4 tips for marketing your NFT project successfully

As an NFT project creator, it's important to spread awareness about your project, create enthusiasm, and build traction with your target audience.

We've seen many NFT project teams come to Thirdwork looking to hire a marketer for their project. Through those conversations, we've had an inside look into what works, as well as some of the mistakes that NFT project founders and teams make along the way.

In this article, we're going to share some of the common mistakes we see, and several tips for launch a successful NFT project.

Common Mistakes in NFT marketing

Lack of a clear goal

It's wishful thinking to hope that you'll drop your NFT collection on NFT marketplaces like OpenSea or Rarible and they'll immediately sell out. In fact, we can almost guarantee: that won't happen.

As with any product, NFTs need to be properly marketed in order to be successful. All too often, projects will say they need to "invest in marketing" without having a clear goal for their efforts. What outcome are you seeking to achieve? Which audience are you trying to reach? How have you tried to reach them, and what has been effective or ineffective?

Without a clear understanding of what you are seeking or optimizing for, your marketing efforts are likely to be wasted. So, before you begin marketing your NFT project, take the time to sit down and establish what your goals are. Once you have a clear understanding of your goals, you can develop a marketing strategy that is more likely to lead to success.

Branding and marketing as an afterthought

NFTs are a new and exciting way to use blockchain technology, but they are also uncharted territory. Because of this, NFT projects need to be especially careful about how they position themselves and tell their story. In particular, there's this misconception that if you just have cool artwork and a flashy pre-launch site, you'll be able to create enough FOMO that you'll sell out your mint.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and you'll see time and time again that the best NFT projects actually do a phenomenal job of branding and marketing. Branding and marketing is much more than just logo design and frequent tweets. It's deeply strategic, and is fundamentally about who you are and what your NFT project represents. It's about creating an emotional connection with your audience. Understanding that marketing is complex and isn't something you can just set and forget is the first step towards reaching your audience where they are and getting them excited about your project.

Outsourcing to a marketing agency

There are many NFT-specific marketing agencies that have cropped up in recent years, all of which tout their ability to promote NFTs, build a strategy, a connect you with various media platforms to tell your story. And while a marketing agency can be an asset for an NFT project, there are some important things to keep in mind before outsourcing to these marketing services.

First of all, it's important to have a clear idea of what your marketing goals are. Without a clear goal, it will be difficult for the agency to create an effective marketing strategy. Secondly, you need to be aware of the potential cost of using an agency. Marketing agencies can be expensive, and you need to make sure that you are getting value for your money. Finally, it's important to remember that outsourcing your marketing to an agency is not a cure-all solution. You still need to be involved in the marketing process and make sure that you are monitoring the results.

With these things in mind, here are several pieces of advice we have for founders looking to market their NFT projects.

Tips For Marketing Your NFT Project

Join the conversation

Authenticity is crucial in this industry. It's critical to join relevant NFT and cryptocurrency groups and participate in debates as an NFT project founder. Better get familiar with discord, and hop into as many discord servers as you can in order to have your ear to the ground. But it's not enough to join discord. Relevant groups may be found on a variety of platforms, including Clubhouse, Telegram, and Twitter. You may interact with other people by participating in these groups and providing your thoughts, learning from others, and interacting with prospective community members. Avoid overloading discussion areas with advertisements while mingling with other communities. You need to engage authentically. The greatest thing you can do is ask for the community's opinion on your project, platform, content, or anything else.

Your roadmap is your product

Take some time to consider where you're going. A roadmap demonstrates your commitment to your project and lists the major milestones you want to accomplish, such as when you plan to offer certain utility categories, or major partnerships you hope to announce. Your audience will be more likely to see your project as genuine serious if you have a plan. We have seen projects that have invested heavily in copywriters to help their narrative and roadmap really stand out...you can tell when a roadmap was written hastily, and it's a major turn-off.

Find authentic connection

If you search 'How to Market NFTs' on major search engines, you'll likely get a bunch of content that tells you to invest in influencer marketing and SEO marketing. While there are all different types of strategies, in our opinion, that's wrong.

The best way to find success as an NFT project isn't to create generic SEO content or blast out posts on instagram or other social media. You need to focus in the early days on finding authentic connection with your community. If you can convince one person to add your project to their NFT collections, you can convince more.

Here are a few of the more niche ways that we've seen projects find early success.

Reach out directly

Sometimes, the least scalable approach is the best one to start with. Your success may hinge on having a few dedicated believers in your corner. If that's the case, why not reach out to them directly? If your NFT project is focused on music NFTs, find the people with the most credibility in that area, tell them what you are doing, and approach them earnestly for advice and feedback. At worst, you'll get radio silence, but best case scenario you'll find an early supporter, champion, and connector.

Run NFT Airdrops

Airdrops are an essential component of NFT marketing. The field is getting increasingly competitive, and marketers must find innovative ways to market their goods as a result. Using airdrops, you may generate buzz around your digital collectibles while also increasing sales by creating unique promotional codes and inviting customers to purchase your NFTs at reduced rates. This method may be used to promote and increase sales for your NFTs.

Lead an AMA Session

What better way to get your voice out there than getting your voice out there, literally?

If you get connected with people who host AMA sessions on platforms like Twitter, Reddit, Telegram, or Youtube, you can introduce your project to a new audience and answer questions. Make sure you're prepared to answer tough questions and pitch a compelling vision for the future of the project. You may also spice up your AMAs by giving incentives to the community.

Get featured in a niche newsletter

There are many good newsletters with thousands of subscribers. If you reach out to one of them and engage authentically, you could eventually ask them to feature your NFT project in one of their emails. This is a way to get noticed directly in the inboxes of people who are naturally inclined to support your project.

Know your strengths and bring on the right expertise

All founders have certain strengths and certain weaknesses, and NFT projects are no exception. Perhaps you have a background in branding and marketing? In that case, you have a major leg up, and you'll just need to bring artists, developers and smart contract auditors onto your team pre-launch.

But maybe you don't feel as comfortable with the growth and digital marketing components? In that case, we believe it's important to bring someone onto your core team who can help you devise and implement a strategy. From the strategic (helping you formulate your narrative and roadmap) to the tactical (developing appropriate hashtags and building an NFT calendar or launch calendar), a marketing expert with deep familiarity in web3 and crypto can help you take your NFT project to the next level.

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