Token Sale Success: Building a Community and Crafting a Winning PR Strategy

There is already a well-trodden path to token sale success. While taking every step won’t ensure you’ll arrive at your goal, skipping any will likely bring failure.

In 2022, approximately 40,000 tokens were launched. As of 2023, there are some 9,000 in existence. Getting noticed takes a serious investment of time, thought and money.

In this article, we’ll look at the essential steps to token sale success, and exactly where and how to make the most difference.

The fundamentals

Firstly, you need a great product, or at least a minimum viable product (MVP). Your product can hopefully become something of its own marketing tool, capturing attention and sparking interest.

Next, there’s the token itself. This should have a use value connected to your product, performing a function within your system. Ensure also to choose the right blockchain platform that will best suit your token and your needs. Also, conduct thorough legal and regulatory compliance, and find the best exchanges where you will list your token.

To fully explain everything, including your token distribution strategy, you’ll need a well-crafted whitepaper and website. Finally, you should into establishing valuable partnerships and collaborations.

These are all bases that you really must cover.

Professional PR preparation

A “token launch” is not misnamed. One moment it’s an idea, the next it’s propelled into the cryptosphere. As with launching a rocket, it’s too late to fix problems once it's blasted from the launchpad. Therefore, pre-launch is the time when good PR can do its engineering work so that your token flies beautifully and hits its precise, intended target.

Mastering the technology around your product, token and ecosystem is different to mastering words and the magic they can weave in the minds of a target audience. Leave such messaging to the professionals. Use skilled and experienced pros to craft your message, establish your brand and place your project into the right minds in the right manner. It’s certainly worth looking to those with experience, beyond any in-house PR department you might already have.

Words create an atmosphere. They can inspire and excite, as well as deliver simple facts. If they’re amateurish, boring or botched, they can deliver entirely the wrong impression, sending your audience away. Well-written press releases, boosted by a network of the right journalism contacts, will get your project in key media. Other writing tasks can include review articles on the project and email marketing strategies. As well as leveraging established media relationships, an established PR agency will possess the media nous, industry knowledge and requisite ingenuity to craft your message in a manner to secure coverage.

You should also look to craft the image and message of your CEO or other core team members, who can appear in profiles, speaking in the media, and appearing at events. Speaking authoritatively about the industry adds credibility which will attract both customers and investors.

It can also be highly effective, and efficient, to have PR specialists take over the media buying of your campaign. A PR company can incorporate media buying into a comprehensive campaign that will identify target audience, define objectives, develop a plan, negotiate with publishers, and manage budgets.

Community building is crucial

Your community will be a deciding factor between success and failure. It pays to start building it as early as you can. Its main aim is to create buzz, to attract and create early adopters, who in turn will attract even more. These are the ones who will spread the word, eagerly buy your tokens, and become your first users and participants. So start talking to them.

Communities are primarily built via forums and platforms such as Telegram, Discord, Slack and Reddit. From those, your community managers can communicate with everybody. In turn, your community members can also communicate with each other there, and momentum can snowball. All you have to do is feed it. You do this via events such as airdrops, giveaways, contests and AMA sessions with core team members. A PR agency with experience in community management will also be your best bet here, rather than figuring it out in-house.

An ambassador program will turbocharge community-building efforts. This is a strategy that utilises brand ambassadors to help promote your token launch. These ambassadors are early adopters with significant pre-existing networks. They will be passionate about the project and willing to promote it to their network and beyond. You may be able to recruit them from established crypto influencers who have thriving YouTube channels and podcasts, to who they can educate about, and extoll the virtues of, your project.

Ambassador programs can offer incentives such as token rewards, exclusive perks, and opportunities to engage with the project in various exciting ways. The aim is to leverage the power of word-of-mouth marketing and harness the enthusiasm of the project's supporters to drive adoption and awareness of the token launch.

To retain new members who drift into your community, it’s vital to educate them on the pluses of investing their time with the community and investing their money in your token and to keep everybody up to date. The more committed your community, the better your momentum will run, propelling your launch. You want your community to be “the place to be”, fun and vibrant, as well as informative and trustworthy. It should also be the place for new developments, such as partnership announcements, and providing depth and background stories.

With the right messaging and care, your community will hopefully develop loyalty and sustainability, gathering members who enjoy being a part of it and who are in it for the long term, because they believe in you and in experiencing an exchange that is beyond merely the monetary.

You should avoid a community comprised of those looking to only dump their tokens for a quick profit and disappear. If this happens, your token, community and overall system can be dangerously impacted. A vibrant community that trusts the project will help maintain the token’s utility and value beyond its launch.

Conclusion

For a successful token sale campaign, after you have your fundamentals in place - principally, a great product and a connected use value for your token - it’s PR and community building which will most make the difference.

PR preparation is essential, and it is worth seeking skilled and experienced professionals to guide you. Community building is just as important, and creating buzz and momentum are vital. Here, an agency with a suitable track record will provide peace of mind in creating a sophisticated, living, dynamic community.

By ensuring to invest in these prime areas, you can give your token sale the best chance of success.

Author Bio

Valeriya Minaeva is the Founder of a native web3 Communications firm VComms.io and a main contributor to 1inch Network, the largest DeFi protocol.