NFTs are a hot topic in the technology space today. Many people are dropping thousands and sometimes millions of dollars on NFTs and it can be a lucrative idea to create and sell your own digital art.

But NFTs are a very competitive space. There is an open sea (😏) of NFT projects already and new projects are popping up every day. What are you going to do to stand out? Let’s look at some fundamentals of NFT marketing to get your project some exposure and stand out from the crowd.

Have a Unique Project

About 20% of all cryptocurrency projects have failed, according to Coinopsy data. There’s never really one right or wrong answer to how to go about crypto marketing to succeed your idea.

The #1 rule in marketing is to split test each method to see which one works best. You need to try 5–10 different methods and you might lose a lot of money before you find something that works.

Each project is different and each project’s messaging and audience is different. The best marketing is to have a great project that stands out. Your art has to be head and shoulders above everyone else. High-quality art is the best thing to do. People will gravitate to someone who is doing something new in the space.

Your mission is to have a resonating value behind just throwing JPEGs into Opensea:

Messaging

It’s all about messaging when it comes to putting your NFT Marketing strategy. You want to convey what your project is about — clearly and concisely. You should be able to convey your message to potential investors in two sentences.

The only way to cut through the noise is to have a clear, concise message that will make people understand what your project is about right off the bat. You can formulate this message by writing out the bullet points of your project. Think about what this project is for, what value it brings, what the strengths are, and what the weaknesses are.

You want to focus on the project’s strengths and merge that with the value proposition to create a short, concise message that will quickly tell people what the project is about.

Also focus on something about you, about your team, or about your project that is unique and is going to give you an advantage in the NFT space.

Back to the apes, there’s a good example of proper positioning. Even though the GossApe Girl project was another collection of apes, their messaging is quite vivid, giving them an edge for organic virality.

“… to represent inclusivity, equality and beauty to the NFT space.” — is a good statement aligned with the diversity of items created.

NFT Marketing Tactics

You want to make sure that your messaging aligns with the audience that your NFT marketing is targeting. Also, make sure you’re putting your message in front of people who buy NFTs. Even though NFTs and crypto are getting more mainstream, the audience of people who actually buy NFTs is still relatively small and dense. A lot of people are talking about them, but you want to target people who are actually buying them.

Giveaways

Giveaways are a great way to gain a following for your project when you’re first starting out. People are always attracted to something that’s potentially free. The thing about this is that it’s not necessarily going to attract whales or people who actually purchase NFTs. You can use this NFT marketing tactic to gain an initial following for some social proof, then pivot to things that actually drive sales.

As I’ve been working in crypto marketing since 2016, I witnessed how the giveaway (engagement campaign / bounty/ whatever) tactics have changed through the years. You are unlikely interested in getting 10,000 of bounty hunters following your account, as it can only damage your reputation and SoMe metrics.

At PARSIQ, we often create different types of engagement campaigns and airdrops, but always put some conditions to filter out bots and bounty hunters. We usually require our community to solve, build or write something that requires them to read the rules and dive (at least for a little) into the project.

Ex: Instead of asking to follow and retweet, add more meaningful mechanics to your campaign: let the community come up with a character name, solve a riddle or autocomplete a sentence.

Influencer Marketing

There is no way for me to express how much I hate influencer marketing in crypto. Honestly, it’s the most complicated marketing tool regarding spending your time and budget.

On the one hand, an influencer with a large following can bring a lot of eyes to your project very quickly. But as mentioned earlier in this article, it’s important to get your project in front of people who actually buy NFTs — real (!!!), acknowledgeable, and target audience.

Getting an A-list celebrity to post about your project can get it a lot of attention, but may not actually drive sales or even any engagement at all. You’ll have to look at the audience of the influencer and ask yourself if they are the types of people who typically buy NFTs or at least have crypto.

On the other hand, it may actually be more profitable to contact an NFT Influencer with maybe a smaller following, but a larger percentage of their following are whales and people who buy and trade NFTs already, instead of a popular celebrity who may be able to spark peoples interest in NFTs but may not actually be fair in their channel stats and follower quality.

🧠 Here’s a hint for searching influencers on Twitter

Use your Twitter Ads cabinet to find suggested profiles by putting one handle into the Targeting features for Follower look-alikes:

List Your Project on Popular Marketplaces

You probably already know this, but getting your NFT collection on popular marketplaces is going to be an important part of your NFT marketing campaign to make it much more accessible to people who are ready to purchase your NFT. Marketplaces such as opensea.io, rarible.io, and solsea.io can help facilitate the buying and selling of your NFTs depending on which blockchain you want your NFT to be minted on.

Marketplaces like these allow you to track these transactions and they help show people that your NFT is the original genuine product which will make them more inclined to make a purchase because they know that the NFT is actually created by you and is not a ripoff of someone else’s project. They also know that when they purchase the NFT — they will be the real owner because they can see the history of the NFT from when it was created on the blockchain and every time a transaction was made.

Registering on NFT Calendars

Registering on NFT calendars can be a cost-effective angle of your NFT Marketing strategy. Sites such as nftcalendar.io will post your NFT drop for free. This is a great way to get your project in front of the eyes of whales who are trying to get in early on a project.

Other sites such as nextdrop.is, howrare.is, rarity.tools, nftsolana.io also have NFT calenders where you can list your project. Some of these NFT calendars are completely free, but some of them have a featured spotlight where you can pay to get your NFT to show in front of a lot of people.

Conclusion

Make sure to test every avenue of exposure that you can to get your project in front of people’s eyes. Once you find out something that is gaining traction for your project, you definitely want to scale your NFT marketing campaign using those methods.

Still, there’s no better marketing tool as creating a real value for a specific audience, even if your target community is extremely niche. Even a DildogsNFT collection can find it’s fan, who really loves dogs and…whatever it’s mixed with.

When you have both a great project and a great NFT marketing strategy, you could be setting yourself up to become the next NFT millionaire.

👋 Hey there, I’m Ana — the visionary behind the marketing engine at PARSIQ, an established Web3 data provider. Brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride through my articles, where I unveil battle-tested tactics, golden insights, and secret treasures mined from over 8 years of diving headfirst into the electrifying world of blockchain marketing.👋 Don’t hesitate to reach out and say hello at ana@nesterova.marketing — let’s spark some revolutionary ideas together!