Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are being touted as the next big thing in the gaming and collectibles space. You may have seen it in the headlines lately—Beeple’s artwork recently sold at an auction for an eye-watering $69m – in exchange for an NFT. And it’s it is not just art that is tokenised and sold. Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey has promoted an NFT of the first-ever tweet, with bids hitting $2.5m. The hype around NFTs is real and you could also join the party by converting your digital collectibles into an NFT and cashing in on the trend. But to achieve success with the NFT public auction, you need to have a solid NFT marketing strategy.
In this guide, we explain all you need to know about NFT marketing, including what NFTs are, how they work, how you can get involved and the best marketing strategy to use to sell your NFTs to the crypto community.
TokenMinds provides a custom IEO marketing strategy to boost your awareness within the cryptocurrency community.
What are NFTS?
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are blockchain-based collectible digital assets that are either bought and sold, and are unique to the owner. This means that once NFTS are bought, they become the property of the owner and not the game or any other third party. The use of blockchain technology means that once a token is created, it can’t be deleted or counterfeited. As non-fungible assets, NFTs cannot be interchanged for something else as is the case with fungible assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum. In short, NFTs are “special” digital assets that can be bought and sold like any other asset, but they have no tangible form of their own. For example, it could be a valuable piece of art of digital music that you purchase but instead of receiving the painting itself to hang on your wall, you get digital tokens (NFTs) that can act as certificates of ownership of the item.
How do NFTs work?
NFTs work by tokenizing digital assets on the Ethereum blockchain creating a digital token (which can take the form of JPGs, GIFS, videos, music files, etc) that can be bought or sold. But that’s not to say that other copies of the NFT art cannot be produced or distributed on the blockchain. Many NFT contracts will allow the artist to retain the copyright ownership of their work, so they can continue to produce and sell copies. The main difference is that those copies will not hold the same value as the original. Only by holding an NFT can you get to prove that you own the original work.
NFTs can also contain smart contracts that may give the artist, for example, a cut of any future sale of the token. That makes it useful for artists, musicians, and others who want to create limited edition digital goods.
Interest in NFTs has skyrocketed in the past few weeks largely fuelled by recent headlines of multi-million-dollar sales. An illustration of Homer Simpson as Pepe the Frog recently sold for $320,000. Musician Grimes sold some of her digital art for more than $6m while the NBA has sold basketball highlight videos in the form of cryptocollectibles for a total of $230 million. However, Beeple’s art sale at Christie’s auction for more than $69 million set a new record for NFTs.
We have also seen some media organizations like Quartz and The Associated Press experimenting with selling NFTs, and YouTubers and other online influencers have also begun creating their own lines of cryptomerchandise. NFTs promise to transform the way digital goods are created and distributed online by making it possible for artists and musicians and journalists to turn individual works into one-of-a-kind digital collectible items.
How to Issue NFT Tokens
Anyone can create artwork, turn it into an NFT on the blockchain (also known as ‘minting’), and put it up for sale on a marketplace. The best place to sell an NFT is on the open market. There are several marketplaces where you can hold the auction, including Foundation (which hosted the sale of the famous “Nyan Cat” graphic this year for nearly $600,000), OpenSea, Rarible, SuperRare, etc. Once registered with the marketplace, the next step involves linking your account to an Ethereum wallet that will be used to hold the NFT, as well as any cryptocurrency made from the sale. After setting up the wallet, you upload the file containing the digital asset (image or video) to a decentralized storage service called InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). You then have to mint a token mapped to that file in order to generate a unique cryptographic signature that would live on the Ethereum blockchain, essentially marking the file you uploaded as the real one. The last step is listing your new NFT for sale, setting the minimum acceptable price and the duration of the auction. In addition, you could add perks such as concert tickets or a special congratulatory message to sweeten the deal.
Marketing Strategy for NFTs
Now that you’ve learned how to issue NFT tokens, it is important also to know how to promote and market your NFT token sale. You need to get the word out there that you are selling NFTs so that public auction can attract the interests it needs to be successful. Here are some important tips to help you get your NFT marketing and promotion on track.
1. Build a Strong Community
As with most crypto projects, engaging the community is critical for NFT. It is the community that provides a strong foundation needed for the project’s success. Members of the community will support you, spread the word about the project, and even buy your NFTs. It is also crucial to start building community from early on to help generate buzz that attracts people’s attention. When it comes to building a strong community for NFTs, the ideal place to start is social media. Consider Twitter, Medium, Facebook, and Reddit for building your primary community. You also need to educate your followers about NFTs and convince them to take part in the public sale. Remember, NFTs are not only for people who are well versed in crypto, but also for a general audience.
Telegram remains the best platform for promoting crypto projects. Make sure your communication via Telegram portrays a project team that is competent, polite, knows the project well, works on the FAQ, and responds to questions and feedback in time. It would also help the project remarkably to create Discord chats and tap into the gaming community.
2. Community Engagement
For community engagement, the best strategy is to actively initiate and engage in community discussions on BitcoinTalk, Reddit, Telegram, Twitter, and other platforms. The aim is to create a buzz around your NFT on various platforms in order to promote the project but also for getting adequate feedback from the community.
3. Select the Right Marketplace
As mentioned previously, many marketplaces offer the opportunity to list and sell NFTs. However, it is necessary to choose a marketplace that fits the goals and features of the project. For instance, some marketplaces require a wallet specific to the platform while other platforms charge huge “gas” fees for every sale in addition to fees for selling and buying. All this means that the fees can often add up to a lot more than the price you get for selling the NFT. But different sites have different fees attached, and some are better than others so it’s worth doing your research. Additionally, you can also list your project at trackers like NFT Hunters.
4. Conduct AMA sessions
AMA (ask me anything) is a great way to grow active followers and get everyone to understand more about your NFT. Initially, you want to hold AMA sessions in large Telegram chats and YouTube channels to attract new users to the project. Thereafter, you can conduct internal AMAs inside your primary community in Telegram and Discord.
5. PR for NFT
Building trust is an NFT marketing practice that absolutely cannot be overlooked. Of course, you cannot buy trust or force the community to believe your project is trustworthy. One way to earn that trust is by getting the media to write about you. Try to get into different publications (both crypto media and general media) and in different formats — from full articles about your project to mentions among others, interviews, and quotes. Good PR will not only help you gain credibility within the crypto ecosystem, but it will also put you in a great position to attract new additional communities.
Conclusion
The concept of NFTs is still new to many companies and naturally, this digital asset will work best with projects that are willing to disrupt their status quo. To do so, companies need to have the right NFT marketing in place to capture this massive opportunity. If you would like to issue non-fungible tokens on the blockchain, consider engaging a reputable crypto marketing agency to help with the NFT promotion process. At TokenMinds, we advise NFT issuers on how to structure and list collectible digital tokens on the Ethereum blockchain and provides an NFT marketing strategy that brings success. Contact us to learn how we can help.
