Managing Community and Marketing Campaigns in Web3

Everybody thinks growing a web3 project is easy if you have money. Polkadot's example illustrates why this is NOT the case: 👇 So Polkadot spent $37m on Marketing in Q1 and Q2 2024. Some of the top categories were: • $10m on Ads and Sponsorships • $7.9m on Events/Conferences • $4.9m on Influencers • $4.1m on Digital Ads Yet despite these huge marketing activities, Polkadot somehow seems quiet and invisible. So what is it that they could have done better? Here are the top 8 ones for me: 1/ Slash all soccer club and race car sponsorships. These don't attract web3 developers and builders. Seems like we didn't learn our lessons from 2021 when projects splashed money on renaming stadiums and sponsoring all sorts of sports teams. 2/ Use respected influencers to educate about the advantages of your chain. Explain in layman's terms WHY and HOW your chain is different from 100+ other L1s and L2s out there. Simply Tweeting common sense threads and posts will not bring adoption. 3/ Build an in-house team of core contributors and loyal ambassadors and invest in their growth. Let them become the thought leaders of tomorrow in their domain and promote your chain. This is a long-term initiative but will pay big time down the road. 4/ Dramatically increase your funding for Community Building. Enable a variety of educational and ambassadorial programs.  Again, it was the community that kept Solana alive in Dec 2022 when everyone thought it was dead. When you splash 10x more funds on sports team sponsorships, it's sending the wrong to your community. 5/ Increase grants to attract tier one teams to build the best web3 dApps with killer UI/UX. Offer incentives to the existing top projects to bridge to your chain as well. 6/ Allocate more funds to organize dozens of informal Polkadot gatherings targeted at developers across the continents. Empower your community ambassadors and evangelists in different countries. Let them bring the best builders and developers together for casual meetups. 7/ Slash the budget on digital ads. Traditional ads that work well for web2 startups usually don't result in good conversions for web3 projects. 8/ Completely rethink your Media strategy. If you spent millions but people can't remember hearing about you recently, then it didn't work. That's because simply promoting a chain doesn't work. Instead, promote a new chain specific innovation or user facing feature or at least get creative with ads. Coinbase/Base and Solana are killing at this, so learn from them. -- In short, money is important but it's all about HOW you are spending in. And promoting a web3 chain is not the same as scaling a web2 startup. What works in web2 doesn't always fly in web3 and vice versa. Image source: DefiIgnas on X P.S. Anything else you'd add to the list? Let me know below. Follow 👉 Aram Mughalyan & consider sharing ♻️ this post if you like it.

I've sat down with Otherlife & talked to 20+ CMO/CTOs to find out what's next for Web3 x Brands. Here are 4 non-secret secrets to succeed in Web3 WITHOUT ending up as the NFT drop that's irrelevant on launch day: 1. Focus on value, not technology You might think: “It’s the missing UX”. No. Brands understand that successful engagement isn’t about throwing technology at people (such as NFTs or wallets). Antonio Carriero: "Technology is never the issue... you have more technology capability than good ideas. The most interesting challenge has been to align the entire organization around one unique project." Example: Mastercard integrated NFTs into events like the UEFA Champions League, offering exclusive experiences through digital collectibles. BREITLING created digital product passports for watches, massively improving the pre-owned experience for customers (and getting a ton of valuable data!) Instead of focusing on the tech, they created real value for customers. 2. Bridge tech and business goals     Ensure every digital asset or tech layer supports your broader business strategy. Integrate these tools in a way that simplifies the user journey and delivers tangible value, not just novelty. 𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲: DeLorean Motor Company 's marketplace for car reservation slots uses blockchain to secure transactions. This aligns perfectly with their brand’s focus on exclusivity and consumer protection. 3. Beyond NFTs The era of standalone NFT projects is done. Brands initially jumped into Web3 with flashy NFT drops — but 90% of these fizzled out. Integrate digital assets, payments, data, gaming across platforms – NFTs could be a part of that.  4. Fail often, fail faster Start small, run a pilot, scale it, test and learn. If it doesn't work, pull it down immediately and pivot. Gucci did an amazing job in testing the waters with their “Vault” concept, Roblox activations, and strategic collabs (case study in comments). Don't be fooled: The chart is an approximation of what we've heard in our community. We're soon going to do a much more comprehensive study on this. 🔥 Read our deep dive here: https://lnkd.in/gThdBuBS Wanna crack the code? Reach out to our friends at Otherlife Michael Perrow, XYZ Michael Moodie Examples of brands who nailed this? _ 🔻Subscribe for more & join 10k+ Web3 execs: www.51insights.xyz

Most marketers don’t realize smart contracts can do half their job in web3 marketing. Smart contracts are quickly becoming the go-to for creating innovative, engaging campaigns. But what exactly are they, and how can marketers use them to craft unique experiences? ↓ → Understanding Smart Contracts Think of smart contracts as self-executing programs on the blockchain: ↳ They run automatically when certain conditions are met. ↳ They are essentially "if-then" statements coded into a blockchain. Not exactly "smart" or "contracts" in the traditional sense, but definitely powerful! → Why Smart Contracts Matter in Marketing 🔄 Automation: Executes actions without manual intervention. 🔍 Transparency: Every transaction is recorded on the blockchain, boosting trust. 🔒 Immutability: Campaign rules remain consistent, as contracts can’t be altered once deployed. ⚡ Efficiency: Streamlines processes, cutting costs and saving time. Ways to Use Smart Contracts in Your Campaigns Create Unique, Verifiable Digital Collectibles ↳ Use smart contracts to mint NFTs (like NBA Top Shot's collectible clips) that are scarce, authentic, and verifiable. Implement Loyalty Programs ↳ Automatically reward customers with tokens or NFTs for purchases or engagement that can be redeemed for exclusive offers. Organize Transparent Giveaways and Contests ↳ Code the rules into a smart contract to ensure a fair, verifiable, and tamper-proof selection process. Enable Exclusive Access and Experiences ↳ Provide special access to events or products (like Adidas did with virtual and real-world event rewards). Create Interactive Advertising Campaigns ↳ Trigger smart contracts when users engage with ads, rewarding them with tokens for exclusive content or offers. Implement Transparent Influencer Marketing ↳ Automate influencer payments based on predefined performance metrics, ensuring clarity and fairness. Develop Gamified Marketing Experiences ↳ Track user progress and distribute rewards through smart contracts to increase engagement. Smart contracts unlock endless possibilities for creative marketing in Web3. They help build campaigns that are not only engaging but also transparent and valuable for your audience. It's not just about the tech—it's about using it to genuinely connect with and create value for your community. Keep the focus on your audience, and smart contracts can help you make magic happen!

Marketing Growth & Business Development: Two Sides of the Same Coin in Web3 In traditional industries, marketing growth and business development often operate as separate entities—one focused on attracting customers, the other on strategic partnerships and expansion. But in Web3, the lines blur. Why? Because growth isn’t just about users; it’s about ecosystems, token economies, and community-driven adoption. Here’s why Marketing Growth = Business Development in Web3: 1️⃣ Community is the Customer – In Web3, growth isn’t just about paid ads or SEO; it’s about network effects, governance participation, and viral tokenomics. Every partnership, influencer collab, or DAO integration isn’t just BD—it’s marketing. 2️⃣ Token Utility Drives Adoption – Unlike Web2, where marketing attracts users to buy a product, Web3 requires education and incentives to drive token adoption. This means BD deals (exchange listings, liquidity pools, staking partnerships) are direct growth levers. 3️⃣ Collaborations = Distribution – In Web3, BD isn’t just about closing deals—it’s a growth engine. Every integration (DeFi, NFTs, Layer 2s) increases exposure, liquidity, and user trust. Growth marketing happens through ecosystems, not just campaigns. 4️⃣ Trust is the New Acquisition Model – Web3 users don’t buy; they invest, stake, and govern. Growth marketing isn’t about ad funnels—it’s about education, thought leadership, and credibility. This means BD strategies (advisory partnerships, strategic alliances) are key to long-term retention. 5️⃣ Viral Loops Over Ads – Traditional marketing relies on paid channels; Web3 thrives on airdrops, staking rewards, and referral incentives. Growth happens when BD and marketing align to create sustainable adoption incentives. In Web3, every BD move IS a marketing play, and every growth strategy HAS a business development angle. The projects that understand this don’t just acquire users—they build movements. #Web3Growth #BusinessDevelopment #MarketingInnovation

4 months ago we got an impossible brief...gain 500K users in 3 months. I'm proud to say we just hit 2M users in 4 months, and still growing 10% WOW. To do this we didn't send a single email, pay for an ad, or an influencer, instead we used our community and our tech. Here's our Web3 growth playbook👇 The Web3 Growth Playbook: 1 - Build trust in the market: First you have to have people trust that you are worth their time. There are many projects offering quests, so why do yours? We highlighted our team, our tech, and our successes to prove we were a legit project and worth their time. 2 - Open the aperture: Wallet based quests limit you to Web3 natives. Our tech enables anyone with email or Apple/Google wallet to join in. This allowed us to go beyond just Web3 natives, to create a much larger community by making it easy to participate. 3 - Nail The Value Exchange: There needs to be value for people to take action. We used a combination of early community rewards paid out from our upcoming listing, partner rewards, early access to other projects, mentorships, NFT's, and Discord roles. 4 - Design Quests for key goals : We didn't just ask you to follow us on Discord, rather multiple steps; follow us, and then get a specific role. We didn't just ask you to tweet, we created AI prompts ensuring tweets were unique allowing us to create new trending hashtags each week. 5 - Keep up the momentum: We released new quests regularly, and enabled one off ways to earn points so our admins could award points to any member easily for things like answering question in Discord, participating in a emoji contest, or alerting us to a bug. 6 - Create Rewards: We leveraged our NFT technology to create the Smart Cats, an NFT derivative of a Cool Cat we own. Our community minted over 500K of them in a week. 7 - Create Ambassadors: We created an ambassador program and guided them as to what content to create. In exchange we gave them mentorship, status, and points in return. 8 - Activate your Ecosystem: We are now working with our partners to integrate our quests into theirs, have them offer rewards to our community, and to allow them to personalize experiences with our Smart Pass. So now the pass is the key to our ecosystem, not just our project giving it greater value. We built all of this from scratch with our tech because we didn't see what we wanted in the market. It's provided us with the flexibility to go beyond other questing solutions to drive rapid growth. > 4m individual quests completed in 120 days > 2M users in 120 days > 500K NFT minted in 1 week > 200k unique tweets in 2 weeks > Trending multiple #hashtags > 5k average attendance for Twitter Spaces This effort has been so successful we are now offering the playbook and the Growth Tooling to others. DM me if you're interested to see what we could do for your project.