Preparing an ICO? What you need to know..

2017 has been a great year for Initial Coin Offerings and we expect this to continue over the coming years. Regulation will certainly come in at some point and will help clean up the mess we all see. However, many are unsure of what is actually needed to successfully launch an ICO, so I hope you find the following information helpful.

1.      Whitepaper – It needs cold hard facts, statistics and examples. Make sure you take the time to think about how you can create a real token economy and explain how it will be sustainable for investors.

Professional writers spend hours crafting high-quality whitepapers so expect to pay well for this.

2.      Legal - We see a few different countries being picked for setting up ICOs such as Switzerland, Gibraltar, Estonia, Cyprus. The regulation for ICOs and token sales is still at a very early stage and many countries are still trying to figure out how best to set standards and guidelines for regulation.

3.      Cybersecurity - The ICO and token sale sector is very exciting for hackers. The normal process is that hackers get into the back end of an ICO and then change the wallet address from the companies to their personal wallet, therefore stealing money from unknowing token investors.

It is worth investing in a security company that will make sure your site is not only safe from hackers and DDoS attacks but a firm that will help monitor fake social profiles and fishing websites that may be used to trick and harm your token investors.

4.      Token pricing - When it comes pricing your token. If you are pegging your token to Ether then make sure you think about potential price changes as If the token price rises too high, you may price yourself out of the market and scare away token investors.

Keep in mind that many token investors want to buy low and sell higher so the lower the price of the token the easier the barrier of entry is for investors as well as the theoretical chance of them making a better return.

5.      Team - It is paramount to have a great core team that will build trust and legitimacy with any potential token investor. Token investors want to see a solid and connected team that are sitting in the same office and not working in remote locations around the world. So, if your team are in different locations, be careful of the picture you attach to your website.

6.      Advisors - With advisors, again it is a trust-building game so the more advisors from big organizations with large networks and access as well as success in other ICOs and/or projects will help build value for your ICO.

Its normal to have an advisory package, whereby you will offer advisors tokens in exchange for them being displayed within the white paper and on the website as advisors of the project

The range of tokens to be offered to an adviser will range based on their seniority, network, success with other initial coin offerings.

7.      Marketing communications – due to the all the initial coin offerings and token sales in the market, it is vital that you stand out from all the noise and to find a way to connect with your target audience.

This can be done through banner ads showing, not only, product and price but also the true value and vision.

8.      Pitch deck - One of the most vital aspects of presenting to Angel Investors, and Venture Capitalists is a great looking and well-structured Pitch Deck presentation.

The aim of the presentation is to captivate your audience and get them not only to understand the concept, but also the market size the value proposition and why they need to get involved and invest early.

This is an audience is used to being pitched every day, so every word and slide, as well as each visual, is vital for gaining the attention needed.

9.     Video - Video content and videos, in general, are a perfect way to engage an audience. They are a great way to convey your concepts as well as the display of the people behind the project.

Employ professional scriptwriters and video producers to create high-quality videos for ICOs. Every single word and visual matters!

10.  Website – The website is one of the most important aspects of any initial coin offering and is the most vital marketing communication vehicle for acquiring and retaining token investors. It is very important to have a clean, modern, sleek website that clearly describes the problem, solution, value propositions and vision of your project. It is also key to have the most important call to actions on your website such as but not limited to the whitepaper, contribute, subscribe, and join telegram functions.

11.  Banners - The digital version of the billboard ad is still the best way to generate awareness, engagement and visitors for your ICO. The world is blind to banners due to the web being flooded but with the use of strong messaging combined with connected visuals and a call to action, you can expect a high conversion rate by targeting the right audience.

12.  Placement - The majority of any ICO and tokens sale investment goes into the channels of marketing which are listed below.

Public relations and press releases are vital for any initial coin offering to gain the attention and trust of the public, it is a mandatory step to have placements and articles within major news outlets such as CoinDesk, CoinTelegraph, NewsBTC, CoinSpeaker, Entrepreneur, TechCrunch, The Next Web & Forbes. The list of targeted placements will also change based on your specific vertical or niche where you want to build trust and respect. However, you will always want to have visibility within the crypto community’s frequently viewed websites.

13.  Social media & community management:

Facebook has nearly three billion users, so you cannot discount it as a viable means of communication and promotion for your ICO.

Twitter is significant for ICOs. Unlike Facebook, you need to be tweeting more than once per day as your tweets will soon get pushed down in the Twittersphere.

LinkedIn audience over 450 Million members. People will check the profiles of your founders and team, so you need to get those profiles whipped into shape. There’s no point in having a professional page if your CEO is listed as unemployed and photographed drinking a beer, this includes diligently picking key members of your organization to publish thought leadership articles, connect with relevant communities and answering questions.

Reddit is ranked the fourth-most visited website in the US, so you cannot underestimate the SEO power of Reddit for your ICO launch.

SteemIt - Audience of over 170,000 users. Steemit is powered by blockchain technology and rewards users who upload articles or images with cryptocurrency.

Telegram - Audience over 100 Million. Telegram is a “must have” for your ICO launch and it is rapidly gaining in popularity among crypto and Bitcoin enthusiasts.

Bitcoin Talk Forum - Over 1,300,000 members within this forum. This is where the community lives and it is a great channel to engage users to setup Bounty Programs, AirDrops and to help achieve interaction with the community directly.

Bounty Program - The bounty program is the cryptocurrencies version of affiliate marketing whereby you utilize bitcoin and crypto user audiences within Bitcoin talk to help push your ICO and token sale within their social media like Facebook, Twitter, Telegram and other media channels.

Remarketing - It is hard to attract targeted token investors to come to your website, so when you do get a user, you need to make sure you pick up this audience profile and retarget them across the major platforms such as Google, Facebook & AD Roll. It is vital when utilizing re-marketing that you keep your creative banners fresh and engaging to bring the user back and give them a strong reason to interact with your brand again.

Display Marketing Networks Push - Display Marketing with banners is a great way to target your users when online. You can utilize multiple ways to target the crypto community from users looking at competitors to users searching for specific keywords.

Search Marketing Pull - Paid search marketing is getting more and more expensive by the day. Therefore, it is vital to make sure that you are using the best set of targeted keywords as well as taking advantage of all the features to enhance your listing and get a better quality score and CTR compared to your competition.

Direct Placement Media Buys - Direct media buys and placements although in many cases expensive, are great to build the needed trust, hype and awareness. However, you should be sure to conduct the right research before investing in your desired list of top crypto sites.

Social Media Advertising - Channels like Facebook have over two billion users so they are a great way to push your message out. Whether it is by boosting your posts or via direct image or video ads, social media marketing is a great way to get your ICO message out there. Video ads done right can impact and improve results greatly as well as displaying your product offering in a visually stimulating way.

Email Marketing - Whether you are engaging with your own database of users via Mailchimp or you are emailing databases from portals or crypto sites, you need to care about email marketing.

It is vital that you have a great message and visual style to engage your users. Make sure you have a great subject line and include a strong call to action within your email. People do not have much time nowadays so keep the email short, concise and with purpose. Avoid loading too much information on the email and remember less is always more.

Analytics, Reporting & KPI’s - This is vital to the optimization process of your ICO or token sale. You need to make sure you have the ability to capture UTMs from Google Analytics to place within your CRM or any other types of analytics you may be using. It is crucial to be able to track and optimize the entire funnel of your users from impression to click, all the way down to funded ETH on a user profile. If you are not able to do this, you will end up shooting blind so it is important to set this up before you even invest $1 on paid marketing.

We have achieved amazing results with our clients, being transparent and building strong relationships with all those that come to us is where we see the greatest value.

If you would like to discuss your project and how we could assist with your goals and objectives, feel free to reach out. We look forward to hearing from you.