Once a concept is in play, it is important to determine who is the target customer for the NFT, or if there are, in fact several groups of targets. For example, targets could include: The community around a cause; investors interested in your category of NFT; the Discord group of the exchange where the project is listed; the brand or celebrity following; and so on.
To develop the persona, give your target a name, gender, age, income, profession and nationality. What are their passions and interests? What brought them to consider an NFT purchase of your project? What social media do they spend most time on? Which ones do they trust the most? Which ones do they ignore?
It is helpful to consider what little we know about the market that is buying NFTs today, a tiny sliver of the international population.
CivicScience and other studies say the largest market purchasing NFTs, at least in the US, are likely to be 20- ’30s, educated, high-income, white and male. However, that does not mean that is the market for your project. The largest section of the NFT marketplace world actually comes from Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Pakistan, and India, an area that Civic Science does not measure at scale.
Additionally, your project may have a different niche entirely based on the theme or cause; there are a lot of female-powered NFT projects out there as well. Interests are also important, if your art features automotibiles; that sector may have its own demographic profile.
Use your collaborators, meetups and social media interactions to test your theories about which target audience who is most enthusiastic and what are their motivators. Use that feedback to decide how to hone messages that will to inspire them and to select the channels where they are already engaged.
If there is a built-in community, it is easier to create these personas more specifically: LinksDAO launched an NFT for membership in a golfing group, has a very specific target that starts, obviously, with golfers.
11Miami, a nightclub, launched an NFT that promised VIP treatment at the club. Their market probably tends younger, single with no children but also has a geographical limitation.
Here are some ways to test your theories, as well as to start building a community:
Tapping into Discord and Twitter communities
Lewna Tsuki of FooCuties Charitable NFTs became active on XRP’s Twitter feed where she noticed that XRPers had an active passion for NFTs, and that a few of the XRP Twitter influencers had made a name for themselves by; calling out scams. She reached out to these by direct message, and ultimately they supported her project. Her first NFT posts received 1000 followers “overnight” and 5300 within a week or so, before the NFTs were ever minted.
This engagement also gave her some feedback on the market. While the FooCuties is pink, with the same Japanese anime style used for Hello Kitty, and links with a cause based on food insecurity often associated with young working mothers, the target audience was much different.
Most of theof her 5300 pre-sale Twitter followers were indeed younger, but also international and male. They came from all over the world including the UK, China, Indonesia, Korea, and more, matching an international profile more than the North American one. She is planning on introducing more colors into the brand to appeal to this more diverse group.
Tapping into a locality
For project that are city-based, the small slice of the local audience interested in NFTs will limit the project further.
Carl Christopher Egge photographed New York Cityscapes for years and has photoshopped some of these into ethereal dream visions. However, there may also be a national and international audience of NYC enthusiasts; they may also be found on Facebook groups that are passionate about New York, as well as Discord and/or Twitter. Other audiences may be people interested in photography, or those who have large digital screens interested in screen savers. There are lots of potential collaborations with companies or communities in and around NYC>
NYC is also the center of multiple NFT conferences, so there is also the potential of an international audience for NFT art based on NYC.
Cause-based niche combine with fine art
CryptoTrash, a project created by professor of digital media, Mike DiFeo, mints NFTs from photo portraits of single objects of trash, riffing on the Trash Art movement and the culture of littering habits. DiFeo has already sold 24 NFT’s to the most obvious community: Trash Artists and people interested in the genre (yes, its a thing).
Another area to explore might be environmental groups. The artist’s statement could also show how the NFT saves energy by using more efficient blockchains – on its way to becoming carbon neutral to open up a larger market of pro-environmental enthusiasts.
So these two audiences – Trash Art enthusiasts and environmentalists – are important to know when developing promotional materials.
Another example is Ravindran Papineni’s Fuzzy Lords NFT project. a collection created by turning the Shroud of Turin into a collection of unique digital art. While the art itself is abstract, the project could appeal to religious communities around the world; although what sectors of those communities which overlap with NFT purchasers remains to be discovered.
Social outreach would be to churches and religious communities locally, nationally, and internationally could help uncover more about this unique audience. Alternatively, there is an equally active community of Shroud of Turin detractors, he could theoretically reach out to as well. They’ve all spent a lot of time examining this shroud!
One last example from our member is CryptoVaxx, a 3D replication of the Covid-19 spike protein molecule, created by Matt Rain. Originally, Rain identified a number of target audiences: NFT supporters at conferences, scientists interested in vaccines, along with anyone interested in thanking scientists who developed the vaccination and contemporary art collectors and museums interested in higher quality NFT art. He has developed an email list of about 1,000 interested followers; the next step maybe to send them a survey to identify more about them, in return for an extra drop.
Start thinking about where your audience is participating in communities and test your theories early and often.
Adopted from Lewna Tsuki’s presentation on promotional strategies, with use cases from Web3Collab members