Web3 Marketing Strategies : Grow Your Community

Looking for the best and most reliable growth strategies for your Web3 marketing project?

The answer is tapping into your current community to refer their friends. This will drive community growth of your projects, and in turn, growth of your crypto or NFT projects adoption. 

“With a data for more than 28,000 Internet respondents in 56 countries, it has been seen that 92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising.” – Source : The Epidemiological Strategy of Referral Marketing, Sayantari Ghosha, 2018.

Web3 has changed the way business and marketing is done. With limitations on advertising across traditional digital marketing platforms like Facebook and Google, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get your Web3 project to stand out from the crowd.

This is why community growth has become core to any Web3 marketing strategy. We all know that projects with the largest and most engaged communities are those most likely to win long term, because they can count on their own community to adopt their crypto or NFT project, and to generate word-of-mouth marketing far into the metaverse.

But growing your community can be difficult, so in this article we’re going to offer you a guide on how to turn one community member into two, by incorporating a referral marketing strategy into your Web3 project.

Whether you’re distributing tokens of NFTs, or building your own decentralized platform, it’s important to make sure that you’re asking everyone in your community to spread the word and refer their friends!

When a community member refers someone else to your project, it’s a sign of trust and loyalty to your brand. The referred member is more likely to make a purchase or take action than someone who came across the brand through other – not trusted – advertising methods.

To rollout hybrid competitive marketing strategies in Web3, it will take more than a few ads to achieve Crypto, NFT, DEX, and Blockchain success. Promoting and growing your crypto or NFT communities will include several promotional activities such as brand promotion, paid advertising, referrals, focussing user retention by engaging with your community, etc. Whether you’re trying to grow a community on Telegram, Discord, or use email marketing to grow your user base – this guide will help you grow your business and form strong bonds with your network.

Ready to take your Web3 marketing strategy to the next level!?

Let’s get started!

Table of Contents:

1. Using direct messaging to grow your community

2. Using a referral program to grow your community

3. Using airdrops to grow your community

4. Using crypto influencers to grow your community

5. How to grow a community from scratch using referrals

6. Actively asking your community to spread the word about your project

1. Use direct messaging to grow your community (common Web3 marketing tactic)

Direct messaging is an excellent marketing tactic to spread information about your project.

And while it may be one of the older ways to communicate, email marketing is perhaps the most efficient, allowing you to tailor and target your message to a specific audience. It is used by brands worldwide to provide customized content to their audience, to talk about their new Web 3 concept, and ultimately to boost their reach and gain new customers. Direct messaging can be very effective when you want to promote your token, conduct NFT airdrops and raise awareness of your project. All you need is a strategy, an email tool, and a base if you don’t already have one.

Another form of direct messaging is to automate Twitter DMs. You can use a tool like Tweet Hunter to craft messages for you, and automatically DM a Twitter audience you’ve built.

2. Using a referral program to grow your community (new Web3 marketing tactic)

Using a referral program to grow your community is one of the marketing trends you have to leverage if you want to succeed in this new Web3 economy.

All you need to do is create and launch a referral program for your Web3 project, and offer your current community members and fans rewards for referring their friends – you can offer utility tokens, merch, or even access to exclusive features.

Here are some examples of crypto referral programs built using Referral Factory – a plug and play referral software that allows you to build and manage your referral program without writing a line of code.

It’s important to keep in mind that you might start out with a simple referral program, but this could evolve into a full blown loyalty program down the line as people refer more, buy more, and transact more.

3. Use airdrops to grow your community

Airdrop marketing allows you to raise awareness and overall interest in your projects. It’s an excellent approach for crypto and NFT projects to reach new people in an organic and effective way. Airdrops are giveaways you distribute to those who register for your crypto program and sometimes users are required to complete simple promotional activities before they can claim. For example, users might be required to follow the project’s social media accounts, share posts, tag friends, etc. Because people love to receive free gifts and promotional items, Airdrops are an effective way to encourage mass adoption, grow your following and reach new potential customers.

4. Use crypto influencers to grow your community

Crypto Influencer marketing in Web3 has proven to be one of the most effective methods to attract a highly-engaged audience of Crypto, NFT, DEX, and Blockchain enthusiasts, traders, and investors. Unlike traditional influencer marketing, Web3 is a cutting-edge, innovative business and technology area that most people are fairly new too – so they rely on knowledgable crypto influencers as their main source of education and tips on what projects are worth investing into.

Before incorporating influencer marketing into your overall strategy, consider who the right influencers are for your business. A Crypto native influencer? A public figure? Are they relevant to your target audience or even active in this field? Highly regarded and relevant influencers can bring much traffic and visibility to your communities, social media pages, and websites.

You can use a platform like The Salt Block to source influencers for your Web3 product, but keep in mind that you will need to fork out a fair chunk of budget to activate them as influencers come with a price tag. Keep in mind that if you already have a referral program setup, you can simply invite influencers to join your referral program and then you can track EXACTLY how many referrals they generate, and how many of those convert.

5. How to grow a community from scratch using referrals

The best way to grow a loyal and engaged community is to ask your fans and supporters to spread the word about your project. Even if you have a small base of friends and followers to start with. The referral revolution is pretty easy to understand…

If 20 members each recruit one more, you now have 40 members.

If 40 members each recruit one more, you now have 80 members.

If 80 members each recruit one more, you now have 160 members.

If 160 members each recruit one more, you now have 320 members.

If 320 members each recruit one more, you now have 640 members.

You get the point!

Why does this work?

Because people are more likely to trust the opinions of real people more than they do the brands themselves. When you prioritize referral marketing (also known as word-of-mouth marketing), you will create a sense of trust and loyalty, bring in new quality members to your Web3 community, and have the opportunity to market your communities through referral programs across all channels.

You create a win-win situation for everyone this way. Here is an example of an NFT project, growing their Twitter community through referrals:

How did PhotoChromic actually grow its audience?

PhotoChromic is a blockchain project helping people take control of their identity online through an NFT. It creates a valuable, biometric link between the analog and digital worlds. This is a top brand in the Web3 space that used a unique referral mechanic to grow.

PhotoChromic decided to grow its community on Twitter by creating competition among the community members. In order to do this, PhotoChromic executed a referral program with Referral Factory.

With their referral program, people should’ve referred their friends to join the @photo_chromic community on Twitter and each referral was equal to 1 entry to win one of five prizes of R10,000. More entries, more opportunities to be one of the winners.

The last part of this strategy was to introduce the Crypto referral program to influencers so that they could spread the word about this great opportunity and engage their audiences in the competition.

From almost no base, they were able to gain thousands of followers on Twitter and make it a success.

Copy their strategy to grow your Twitter community by THOUSANDS overnight. Find a referral program template here.

6. Actively asking your community to spread the word about your project

It’s important to note that referral marketing is an ongoing strategy, you need to actively ask for referrals if you want to see continued growth. You can ask your fans to refer their friends to follow you on Twitter, or you can ask your fans to spread the word about your communities or products. Either way – you need to plan a monthly activity that actively asks.

Referrals can be a powerful growth tool if you have a plan in your marketing strategy to actively ask.

Below are some examples of great crypto projects that grew not only their community but also their revenue, off the back of a referral program:

Web3 Referral Program Examples:

Binance

Binance employed this strategy most successfully to acquire users. With Binance’s introduction in 2017, it became impossible to be discoverable in crypto forums and subreddits without someone being invited. Binance set up a referral program that turned its users into brand advocates, all while ensuring user privacy. Referring a friend to Binance, you could earn crypto (Bitcoin at the time) when they join the platform through your Binance referral link.

Paxful

Paxful is another platform for buying, selling, and trading digital currencies. With Paxful’s referral program, you make money every time the people you introduce to Paxful buy Bitcoin, and again when the people they invite buy Bitcoin.

Gemini

Gemini is a next-generation cryptocurrency platform that allows customers to buy, sell, store and earn crypto. This is how Gemini’s referral program works:

Once your friend buys or sells $100 within 30 days of creating their account, both accounts will be credited $10 worth of bitcoin. You see? It’s a double-sided referral program example.

ZenGo

ZenGo has the easiest crypto wallet to use. It takes just a minute to create an account. With ZenGo’s referral program, once you invite your friends or followers to ZenGo, you receive 50% of the commission every time they buy crypto! They’ll also receive $10 worth of Bitcoin on their first purchase.

What are the most important KPIs for Web3 marketing campaigns?

Web3 marketing campaigns are a relatively new concept in the digital marketing world, characterized by the use of blockchain technology and decentralized platforms, they operate in a totally different way to traditional marketing campaigns.

Traditional marketing campaigns = the brand spoke to you

Web3 marketing campaigns = the people speak for the brand

Because so much of what we’re doing is new, measuring and analyzing the success of these campaigns can pose a challenge for marketers. However, there are several important key performance indicators (KPIs) that can help gauge the effectiveness of a web3 marketing campaigns:

1. Conversion rates: The conversion rate measures the percentage of users who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase, joining your community, or signing up for a newsletter. In a web3 marketing campaign, this could include actions such as using a decentralized app, participating in a blockchain-based game, joining a Discord server, or investing in a cryptocurrency. A high conversion rate indicates that your marketing efforts are resonating with your target audience and driving them to take action.

2. Return on investment (ROI): As with any marketing campaign, calculating the ROI of a web3 marketing campaign is essential to understanding its effectiveness. ROI measures the amount of revenue (or value) generated compared to the cost of the campaign. This includes not only the direct costs of creating and running the campaign but also any associated costs such as fees for using blockchain networks or decentralized platforms.

3. Engagement metrics: Engagement metrics are a crucial component of any marketing campaign, and they are particularly important in Web3 campaigns. This can include metrics such as the number of followers on Twitter, the amount of likes and shares on your social content, the amount of members in your closed Telegram and Discord communities, and the total number of comments or conversations generated around the campaign. These metrics can help you understand how well your campaign is resonating with your target audience and provide insights into what content or messaging is most effective.

In addition to these metrics, it is also important to consider the uniqueness of Web3 marketing campaigns and the fact that the whole principle of Web3 is about empowering the people, teams and communities behind it. This means that traditional advertising methods may not be as effective and that community building and word-of-mouth marketing can be more impactful. Referral marketing, as seen with ZenGo’s program mentioned above, can be a powerful tool for Web3 companies to leverage the enthusiasm of their existing user base and incentivize them to spread the word to their network of crypto fans.

Conclusion

Investing in the promotion of your Web3 project will have a huge impact on your future growth and revenues, but it’s important to not that traditional marketing methods simply won’t work.

As the Web3 space continues to become more mainstream, every day it becomes more challenging to stand out.

An ideal Web3 growth strategy involves direct messaging, launching a referral program, airdrops, influencer marketing, communities, and actively asking for referrals. By implementing all these strategies you can supercharge the growth of your Web3 project, and you’ll also be providing value for your audience, helping them solve their problems, and educating and inspiring them about the fascinating innovation that is Web3!

We hope you have enjoyed reading our guide on Referral Marketing Strategies for Web3 Companies, it’s been an absolute privilege to share our knowledge with you 🫡