Crypto needs new marketing solutions to accumulate real users and survive the bear market
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Crypto needs new marketing solutions to accumulate real users and survive the bear market
Early-stage users and investors are not paying for essential needs but experimenting with novel ideas; their motivation is imaginative potential, not practical utility.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights
Author: Beichen
Marketing dominates success in the crypto/Web3/crypto space/blockchain (no matter what you call it, you know which field I'm referring to), and one could even go further—visual design is the primary productive force.
Early-stage users and investors aren’t paying for actual demand—they’re exploring novel things driven by imagination rather than practical utility.
Therefore, there’s no true monopoly in crypto—no absolute technological lead or exclusive channel to tell users “use it or leave it.” All projects are competing for a limited pool of users.
So, what defines successful crypto marketing?
I once reviewed public strategies from numerous top overseas third-party marketing firms, as well as tracked marketing tactics across many projects (both leading and smaller ones), trying to uncover the secret behind successful marketing. I reached a shocking conclusion—there’s almost no difference in their marketing actions!
While it's true that successful marketing strategies tend to look similar, you can indeed summarize a “Top 10 Crypto Marketing Success Strategies” list from winning projects—accurate and irrefutable. But equally, you could compile a “Top 10 Crypto Marketing Failure Strategies” list from failed projects—and find they're nearly identical.
Don't believe me? Try recalling—don’t all projects enlist KOLs to endorse and shill? Establish accounts across all social media channels (including but not limited to Reddit, Telegram, Discord, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) and attract followers via giveaways, whitelist campaigns, place news flashes and soft articles in media outlets, run contests to engage users or developers…?
Yet these identical actions yield wildly different results.
This isn’t because project teams don’t take marketing seriously (in fact, failed projects often spend more). Nor does it mean crypto marketing is inherently useless. Rather, some of those strategies were doomed to fail from the start, and on the execution side, teams often treat marketing as a checkbox task, further devaluing already limited options.
These marketing tactics work to varying degrees during bull markets, but become nearly ineffective in bear markets. Re-examining your project’s marketing strategy through the following three lenses may reveal fresh perspectives on crypto marketing.
Ineffective vs. Effective Marketing
It starts with positioning.
The audience in crypto is inherently niche. For any given product, at best it consists of just a few overlapping micro-communities.
Yetmany common strategies borrow directly from mass consumer goods marketing, such as SEO or media blitzes. These approaches reach non-core users, resulting in naturally low conversion rates. They work better for companies like Procter & Gamble, where core users *are* the general public.
In crypto,only centralized exchanges might truly benefit from mass-market marketing, since their user base spans from underserved markets to high-net-worth individuals. Any internet-savvy retail investor with slightly elevated risk tolerance could be a potential user.
That’s why we see FTX experimenting with all kinds of flashy marketing—but this holds little value as a model for most crypto projects, or even most other centralized exchanges, since very few operate fully compliantly and thus struggle to appear openly in mainstream media.
For DeFi, NFTs, and other projects requiring on-chain interaction, the core user base is clearly and narrowly defined.
Thus,effective marketing should repeatedly target this small group of potential core users, concentrating touchpoints directly on them. This includes collaborations and co-branding with other projects, intensive discussions led by top-tier KOLs in specific niches (few in number due to their high relevance), and appearances in industry research reports and analytical articles—all of which drive superior conversion.
One additional note:When planning marketing campaigns, always define a “minimum viable task” to let target users experience the product with minimal cost (in time or money)—only then can you talk about conversion rates later.
A common mistake among project teams is throwing money around recklessly and going all-in immediately. The metrics may look impressive, but in reality, core users remain unaware of the project.
KPI-Driven vs. Core-Objective-Driven
Suppose a project has achieved precise positioning and avoided unnecessary (or low-priority) marketing strategies. Even then, a series of execution-level factors can still severely undermine effectiveness—the root cause being KPI-driven rather than core-objective-driven execution.
Broad-spectrum marketing may simply lack efficiency, but it occasionally works. However, a KPI-driven approach turns even potentially effective tactics into wasted efforts.
KPIs were meant to be quantitative references for evaluating outcomes—not the outcome itself. But for executors, the optimal strategy becomes chasing the metric itself, rather than solving the underlying problem.
For example, KOL promotion is undoubtedly effective. A project team might allocate its budget to one-time placements with influencers boasting the best-looking stats—appearing to reach millions of followers. While this looks good in executive reports, follower quality remains invisible. The actual conversion from a few thousand views/readings may be far lower than the impact of actively debating within a precisely targeted community.
Moreover,one-off campaigns only create superficial impressions; the market quickly forgets.
Additionally, events held merely for the sake of holding events—like gathering warm bodies to stage an event—may generate some conversions amid the apparent buzz, but the overall ROI remains low.
Even more absurdly, a task that could be excellently completed in half the time ends up taking twice as long under KPI pressure—one portion dedicated to actual work, and another (or even half) spent crafting polished internal reports. Internal retrospectives are valuable, but excessively polished summaries serve no real purpose.
With a core-objective-driven mindset, things change dramatically. For instance, if the goal is attracting deep users from a niche sector and retaining them, you don’t need to obsess over event frequency or retweet counts. Instead, dynamically adjust based on real-world performance.
KPI-driven marketing inevitably leads to performance advertising (regardless of whether it actually performs), while sustainable project operations rely on brand building—two fundamentally different priorities.
Third-Party Marketing vs. Self-Marketing
Earlier points focused on leveraging third parties for marketing. But the most effective and fundamental method is self-marketing through community building by the project team itself.
In crypto,the roles of project teams, media, investment firms, and retail investors aren’t clearly separated. Nearly everyone follows a “research + monetization” path—project teams build products based on research to monetize, while others invest based on research to profit.
This would be unimaginable in traditional business, where knowledge usually precedes commercialization, and experts guide commerce. But in emerging industries, companies themselves may be the leading experts in their niche—if they’re genuinely promising.
Hence,there are no true authoritative media outlets or definitive experts in crypto. The industry evolves rapidly; no one monopolizes information. Everyone pieces together fragmented understandings of the landscape.
Users/investors back a project because they believe in its potential. As pioneers, project teams earn trust most effectively by sharing in-depth research—far more impactful than third-party validation.
P&G customers won’t study “the impact of surfactants on hair mechanical properties”—they just need trusted third-party assurance that it works. But crypto users/investors deeply care about technical roadmaps and iteration logic. If a team demonstrates sufficient expertise, people will support their next project—even after a previous failure.
Yet many project teams treat community engagement as mere customer service and content output as routine announcements. This Web2 corporate approach is comically out of place in Web3. At least current Web3 users are early supporters and future companions—not just consumers.
Therefore, building a community isn’t about creating groups like a community-buying scheme. It means establishing genuine connections with community members—whether current or potential users, as long as they’re interested. This requires project leaders to be active in the community, host diverse communication initiatives, and produce high-quality research content in their domain—the best way to establish credibility, far surpassing third-party PR.
Summary
When conducting marketing, crypto projects must distinguish between ineffective (or inefficient) mass marketing and effective core-user-focused marketing. During execution, they must choose between KPI-driven and core-objective-driven approaches. Most importantly, teams must practice self-marketing to build professional reputation.
By these standards, the vast majority of crypto project teams fall short.
Some projects took off during the bull market—not because their marketing was good, but because it didn’t hold them back.
Thus, the crypto market needs new marketing solutions to accumulate real users and endure the bear market until the next bull cycle arrives.
Of course, if your goal is to rake in quick profits from inexperienced traders, feel free to ignore everything above—or do the exact opposite.
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