Source: news.google.com
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a three-part series on what brands need to do before going Web3.
The brief history of brand marketing on Web3 is not auspicious. While some projects have produced immense success, most have been complete failures. Take the case of Warner Bros. and Nifty’s, who partnered to launch the Matrix avatar NFT in December 2021. The launch was, to put it mildly, flawed: site glitches, failed purchases, and confusing rules. Community members, some of whom waited in faulty lines for more than a day only to end up empty-handed, were understandably furious. While Nifty’s responded with great communication and a free “Matrix glitch” NFT, their rocky start should encourage other brands to think deeply about their own Web3 plans.
In this context, how should brands proceed in 2023? We’ve worked with some of the leading minds in the brand marketing ecosystem to identify the most important factors brands need to consider before jumping into Web3. Topping the list was customer experience.
Without a doubt, Web3 has been a pretty bad experience to date. If marketers plan to build in this space, they need to keep the customer experience front and center. That means the entire customer journey, not just one moment in it. Based on our work, we identified four imperatives for creating an exemplary customer experience on Web3.
Make easy
As an initial step, brand marketers need to focus on ensuring an easy experience to earn consumer trust in several key ways:
- Allow payment with fiat and crypto.
- Allow purchase with and without crypto wallet.
- Ask for email addresses; most people will give them to you. If you’re not collecting emails, clearly state where you’ll be posting updates and where they can go to ask questions.
- Post-purchase email follow-up, explaining the benefits and how to activate them.
- Make sure there is a way for customers to get support and that those agents are trained to answer cryptocurrency-related questions.
Consider custodial portfolios. Most consumers don’t have their own wallet, so you need to give them one. If you choose a custodial wallet, be sure to support it if problems arise. Also consider what payment methods you will accept.
If you’re looking to sell in your current marketplace, chances are consumers are using fiat currency rather than crypto. You will need to make sure you have a solution that allows this. You will need to have clear channels of communication for the service. Train your service team on the new product and how to repair the products before selling them.
Finally, make sure you keep your promises. Many projects have big roadmaps with big milestones. The size of your roadmap doesn’t matter, what matters is whether you stick to it.
Think beyond commercial projects
The new technical landscape has caused quite a stir, especially since the radical sums of money and the opportunities they have generated often confuse brands, consumers and the marketplace. Protocols are valued in the trillions, while individual NFTs sell for amounts in the millions. Despite the huge amount of windfall these projects have generated, not all projects have to be commercial. While most brands view NFTs as a source of quick wins, they can be given to fans as part of a buying experience.
Free NFTs can also have a significant effect for brands as a data game, rather than treating NFTs solely as a business opportunity. Each NFT must be held in a wallet, which means the brand will have access to the wallet IDs. Wallet IDs, in turn, will allow brands to view associated metadata such as other purchases, social graphs, and more. As we move into a post-cookie world, the data consumers carry in their wallets will become a trusted and verifiable source of first-party data that can be used to power brand experiences.
Do not rule out product-market fit
The digital goods market is small but diverse, and follows many of the same dynamics as any other market. For a product to thrive, there must be a strong fit between the product and the market.
To ensure the perfect fit, start with the end customer and work backward through a strategy. Your product and go-to-market methods will vary greatly whether your target customer is a well-versed Web3 participant or a general non-techie customer. Both are served by Web3, but in very different ways.
Web3 natives, for example, value the technology. These participants want to buy NFTs, join Discord communities, and play an active role in the development of Web3. They want the financial gain and the ownership possibilities, but they also want to work with a brand to create the future. A general customer may simply want to purchase a virtual good that they can use in a metaverse, own a piece of art, or display a digital collectible.
There’s a lot of talk about Web3 primitives, or the basics of the movement, but consumers generally don’t care. Brands must use Web3 technology to create a product, service, or experience that consumers want, need, or want. It’s not enough to just draw on a piece of paper, call it “NFT” and sell it.
Ellen Degeneres launched an NFT collection that sold 68 units in total, in a market where most projects sold thousands in seconds. The difference was that her NFT collection had no obvious value to potential buyers. By comparison, the other projects had clear roadmaps, vibrant communities, and were more than just a jpeg.
Many brands are approaching the idea of product-to-market fit from a different angle and taking their customers along on the journey with them. This provides a huge advantage over previous web approaches because by working with their customers early on, brands can leverage customers to help create and market the product, give co-ownership to those customers as payment, and ensure there is a product. suitable for them. The market. Brands from Adidas to Gucci are using Discord communities to hear and get product guidance from their super fans, while Web3-native brands like BFF and CPGClub are working with their communities to create new consumer products. This new approach makes traditional focus groups, often used to obtain similar data, as obsolete as a pay phone.
You don’t necessarily have to build a community
Community, collaboration and co-ownership are key elements of the Web3 ethos. This ethos often shows up in Discord communities where a mix of builders, super fans, and regulars converge. Communities are powerful and working with them to collaborate and co-build your project can be critical to your success. However, there are some caveats to consider.
Building and maintaining a Web3 community is difficult, expensive, and time consuming. Communities are always on and require a significant investment in moderation and setup. However, not all projects require a community. Projects like Tiffany’s NFTiff, for example, simply extend the value of other communities through collaboration, rather than creating a whole new community. This superior utility allows a brand to take advantage of an existing community for mutual benefit; For many brands, collaboration is an ideal strategy, as it eliminates the cost of owning and running a community.
In the case of NFTiff, Tiffany’s did not create a new NFT project; instead, it added value to an existing CryptoPunks NFT project. The NFTiff was only offered to CryptoPunk NFT holders, allowing Tiffany’s to create a custom piece of jewelry based on the holders’ “punk” or avatar. His 250-item collection sold out, bringing the brand more than $12 million, without investing time, energy, and resources in building and maintaining an entirely new community.
Just as airlines extend the value of military service by giving service members early access to onboard flights, brands can similarly extend the value of communities. You can grant special access, privileges, and discounts to projects as a way to engage those communities and add value. One way to look at it is this: a project is just another touchpoint in a broader consumer ecosystem that could drive brand equity.
Brands can also simply buy communities to become part of an existing project or join a community instead of building one. If you decide your project needs a community, be sure to budget for staff and technology and have a plan in place for how you want to use them.
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