you like in advance to see the structure, how the chats are arranged, and what rules are in place.

However, a lot of crypto people are on Telegram. Plus, Telegram has mechanics for attracting users that are convenient to use.

For example, buying ads on other channels, AMA sessions in large communities (more on that later in this article), and using special bots for engagement and contests (which we'll also cover below).

Useful tools for Discord:

Mee6

Ticket Tool

Clyde Bot

Invite Tracker

Collab Land

Twitter

Twitter is where the NFT crowd hangs out. Be sure to maintain a Twitter account for the project. Main points:

• share news,

• create memes,

• create useful and relevant threads,

• be marked with meaningful comments in other people's threads.

Be prepared that the development of a Twitter account is a rather laborious process, not always fast.

If you are backed by funds, investors, celebrities, and other notable industry players, make sure they follow you as well. This is often a metric by which projects are evaluated when deciding whether to buy NFTs or not.

Also, many users have special bots configured to show who is following whom. In general, the more famous subscribers, the better.

** Useful tools for Twitter:

TweetDeck

Typefully

SMM

Other channels, for example, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are important, but secondary. Depends on the project’s concept. There are projects that have a huge part of the audience on Facebook. If you are strongly tied to the visual, then Instagram and Tiktok are your places too.

But remember, the empty channel itself is meaningless. You need to create a content plan, and make sure that you speak to your audience on each channel.

See how and which channels are running projects that you like. You will learn a lot of useful things for yourself.

Community Engagement

So, this is the sweetest part. What to do to attract the original community

Contests and Tasks/Target Event

These can be conducted on Discord, Telegram, and other channels. Come up with a targeted event (such as a token giveaway, a raffle, a white list verification, or the opportunity for a retrograde drop). You can build an initial campaign around it.

Yes, this may not be the fit for all projects. But if it suits you, then with the right tactics for identifying bots and multi-accounts, it will suit the initial community. Further, this targeted event is advertised, including through the activities described below.

If you want multiple tasks, such as Discord activity, writing articles about your project, a referral program for user acquisition, and so on, it's worth using special platforms that can help you organize them quickly and effectively.

Useful Links:

Zealy/Crew3

Gleam

Premint

AMA Sessions

These are Q&A sessions in large channels with an audience. In good community channels, the audience is interested in finding new projects and often trusts the admins who make the selection.

AMA sessions are held on Telegram channels, Discord servers, Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube. Most often - on Telegram and Discord.

Usually, the project allocates some amount of tokens (or USDT, white lists, etc.) for prizes for the best questions - this motivates participants to ask questions and listen to the answers.

The project needs to present itself in an interesting way and motivate listeners to join their community and continue to study the project.

AMAs on Twitter, which are called Spaces, stand apart. About them further.

Twitter Spaces

A relatively new tool, similar to voice chats in Clubhouse (if you remember what it is). This is where the various big (and small) accounts host their chats.

You can arrange beforehand for an AMA session to be dedicated entirely to you, or you can raise your hand (virtual) and make a small pitch with a relevant topic.

The main goal here, as with AMAs in other channels, is to attract an audience to your community.

Influencer Marketing

Influencers and KOLs of all kinds work really well with the right integrations. Most influencers charge a fixed fee for integrations, but sometimes they become project ambassadors.

If we do not consider the option when the influencer becomes an ambassador (and sometimes co-owners of the project), then there are several integration options - from dedicating the entire video to your project to a brief mention.

Important detail: be sure to check the statistics of the influencer. Almost everyone manipulates views and other metrics, but there is a big difference between 10% and 90% manipulation.

The main channels are Youtube, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. It all depends on the project and its features - for someone, the best way to attract attention is Tiktok. But most often, there are two main channels - Youtube and Twitter.

On YouTube, there are many channels and a huge audience.

On Twitter, the problem is that real influencers don't do direct ads. As soon as they are caught doing this, they stop being influencers. Therefore, it is better to use available accounts here, which can, for example, promote your target action.

You can also attract an audience by participating in Spaces, which we talked about above.

When it comes to big and reputable accounts, it is better to pitch them directly. Most won’t respond (or even read), but we have cases where really interesting ideas were picked up by very serious guys on Twitter.

If you know how to make cool visual content that captures attention, also pay attention to TikTok. Start your own channel, and buy integrations from others.

Instagram, despite the fact of being a visual platform almost always shows rather weak results.

If you need a list of influencers, write 'KOL' in the comments of this Tweet, and I'll send it to you.

PR

PR is usually needed for social proof and spreading the news. To have potential investors (including your existing community) see that you’re going out into the world and making yourself known.

It makes no sense to hope that a widespread press release or article will bring traffic on its own. And yes, PR is not a top priority in this, but still an important thing.

Try to publish in both niche media about NFTs, as well as in large Crypto media, and various financial/business media. If you need a list of media - write a comment to this Tweet 'Media', and I will send it to you.

Collabs and Partnerships

Collabs are partnerships with other projects for the purpose of sharing an audience. Most often, a special joint contest is created, which is held in each other's Discords.

It is important to find and select a project with an audience that is relevant to you and give an interesting proposal; then the collaboration will work. The bigger your project gets, the more collaboration partners you can find.

This is an interesting activity that should be approached carefully, often by hiring a separate collab manager who has established connections with other projects.

Marketplace Promotion

A very important thing if you’re going to do a mint on a marketplace. Try to find out how to get into the recommended list and/or the list where new and interesting projects appear.

Some of the projects make the goal to get into the best-selling list (and sometimes why use special techniques for that).

Anyway, check if the marketplace itself can support you and how. It can be an additional strong point for the drop.

Investors and Famous Collectors

Yes, you read it right. Of course, raising investments for the NFT project is a separate story that deserves a separate article. But having a well-known fund/investor on your backers' list is also marketing.

A huge number of NFT market participants practically do not analyze projects (although they should). The list of those who have already bought or invested in the project is often sufficient for them.

The logic here is like this: “Well, if these guys bought, then they probably analyzed everything and everything is alright there.”

Scammers often take advantage of this and send their NFTs to the well-known wallets of investors and celebrities in order to create the appearance that these people have chosen their project themselves.

By the way, many celebrities are ready to declare their participation in the project (for money).

Therefore, public support from the fund/investor is important here. In this case, it can be a very powerful marketing tool that will pull all the others along with it and attract a lot of attention.

Bounty and Contest Bots

Several options are possible here. You can create a campaign (for example, on Gleam), where there will be simple tasks to subscribe to social channels, comment on certain posts, and so on. We talked about this above.

More complex options are possible with the development of special Telegrams and Discord bots. Such a bot will be part of the sales/engagement funnel. With it, the participants will attract other participants with the help of referral links directly in the community.

Through it, you can hold a target event - some kind of competition, participation in which makes it possible to get into the whitelist, and win the NFT cash prize. Everything here is limited mainly by your imagination.

Growth Hacking

There are many techniques that projects use to get attention beyond the ones I listed above. In various ways, projects declare themselves on Twitter (for example, with a hashtag system, bringing their posts to the top, etc.), on Reddit (with relevantly selected comments in subreddits), on Discord and Telegram, and even on portals such as CMC.

However, many of these methods involve the use of methods that may not seem very fair to some. Therefore, here I will not talk about what tricky methods projects use.

Some of them I’ve mentioned in this newsletter: http://nftsecrets.co, but still you need to check whether it fits your project.

The main message here is that you need to create the appearance that people are talking about the project and are interested in it. This effect may be of interest to others, and if you have a strong and cool project, they will join your community.

Other Activities (Podcasts, Newsletters, Banners, Telegram Channels Ads (But AMA Is More Effective)

There are many other marketing activities that you should definitely try, especially if you have an extra budget. Let's discuss the main ones.

NFT Podcasts

Participation in podcasts can potentially attract a new audience (regular listeners of these podcasts) and also increase trust within your community.

The project team can showcase themselves, tell more about the project, answer questions, and share interesting and funny stories related to the project.

In short, make the audience fall in love with you, and show who is behind the website and the NFT mint.

For example, Kevin Rose of the Moonbirds appeared on all significant podcasts where the relevant audience could be found, and podcasts were clearly a big part of their marketing strategy.

You can read more about How Moonbirds became such a success here.

Another way to participate in podcasts is to become an episode/season sponsor. Effectiveness varies from podcast to podcast, but honestly, when was the last time you listened carefully to an ad on a podcast? Though a good and interestingly beaten integration always comes in well.

NFT Newsletters

Another way to let a new audience know about yourself. There are many different crypto mailing lists ranging from general topics like Milk Road to niche NFTs-related topics, like NFT Hunters.

Integration options are also different - from being mentioned as a sponsor to a letter completely dedicated to you. Look for good, interesting, and regular newsletters that your audience might be interested in.

Banners

This is the placement of your advertising in the form of banners on websites. If you have an additional budget and an interesting offer - it's worth a try. There may be more clicks on offers related to the target event (competition, airdrop for example).

Sites ranging from the largest ones like Cointelegraph and Forbes to small and local ones sell specially designated spaces on their sites.

Facebook/Instagram Ads, Paid Traffic, Retargeting

With paid traffic through Facebook and Google, everything is complicated. Some ads are blocked due to crypto themes. The rest can be horribly inefficient.

However, there are ways and secrets to make such ads more interesting to the audience. For example, through other grids and platforms that collect a crypto audience in different countries and can show ads to it on different websites.

We are currently testing several of these platforms. Plus, there is such a thing as retargeting - users who visit your site will see your ads on other websites.

Advertising in Telegram Channels

In most telegram channels, you can buy a paid post. However, there are a few things to consider here. Firstly, a very large part of the Crypto-audience in Telegram is from the CIS region (Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Armenia, etc.). And they are the most active on this platform.

Accordingly, Russian-speaking groups often give the best result on this platform.

Secondly, it is better if it is not just a project advertisement but a call to participate in a targeted action (take part in a contest, win something, and/or participate in tests that will potentially bring benefits later).

Thirdly, to conduct the contests themselves, it is convenient to use Telegram bots, which will ensure that users fulfill the mandatory conditions, as well as give them referral links, by which some users can invite others.

And although I listed advertising in Telegram channels as an additional activity, for many projects, this is the main focus.

That is why it is good when a project has the opportunity to test everything - remove what does not work for it, and strengthen what works. You may be surprised during these tests.

NFT Trackers and Calendars

These are the calendars where new NFT projects are announced, and at the same time, you can find some current statistics about the existing projects. Can’t say that these websites have lots of traffic, but it is worth a try to add your project to these lists.

Local Markets (Asia, MENA, CIS, LatAm)

In this article, we talked about general, English-language worldwide marketing. In some services, it is possible to target narrower geo-positions (especially, for example, when working with influencers and targeting platforms).

But in general, it is for the entire crypto and NFT community, which definitely speaks English.

However, it is possible to create separate campaigns aimed at more specific regions. First and foremost, these are:

• Asia (China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam)

• MENA (UAE, India)

• CIS (Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia, Russian-speaking Europe)

• LatAm (Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela)

All these countries have huge domestic markets. But each of them is very specific. It can have its own messengers, its own stars among influencers, and its own methods for effective promotion (subject to internal laws, of course).

I think these markets will be discussed in more detail in separate articles. Tweet me if you think this is a good idea and which region to start with first.

Participation in Conferences

You can have a super successful mint and the project as a whole without attending a single conference.

However, if you have the time and opportunity, it is worth participating in the largest ones, such as Consensus or NYC NFT.

It is possible that you will not find clients and investors (although you may), but there are definitely useful contacts and interesting ideas there. Plus, it’s a good reason to arrange your own event as part of the after-party and meet your investors and community in person.

Community Retention

Building a community is a technique, but retaining it is an art.

I will write a separate large article on community retention. For now, I'll mention that in addition to constant progress and project development, it's important to keep people engaged.

This is done through various internal competitions, creating memes and local legends, constant play, and of course, answering questions (especially difficult ones).

Also, all of the above methods can and should be done at the later stages to show your community social proof of what people are saying and writing about you, that you care about your community, and that you value them.

Conclusions

Yes, the marketing for the NFT has changed. A couple of years ago, many people, driven by speculative purposes, bought everything in sight. Yes, and projects with the same goals released everything in sight. The market has matured.

On the one hand, new approaches are needed, while on the other hand, the foundation remains the same - a good strong concept, a cool execution, and community involvement, which will form the basis of your successful project.

If you are interested in learning how to promote NFT/Web3/Crypto project and how to add value to it, drop me a line!

P.S. Check out my previous articles at HackerNoon:

• Nobody Buys an NFT Just for Art

• Why Web3 and NFT Gaming Can Be the Biggest Trend of 2023

• FTX Raised $1bn With This Pitch Deck in 2021. Let’s Review It!

• Marketing was Key to Moonbirds Becoming a Super Successful NFT

• Understanding DAO: A Basic Explanation