NFTs are still a Massive Opportunity
Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs, have rocketed into the hearts and minds of thousands of crypto investors.
It may be hard to believe that life-changing profits have been made overnight. As an example, those who bought into the BAYC NFT collection at under $250, now own a six-figure digital asset.
Every week, tons of new NFT projects are being launched - and a few are finding some measure of success.
There’s a secret behind these projects though… even the best projects won’t make it without this one thing in place.
To be successful, your project needs to be discovered by your ideal audience.
Finding your Audience
So what is the secret to finding your target audience? An effective NFT marketing strategy is what makes it possible.
NFT Marketing takes skill, time, a little innovation, and some capital.
If you’re ready to launch your NFT project you may be asking the question: What is the best marketing budget for an NFT project?
We’ll take a look at some available marketing strategies and the budgets needed to reach your ideal NFT community - but first, let’s double-check if your foundations are in place.
Foundations of an NFT Launch
First: Deliver Value
We’re going to assume your NFT project has good fundamentals in place and has some value to add to your ideal community. For some tips, listen to this Podcast about creating the best NFT projects.
Second: Build Community
In Web3 and the NFT space - interest and community drive success. I’m sure you’ll have seen that a project with a lot of hype and popularity can become an overnight success.
The key here is building a community quickly - by addressing some of their needs or interests.
If your project can build both hype and community - you’ll be off to a roaring start - and have a foundation for a long future.
NFT Marketing Strategies & Costs
NFT marketing teams have many options to choose from when it comes to promoting a new project. Some of these are expensive, and some cost only time and effort.
In this section, we’ll explore some of the marketing tools you can use. These will apply if you’re in pre-mint or if you’ve already launched your own NFT projects.
Cut the learning curve
Well, we have to put this out there right? If you are looking for a huge learning curve and a few missed opportunities - you can launch your NFT on your own.
But if time-saving and results are what you’re after - it will be worth your while partnering with a specialist NFT marketing agency.
Why work with an NFT agency? Well, to launch your NFT project - you will need to focus on pushing your brand and project onto the right platforms, using the perfect medium.
You’ll need to understand who your project caters to and where those ideal users are.
You must learn how to find and navigate the different spaces and platforms - and know which actions will lead to the best results.
If you want to use influencers or guest posts - you’ll need to build relationships with their managers and agencies.
All of this may just distract you from running your project. It's the number one reason to let an excellent NFT agency do the hard work around creating and implementing an NFT marketing strategy while you focus on building!
Here's a quick explainer video from our own team:
Now on to those strategies:
- Chats & Community Connections - Discord & Telegram
In keeping with the crypto communities’ need for privacy, Telegram and Discord have emerged as the most used messaging services and consequently advertising platforms for crypto users.
These platforms are filled with dedicated crypto investors looking for the next best project.
The Task
- Discover existing Channels or Groups, or Servers on Discord and join them to start connecting and sharing your project (where appropriate).
- Launch your own Channel and Server for your project to start building a community.
The Budget
- Without an existing community, it may take some time. This is where Community Management comes in.
- A powered-up Discord server costs $9.99 and marketing for Discord will be anything from $100-$1000 a month. Some of this will be PPC fees to drive users to your channel.
- Hosting a chat on Telegram is free, but needs consistent maintenance.
- Management fees can cost you anything from $1000 to $5,000 - depending on how big a team you need and what other services you’re needing - and the level of management you require.
- Celebrities & Influencer Posts
A prime source of growth in the crypto community, celebrity endorsements and influencer shares are a key part of launching an NFT project successfully.
Dedicated Crypto influencers or simply celebrities can all move the needle with their fan bases.
The Task
- It’s great if you have a personal relationship with a high-profile individual - but apart from that, you can generally reach out through their agents or social profiles.
- First, you need to find somebody who influences your ideal community. Getting their interest, and then negotiating their level of engagement can be complicated, but it is an important part of seeking endorsement.
The Budget
- A smaller influencer with a few thousand followers may charge $350-$750 per YouTube video, but if you want to get into the big leagues (500k-1mil followers) you can expect to spend anything from $50,000 to $100,000 (plus) to engage the big accounts.
- For a medium-sized influencer marketing campaign, we would estimate a spend of about $50,000 spread over a couple of months and several smaller micro-influencers. These figures are of course subject to your preferences and time scale.
- Twitter is of course the haven for influencer sponsorships - so let’s take a look at Crypto Twitter before discussing those fees:
- Crypto Twitter
Twitter is home to a massive user base of Crypto investors ready to invest. Pairing seamlessly with Crypto influencers, Twitter is filled with NFT projects attempting to gain a user base and is the perfect place to cement your brand image in the community.
The Task
- Build out your Twitter profile and start connecting and attracting followers. There are some key steps to building out Twitter, and organic growth takes time.
- Get your Blue Tick (It costs $8) after your account is 90 days old. Once you have a profile and some followers - Twitter’s paid campaigns are a powerful way to reach ideal users.
- Get your Twitter Ads account up and running and launch your first campaigns
- Make sure you’re engaging on Twitter with relevant users and communities
The Budget
- Once your account is old enough - “it’ll cost $8 a month”.
- We recommend appointing an agency to take the role of your community manager and moderator.
- On Twitter, smaller influencers will tweet your project out for anywhere from $50. Larger influencers will consider $500-$2500, but on average we estimate somewhere between $250 and $500 per tweet.
- For Paid campaigns, we'll include Twitter below, with the other PPC estimates:
- Pay Per Click Campaigns
GoogleAds, Facebook, and Twitter are the go-to platforms for Pay Per Click campaigns. Pay-per-click marketing is the digital marketing campaign manager’s sweet spot when used properly.
Audience building is all about the data, and an effective campaign delivers tons of valuable information which can inform your whole marketing strategy - as well as confirm where your users are actually coming from.
With these platforms, the focus must be continuous optimization and goal-based ad delivery.
The Task
- Set up your GoogleAds, Twitter Ads and Facebook Ads Manager profiles, Google Analytics, campaign landing pages, pixels, and goals.
- Launch your initial campaigns
- Launch Remarketing Campaigns
- Review data and continually optimize
The Budget
- Remember that your campaigns are creating the data to help you scale, the more you spend - the quicker you can learn and maximize results.
- We recommend a $500-750 monthly budget per campaign and would normally prefer to run campaigns on the three major platforms at the same time.
- Add three remarketing campaigns and you have a CPC Budget requirement of $3000 to $4500 a month for ad spending.
- You may need to build in some account management fees as well when partnering with an NFT marketing agency.
5. Your Content marketing strategy
Your content marketing in Web3 is one of the most important parts of getting your project out into the world and attracting users to your community.
The Task
- Plan, write and distribute great content.
- This content must be focused on your clients' needs.
- Check out this Panel with Tim from Lunar Strategy discussing Content in Web3:
The Budget
- If you're a content creator - you can probably build one excellent piece of content a day, which will be shared to multiple platforms.
- Your NFT marketing agency will have a team of content creators who can expedite a bank of valuable content to contribute to your audience.
- These content creation fees vary dramatically from agency to agency and will depend on the type, length, and medium of content required.
So What Is The Best Marketing Budget for an NFT Project Launch?
The numbers above are really limited to a very generalized idea. What you're prepared to spend will need to be informed by your NFT marketing strategy, your existing social media community, the rate and size to which you want to scale, and many other personalized factors.
The most common answer to "How much should I budget?" - "How long is a piece of string?".
We've tried to give you a reasonable answer - but of course, these guidelines are highly influenced by your objectives and available resources.
How The Big Players Roll
Established NFT creators can easily spend upwards of $150,000+ monthly on their NFT marketing to constantly reach out to new investors. We've handled million-dollar campaigns, and entry-level ones with budgets much lower than our estimates above.
What You Should Focus On
The key is to find where the NFT buyers are, build a community around your NFT collection and deliver buyers to your NFT marketplace. You need to understand your NFT market and focus on building NFT marketing campaigns that reach your ideal audience.
Mixing up Your NFT Marketing Strategy
When planning your campaign also take time to consider how else you can market your launch or boost your audience.
Some top NFT marketing strategies in the industry include NFT Drops, limited edition NFT collectibles, advertising directly through NFT marketplaces, using social media platforms to build hype, and approaching your NFT marketplace to showcase unique digital assets.
Digital marketing campaigns directed at your target audience on their social media platform of choice are always effective, and even in crypto marketing, our audiences are often still on traditional social networks.
If you are launching a digital artwork NFT, you may do well to consider SuperRare - the #1 space for digital art non-fungible tokens.
Your Total Expenses
Your start-up NFT marketing strategy should plan for a spend of between $15,000 and $30,000 to really get good exposure for your project.
Most specialist NFT marketing agencies will charge between $10-25,000 for an extensive campaign, so it’s important to allocate funds appropriately.
When you're raising funds for your NFT Project, don't forget to look to have at least three months of marketing expenses covered before embarking on your campaign, as positive cash flow may not be expected right away.
Let Us Help You
If you feel more confused than when you started, don’t worry. Here at Lunar Strategy, we excel at pushing Crypto and NFT projects forward with our strategic marketing efforts. We'll use the NFT marketing funnel that fits your unique project.
Our expert team has a deep understanding of the Crypto landscape and will build out your perfect NFT marketing strategy within your scope and in record time.
We're not just a digital marketing firm - we have experience and expertise in all of the above strategies and are Web3 specialists. We have experience on all the top NFT marketplaces and community platforms and our services are even sold using blockchain technology.
Grab your digital wallet and head over to our digital office to try out our NFT marketplace.
If you are interested in learning more before you take the next step - grab a copy of our very own E-Book which will guide you every step of the way.
Already convinced? Book a discovery call with us and we’ll get you moving in the right direction, it’s free!
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