How to Market Your NFT

What is an NFT ?

Before 2020 I don't think many of us had heard the word fungible, let alone non-fungible. But now everyone is talking about non fungible tokens or NFTs

The word fungible essentially means interchangeable. If something is fungible it is interchangeable  because it has the same properties something else, they are identical. Currency is a great example of something fungible - if I give you a five pound note its worth exactly the same as another five pound note, other examples of fungible goods include oil, gold and precious metals; all of which can be traded because they are interchangeable. The digital currency Bitcoin is fungible - if you have one bitcoin you can trade it for another of the same value.

Conversely non fungible simply means it is not interchangeable and can't be replaced. Non fungible tokens are unique virtual 'stamps' that can be attached virtually to any asset (an image, file, video, virtual real estate) - these tokens essentially prove that someone owns the asset because the token is not interchangeable or replaceable. if you own an NFT it proves you own the asset. The token itself is stored on the blockchain which means nobody can change the ownership, copy, duplicate it. This is important because it is this inability to 'copy' the token which creates the real originality,  scarcity and consequently value.

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Why are NFTs important ?

NFTs enable 'ownership' of things that were previously impossible to own. If you took a great digital photo or created some digital artwork, and then shared it on the web anyone could copy it and there was no real way to determine that you were the originator or owner of the content - but now, with NFTs you do, and that is enormously important.

NFT's are important because  digital 'ownership' (made possible) is going to fundamentally change the way the digital economy works.  If the first two decades of the web were about large tech companies monetising other peoples content, the next 2 decades are going to see a shift to the creator economy, where creators of original content will monetise their work through NFTs. Examples of NFTs

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3 great examples of NFTs

1. Beeples Everydays: The First 5000 Days was an NFT for a digital collage JPEG created by Mike Winkelmann. It was minted on the 21 Feb 2021 and sold for $70m. You can see its current listing on Christies auction site here
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2.William Shatner sold off  NFTs of collectibles from his 60 year career. In 9 minutes he sold a staggering 125,000 NFTs for images of early photos as well as an Xray of his teeth !
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3. Argentinian designer Andrés Reisinger sells NFTs for virtual furniture that people can use in open worlds like Minecraft. His most expensive piece sold for almost £70,000.

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How do I create, buy and sell an NFT ?

So thats the theory, but in practice what you need to do to create and sell your NFT ?

1. Create your asset

The first thing you will need to do is figure out what  digital asset you are going to create that will have an NFT associated with it. Think about creating things that you think people will want to own the original of. In general people want to own things that are popular so they have bragging rights in owning the original. Then you'll need to think about what format you will be building it in (gif, picture,meme) and finally how many versions you will create (i.e is it going to be one off or limited edition collectible).

2. Creating your NFT

One you have created your asset you will need to create your NFT which will be associated with the item. It is essentially the link between the NFT and the item that creates the scarcity and value. To do this you will need to chose a blockchain technology. Most creators today in 2022 are using Ethereum. To create your NFT on the blockchain you will need some crypto currency to pay for it which means you will also need an NFT wallet such as Coinbase . Once you have your wallet with some currency in it you can use your blockchain platform to Mint or create your NFT and associate it.

3. Choose An NFT Marketplace

Ok so now you've got your asset and NFT you can think about where you want to sell your NFT. For this you will need an NFT marketplace. Top NFT marketplaces inlcude Opensea Rarible Mintable CryptoPunks. When choosing an NFT marektplace its important to think about 2 things scale and suitabiliity. You want the market to have scale to reach as manay people as possible but you also want it to be the right type of people; so if there is a dedicated NFT marketplace for yourtype of asset that may be worth considering e.g for basketball collectibles there is NBA Top Shot Marketplace.

4. Mint your NFT

Now you are almost there - you are ready to upload your NFT to a marketplace. This is what people refer to as 'minting', a bit like minting money... hopefully. Your NFT marketplace will enable you to turn your digital file /asset into an NFT for sale that you can then market. Most NFT marketplaces operate a little like ebay  - with different options for selling. You can sell at a fixed price, sell in a timed or untimed auction

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Now all that's done you are ready to market your NFT !

How to Market Your NFT

Understanding the audience for your NFT is critical to the success of your marketing programme. Generally interest and demand surfaces from one 3 audience types.

• Community  Fandoms - This is the easiest route to market an NFT because an existing fan base represents a  defined group of people are already predisposed to the brand or content. Fans also like to own original pieces related to the stuff they like: memorabilia, signed work, limited editions - all of these  They represent a ready made ringfenced set of potential NFT buyers
• Culture Vultures- demand to own a piece of digital content is often created on the back of cultural moments and trending demand cycles. An NFT that taps into (or even better creates) a cultural or content 'moment' will be extremely well placed. Trending demand goes up (along with the NFT price), but also down, so timing NFTs to drop at the early stage of a cultural spike is critical
• Cash Collectors- much of the original demand for NFTs was driven by speculative investors. This audience is extremely difficult to predict and very sensitive to market fluctuations. They will also exit the market fast during a downturn which makes
  

Understanding which of the 3Cs most applies to your NFT is important because it will drive the marketing strategy. Are you going after a community - then you'll need to market to that community, if it's a cultural moment you will need to market your NFT into the slipstream of the trending moment, and if you are focusing on investors looking to make fast cash then you'll need to market your NFT to that audience specifically. Sometimes these overlap but more often than not  your NFT will over index on one typology and you can orientate your strategy around it

Once you've figured out your NFT audience you can then plan how to reach them to tell them about your NFT drop.

Our top 6 tips on how to market your NFT

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1. Site

It's likely you will need a site. The destination provides an end point for people who want to see the story behind the content collection, and go deeper. It will also be the place you can get people to sign up for pre registration. Make sure it's optimised for mobile and connects to all other channels where users might be able to find more content e.g Discord, Twitter.

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2. NFT Search Engine Optimisation

There are two types of search engines that you should optimise for - the marketplaces and the traditional search engines

Marketplace optimisation is about making sure the data you submit into the NFT marketplace matches the keywords and searches you want to appear for. When you submit your NFT to the marketplace you want to follow our 7 marketplace optimisation guidelines :

• the title of your NFT collection or artwork
• details about the creator
• description
• the key visual of your drop
• date and time of your drop
• a marketplace where your NFT drops
• the link to your release

Google search optimisation ensures that your  NFT website is discoverable in Google's search engine. To do this you should follow these top 5 steps for site search optimisation:

• structuring your website clearly so Google can index it easily  - make sure your website has a sitemap
• publish content related to your NFT regularly
• develop content to focus on high volume keywords that ideally have low competition. You can use SEO keyword planning tools to identify keyword gaps
• make sure your site is optimised with clear titles and descriptions that match the content
• ensure the site is optimised in terms of page speed and mobile delivery

3. Discord

Discord has become the the default platform for building communities around your NFT. The way Discord is organised lends itself well to NFT marketing. Discord combines channels, messaging content and community into one platform. You can build channels/servers for conversations about your NFT’s with like minded people.

The reason to do this is that you  can then mobilise this community when it comes to pre registration and launch. As a general rule of thumb you should aim to have minimum 3 Discord members for every NFT sale you want to generate. 10k NFTs for sale  then you should try to build a discord community of 30k. Work on the principle (not rule) that one third of people actively engaged in your NFT community on Discord will want to purchase .

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4. Reddit

Reddit is a platform that has naturally occurring communities of interest around specific topics and questions. You will often find groups that are either loosely or tightly related to your specific NFT and NFTs more broadly. People in these discussion groups may well be pre disposed to your NFT.  

The temptation with Reddit is to immediately go in with a hard sales message but that can backfire if it is seen as too salesy. It is far better to join a few communities, see what the key subtopics of conversations are and see if you can weave your NFT into the conversation in a relevant way that adds value to the discussion.

5. Email

Email marketing - people will sign up to Discord servers to be part of a community around an NFT. And of course you will be sharing content with this audience and engaging with them. But you should also push people to your site to get them to sign up to exclusive communication via email in the run up to launch.

Email pre registration is important because the people that sign up to email pre reg will likely be the most engaged people and likely to buy. Keep them warm and ready to  go with drip of tailored comms e.g newsletters, press releases. When you are ready to launch make sure the people that have gone the  trouble of giving you their email are given something in return e.g a 24 hour early access incentive.

6. Paid media

Growing the organic community and interest usually has limitations and controlling the scale at which interest grows is hard. So often you may need to supplement organic strategies with paid media. The channels you use should be determined by their ability to reach your NFT target audience at scale.

Two platforms that regularly appear on NFT paid media plans are Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and Twitter. Each of these platforms enable you to target at scale so you should be able to uncover audiences that will be interested in your NFT to place your top of funnel ads infront of them, drive engagement and visits to site where you can push them into an email sign up prelaunch or drive them to the NFT market to purchase post launch

If you would like to speak with one of our NFT marketing experts like Arvin (who has worked on over 400 NFTs marketing projects) you can submit a short brief on in under two minutes on Traktion here  

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