The rise of PR for blockchain.
15 how-tos in a communication plan for blockchain companies.
Fintech industry is the fastest growing because of technology innovations of products and services. Digital transformation has created new models of companies in order to answer what people are looking for to satisfy their needs and solve their problems.
In technological advanced countries like China, everything is mobile, digital, virtual. Not only, services, but even money. The whole world now uses credit and debit cards. People in advanced countries like UK and USA shop as well by using their bank cards and rarely have cash money. Even more, to go back to China-example, Chinese people use their mobile devices to make digital transactions for all kind of products and services. Such example is the QR codes that are used from major retailers, street markets, even beggars. Yes — beggars on the street! The “cashless economy” is rising in China. Statistics show that digital payments in China are over 50 times the volume of mobile payments in the USA.
More convenient or something else, digital has conquered the industry of money exchange.
Additionally, we have the rise of the blockchain technology. Blockchain — a digitized, decentralized, public ledger of all cryptocurrency transactions and it allows market participants to keep track of digital currency transactions without central recordkeeping (read more in Investopedia).
It has already been seen to have an impact in some industries like banking, health care, government services and others. One example is the partnership between IBM and Uniliver to create a blockchain solution to simplify the digital ad supply chain and provide more transparency and, consequently, build more trust.
Consumers “don’t care about sophisticated data usage or ad targeting via complex algorithms, but they do care about not seeing the same ad 100 times a day. They don’t care about ad fraud, but they do care about their data being misused and stolen,” — says Unilever’s chief marketing officer Keith Weed.
However, within marketing strategies “Blockchain technology can track which digital identifiers are associated with the viewing of an ad, but it cannot help with verifying humanness or the honesty of a buyer’s intentions.”
Another example is the collaboration between Maersk and IBM who are building a platform for new custom smart-contract service for executing complex shipping orders with fewer middlemen.
Meaning, blockchain technology “screams” transparency for all parties involved. Transparency is something consumer seek in every service and in every brand communication.
At the same time, the role of PR professionals is to communicate the brand messages to the public. According to the code of ethics that every PR pro believes in and uses in their work, professionals are obliged to be honest with the public. To tell the brand messages in the most appropriate, transparent, honest, and understandable way is a rule. Do not mislead the public. Show that the company or the brand is transparent in order to build trust in its consumers.
To build trust in consumers is what blockchain technology is trying to do by implementing its technologies in major industries. The innovation will soon reach other main stream services like retail and grocery shopping. Someday, people will be using services that use blockchain technology. Then, they may pay with cryptocurrency, but this innovation is the next big revolution. Like the Internet was 20 years ago.
How PR and marketing professionals can be part of communicating the rise of the new trend and be part of building the image of blockchain companies?
Simply by doing what they do best!
Telling stories to audiences to provide them with valuable information that they may apply in their life (meaning start using the service or the product of your client).
1.You need to know what your strategy is — what approach you will be using. In the strategy you must have your goals aligned with your blockchain company’s goals. Does your client need more brand awareness, more shared voice, investors or positioning as a leader and expert in the blockchain industry? Knowing what your client wants to achieve, helps you build your communication strategy plan and draft the communication messages for the targeted audiences.
Yes, blockchain is related to ICOs because most companies starting as a blockchain company released an ICO in order to receive funding. After, they develop their business. However, as communication professionals who educate the public, we do need to distinguish blockchain technology from ICO. In the communication strategy is better to focus on the technology blockchain and leave the ICO, if there is one, out the main communication, at least in the beginning. Use the ICO communication only to specific groups like traders or investors that want to know more about the company’s ICO and its value. Focusing on the technology, you can plan one good communication campaign to educate the public, tell the company’s story and what the company is improving and how. Only 48% of ICOs that launched in 2017 were actually successful.
2.This means that PR positioning, image and reputation building for blockchain companies is more needed than ever. You need to work on promoting it, on its awareness and on the education of the market in order to be successful.
Majority of the people don’t believe ICO companies. This makes your job harder, because you need to put effort into educating them a lot, showing advantages, how the company is solving their problems, why it is different from the other cryptocurrency companies.
3.Part of your strategy needs to have a creative, interesting and innovative approach. How you will be presenting the blockchain company. You need to have a compelling story behind your brand/company in order to grab attention, make it interesting, and raise awareness.
Simon Cocking, Chief Editor at Irish Tech News and Cryptocoin. News, business advisor, and #1 ranked ICO advisor on ICObench for last 3 months, says: “Be able to simply communicate why it is awesome, and why it is worth getting involved with.”
4.You need to prepare detailed communication plan. Every PR practitioner knows that the communication plan is prepared prior to the start of the communication itself. The plan outlines all information that the public will need in order to connect with your client. The plan has defined the targeted audiences and mentions what channels will be used as well as other communication tactics. Having everything in one place, makes work so much easier to follow, adjust, upgrade, etc.
5.Within the communication plan you prepare the brand messages. What the company wants to tell to its target audience. You outline the content strategy and all its content elements — blog posts, white papers, company info — mission and vision and what the company is trying to achieve. This means that your product (blockchain product) needs to exist.
“Journalists don’t want to write about a group of people speculating and making promises about something that doesn’t exist yet. Ideas are cheap and they can lead to great things but they don’t constitute a news story.” — says Lama Kanj, a blockchain enthusiast and the managing editor of block-block-block.com.
When you present the company’s and project info, think of having a personal brand attached to your content plan. The founders of the blockchain and ICO company are very valuable source of information. Investors always investigate the founders before they invest moment. Journalists are interested to know the human story of the company in order to put a face on the company. Successful personal brand positioning, for example, is Alibaba with Jack Ma.
6.After, it comes identifying your most important assets. Your targeted audiences. Your stakeholders that will be involved in the communication process. That would be journalists, influencers, bloggers, investors, partners, customers.
It’s important to know that your investors in the cryptocurrency business are split into two different audiences. Once you know that you will be able to custom the content for them in the best way possible. For example, there are the token investors who are looking for their next investment project, on one side. On the other side, there are the people who are interested in the functionality the project is funded — if there is a fundraising campaign.
“This means that PR campaigns need to target both audiences by appealing to seasoned investors and by encouraging new participation that rallies support for the project.” — also says Lama Kanj.
7.One big important asset in any PR campaign are the influencers because they are the people with any influence in the social media, general media, society, can help brand awareness and word-of-mouth.
These people present the product/service through their experience and give their input and feedback. This is what all PR professionals are looking to achieve in a communication campaign — to build trustworthy testimonials for their clients. For blockchain companies, the rule is to build first your influencer community, before you start on monetizing your business.
8.In any PR campaign exists the media relations part. The time when you want to grab target journalists’ attention. So, it is very important to prepare well your media pitch. Make sure you share the facts and any valuable information to the journalist. The world is full of problems and blockchain and cryptocurrency projects have the potential to solve them in new and innovative ways. The challenge is expressing your projects potential and impact in a way that’s compelling and appealing to journalists.
PR is not just building relationships with journalists to peruse publications in tier media outlets. You need to create content. Make sure you build your earned media. Focus on creating a content on stories of the founders, their vision, what the blockchain product will be changing and how, trends that are impacting the industry, etc. There is a lot to learn from the PESO model and a lot can be implemented in one communication campaign.
9.Building valuable content is also a major part of the PR campaign. This helps you stand out as an expert in the industry, as a thought leader among other professionals and will help you build trust with target audience — journalists, influencers, investors.
“Sometimes I feel like all I do right now is write articles, blog posts, replies to emails and social media, even though I have four other team members doing that too, but it really is paying off. We have had several investors approach us because of articles, press releases, and other press we have received.” — says Crystal Stranger, co-founder of blockchain account start-up Peacounts.
10.In the content plan, you need to prepare materials for your own channels, also called owned content. Like your web site, blog, and press room.
Your web site must be a top-notch. It is pretty much the first thing you need to have finalized before starting to communicate your blockchain project and ICO. On your web site journalists, investors, people can read your messages. The more value you give them, the more they will be willing to invest in you. Also, content from your white paper should not be duplicated on your web site. Here it is an ICO marketing checklist for your website.
11.When speaking about web site and blog developing, SEO strategy is an insignificant part of the whole plan. There are a lot of regulations restricting marketing approaches for blockchain and ICO projects, that’s why the SEO plan forms the very base of well-thought plan. SEO works in a long term, because of key words and phrases your content stays as a valuable material for a long period of time in the web.
12.Guest posting, on the other hand, support your thought leadership strategy. You can write for third parties. This will help you build an authority and:
• Demonstrate expert knowledge on important issues related to your project.
• Provide validation to your team by getting featured as a writer on publications.
• Educate your audience around the problems that you are solving.
• Establish authority and expertise in your field.
• Get your content and project in front of established and engaged audiences.
13.Think well of your social media strategy. It is essential to handle community management within the social media channels. Building trust within your target community is your priority. The community manager should handle monitoring and answering on time, as well as posting within all channels that you are present. This person has to be able to interact with the crypto/blockchain community in order to build trust and word-of-mouth of your blockchain product.
The crypto community is incredibly knowledgeable and can make or break an ICO.
Then, choosing the right social media channels. For the blockchain industry the main social channels differ from other brand’s social media channels and the way they are used. You should consider the following:
Facebook groups: There are plenty of groups with an interest in ICO, cryptocurrencies and blockchain. Advertising of your blockchain and ICO project is not allowed in Facebook.
Twitter: Very popular channel for the crypto community and influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers. Advertising is also forbidden.
Telegram: The fastest growing social media platform and embraced very well by the crypto community.
Reddit: The Reddit community is a well-informed. There you can create subreddits and comment on existing threads that can generate a high level of exposure.
LinkedIn Groups: LinkedIn groups reach to thousands of targeted and knowledgeable audiences.
Specialized Forums: Specialized forums like Bitcointalk.org are widely read by the crypto community.
Now, because of all regulations and restrictions (based on the market), it is very important to focus on your communication strategy and plan, because with the content you generate you can talk how your blockchain product is a solution and how it will solve people’s challenges.
Before you start with your communication tactics, though, do a research in order to know which markets do not recognize cryptocurrencies or have prohibited cryptocurrency trading or have forbidden news in media.
There are also restrictions for email marketing for ICO companies. For example, MailChimp, one of the largest email service providers, has banned ICO mailing. Choosing other providers for your email marketing campaign should be handled carefully. You need to have consumers’ consent to receive email about your blockchain and ICO product. Think of approaches that are GDPR compliant. Otherwise, this can not only damage your reputation but also incur heavy financial penalties as well as limiting your future emailing capabilities.
14.Your strategy should have bounty programs. Bounties are incentives and rewards for targeted audience. They have been proven to be an effective way to garner investor interest pre-ICO and to keep stakeholders engaged after the offering.
15.Attending events for the blockchain and crypto industry can give you additional benefits of promoting your product, because you are able to meet people in person. Such events are visited by investors, influencers, specialized media, etc. There you can show the face of your company, team, share your vision and promote your product. This is step closer to building trust within the targeted groups.
Make sure you have a strong team that understands blockchain and crypto world and are good at writing and people’s relations.
Of course, you also need to have allocated budget to promote your content, to participate in events, to sign partnerships, etc. Sponsored content on specialized channels like cointelegraph and coindesk isn’t cheap, but it will target the most segmented audience that will be interested in your product.
And of course, every PR campaign needs to be part of a holistic marketing campaign.
In conclusion, planning a PR and marketing campaign for your blockchain and/or ICO project doesn’t differ much from making a communication plan for any other companies. The specification here is that you need to research well your target market, know all regulations and restrictions, identify and build your buyer persona and important stakeholders, create your content and messages, choose your channels well and have a strong and knowledgeable team to handle the communication. Most importantly, focus on the identity of your blockchain product, have it ready to show it to the world and lead the communication with one main messages — what your product is doing to help people’s needs.
