by Nimrod May, CMO at Sirin Labs, investor and passionate marketer
The secret to launching a successful ICO is a serious challenge. It’s basically asking someone to build a multi-stage rocket, launch it successfully, escape earth’s gravity, navigate it to the moon, land it successfully, and then let the entire world know about every step of the journey.
Here is The Mission Control:
In order to accomplish this, the first thing you’ll need is the right team to carry out your idea and vision. To succeed, they must contain what I call the “Impossible Trio”, the existence of three unique characteristics that many see as mutually exclusive, and have them all exist in one body and soul:
- The Artist (Creativity) – how do your external messages create the image of your company that you want to communicate? Be sure you’re focusing on not just the words you’re using, but the imagery as well as the look and feel of the picture you want to create in someone’s mind.
- The Scientist – so that you can measure and adjust your communications strategies. As a wise man once said, if you can’t measure then you can’t manage.
- The Shrink – you need to really understand your audience on an intimate level. What are their hopes, their dreams, and their deepest held secret desires?
Next, you need to truly believe in what you do, and it’s certainly helpful if it’s something that has the ability to drastically disrupt the status quo. The SIRIN LABS FINNEY Blockchain phone, with the embedded cold storage crypto wallet, is that for me. I believe with absolute certainty that simple to use, secure, safe, and fee-less mobile blockchain technology is going to be the ‘next big thing’ and that there is a whole world yearning to join the revolution. However, until the user experience is significantly improved it can’t happen. That has been the goal here at SIRIN LABS from the beginning; create an outstanding UX while not compromising on user security.
Once you’ve assembled your team, it’s just a matter of creating a strategy that will get the entire world excited about your project. That’s where many of the challenges lie, in figuring out a way to, first and foremost, bring AWARENESS to your project so that everyone and their mother knows what you’re up to. Next, you need to POSITION yourselves as superior to all other options that are currently available and give your audience a call-to-action to actively ENGAGE in the process in some significant way.
And then lastly, if you’ve done your job right, you will foster not just a global community, but you will create ADVOCACY which is where the “holy grail” lies. And THAT is what we at SIRIN LABS are after. People who see the world just as we do. The same problems that we see, and recognize that the solution, in our case, the mass adoption of a blockchain smartphone, as the right way to solve it.
Additionally, you still need to figure out ways to both stand out in an incredibly crowded landscape (there are on the average 50 ICOs per month), where the entire world has collective A.D.D., zero bandwidth for anything new and an incredibly high threshold for excitement. And most importantly, with the enormous platform that social media gives every single individual, it is now the people who hold all the power.
The only way to grab and keep someone’s attention today is with a consistent message and exceptional user experience. If you are able to communicate regularly to the world, and treat them not as potential investors, customers or contributors, but as real individuals who care deeply and intimately about the area you’re involved in, you will see the rewards in the long term.
You need to treat every individual like he or she is the most important person in the world. Ensure that your story and messaging is always consistent. Be honest and transparent in every area and in every way – especially when things go wrong, which they always do. Be kind and generous with everyone you interact with. Make sure the story that you’re telling is engaging and interesting to people other than yourself. And most importantly, no matter how successful you might become, you must always maintain your humility. All this will lead you to the most important goal of all – creating a brand which is based on LOVE!
To summarize, the 10 commandments that I have for ICO marketing are:
DO BE…
- Humble
- Professional on all fronts (God is in the details)
- Transparent
- A Story-Teller
- Consistent
- Kind to everyone (ICOs require dedicated hands-on management of large communities, treat each community member like he is the most important woman or man in the world)
DON’T BE…
- Greedy or cheap, tight or stingy (ICOs are costly)
- False or misleading
- A corner-cutter
- Overselling. Organic is the best way
Nimrod May
CMO at Sirin Labs, a blockchain consumer electronic company
Nimrod’s extensive hi-tech experience includes serving as VP of marketing at Gett, being a CEO at RDSeed investment fund, an investor and CMO at Woo.io. In 2017 Nimrod joined Sirin Labs, which has concluded the 4th largest token crowdsale in history raising almost $160M. The company is now working on FINNEY – the blockchain smartphone with an embedded cold storage crypto-wallet which promise to give users safe, reliable and uncomplicated access to the blockchain.
