The three principles of NFT marketing include concept, collaboration, and community. How hard have you worked on making a compelling concept? How much time have you spent reaching out to possible collaborators? Do you have – or if not, how will you build – a thriving community that is substantial enough to sustain the launch? Does your pricing and supply make demand and FOMO inevitable?
This use case shows how it works in real life; Matt Rain, Phd sold $30,000 worth of NFT Tshirts prior to launch, developed a partnership with a science-based podcast, got into the Seattle NFT Museum, and generated interest from investors in a start-up – all from a cold start.
Here’s how he did it, using these three main concepts:
1. Developing the Concept
Rain had spent a career as a molecular biologist enchanted by the beauty of 3d molecular structures. Rather than just throwing up a PNG of one of these, he did a serious amount of work to create a super-compelling concept.
The cause: For one thing, he purchased the domain Vaccinated.us, where he pitches the art as a way to thank all the scientists who contributed to the Covid vaccine. The molecule itself is the Covid spike protein used to create the vaccine. The campaign is also generating interest in, and possible start-up funds, for a company that aims to use blockchain technology to remove one major bottleneck in cancer research: Providing visualization of the research for 300+ Blood components at the molecular level, that can be supplied to scientists and eventually give to retail blood tests to show appropriate treatments based on this molecular information. Final
The art: If this does not inspired an investor, nothing will. However, Rain also developed his artistic concept beyond a screenshot. The molecules are “digitally painted” in spectacular colors, and not only do they slowly rotate but also on a touch screen the owner can zoom in and even go “inside” the molecule. Ultimately he partnered with a manufacturer of giant-size touch screens, so he will able to showcase the art super-sized.
Fortunately, he had the time and technical chops to learn how to do most of this, and/or train a team to help with the more difficult aspects of “painting” and animating the molecule. He used his considerable gifts to top advantage!
2. Finding collaborators
Rain also spent a good deal of time “pushing the flesh,” that is going to conferences and meet-ups. He did not find a lot of success with paid agencies, but rather, the contacts he made introduced him to others some of whom became important. One introduction, for example, was a leading science podcast followed by thousands of other scientists.
Rather than just asking for airtime from the podcasters, he offered to donate profits from T-shirt sales to the podcast in return for promoting his project and giving him the resulting emails. They were more than willing to help and wound up responsible for most of the T-shirt sales (a promo code is on the site). In the end, Rain wound up with 1500 emails, too.
He also reached out and invited the curator of the Seattle NFT Museum to lunch, and is now in their next exhibition. And, of course, he got involved with several members of Web3collab.org after attending and participating in several meetings. Some are now interested in investing directly in the start-up.
You can see how having a great concept makes attracting this kind of interest possible, but also consider the creativity in making a deal with collaborators that was appealing to them.
3. Building the community.
Building a community from a cold start is daunting. However, Rain worked at it diligently. The two main communities include a small group of super-interested members of Web3Collab.org, the 1000+ names and emails from the podcast, and the connection with the museum, which will ultimately bring more mainstream media attention. This is all in addition to the social media following.
Lessons learned
Not everything went perfectly, so here are the lessons learned, in summary:
* If you are interested in creating a successful launch without investing $10,000 to $20,000 in marketing that may not work, start by fleshing out the concept. How compelling is it? Is it even compelling enough to yourself to spend, say, 1000 hours on it? Will it be to others? Is there a related cause that a brand or community would be interested in? Having a super compelling cause with a built-in interest group goes a long way to get the project off the ground.
• Next, challenge yourself to meal the art (if it has an art component) compelling as well. Is it beautiful as well as conceptual? Does it need a musical component? Having art that is 3D, animated, well-colorized and so on could create additional interest for the right projects. Don’t let lack of technical skills hold you back; if it is the right idea, go bigger and better. Top talent is available on Upwork and other platforms.
• Spend the bulk of your time making in-person contacts when and where you can. That was the best use, Matt said, of his time and money. If you do utilize paid agencies or media, test a few with small investments, then use the metrics to expand.
• There are few shortcuts to building a community from a cold start, besides partnering with podcast/influencer/celebrity/brand in ways that attract attention and goodwill. Who doesn’t want to cure cancer?
• Finally, do a ruthless self-evaluation. You may never be a molecular geneticist who has always found the structure of molecules visually stunning. However, you have another potential. If you are a journalist and artist, maybe you’ll travel to areas in crisis drawing images on the iPad. Maybe you’ll partner with a brand or an association, but spend some time working it out with others, including Web3Collab members.
Finally, make sure you do have a website with a wait list and structured release dates, and look through this archive for a list of the newsletters, calendars, Twitter feeds and Discord groups most likely to support your project, and then narrow it down to a manageable amount.