On the 15th of January, 2018, Digitex Futures announced on their blog, to their own amazement that they had raised $5.2M in 17mins by selling their digital tokens.Sound strange?Don't worry,I will explain all that.
Heard of Blockchain technology and Cryptocurrency?Those are the buzz words right now in the digital space.This post is not about them but a basic understanding is needed to appreciate the strategies the company used in accomplishing such feat and how to apply them to your business, regardless of the industry.
In the world of electronic trading, cryptocurrency, which is digital currency (coin) that is converted to unreadable format for unauthorized users during transactions online (cryptography) for securing the whole process is the medium of exchange.With such currency, buyers can buy or sell about anything from Gold to a toy car,virtually anything!They can also buy the coins and sell them when the coins have appreciated in value.More like shares,real estate,right?At a central market place called future exchanges , financial transactions are made at a predetermined date,time and specified price having financial contracts called futures that bind the traders.The accounts of such traders are held in blockchains which is a decentralized ledger that records and processes all financial transactions in an encrypted format without the intervention of a third party, usually a bank . Digitex futures is one of those central market places or if you like-future exchanges.
Consider this scenario:let's say you are a startup and you have a brilliant idea and you don't have the funds to finance it.Instead of going to the bank for loans or venture capitalist (investors who give capital to ventures who don't have access to bank loans), and avoiding collateral implications or other financial risks, you can go to the public, telling them to give you money in the form of a highly valuable and popular coin like bitcoin or Ether and offer them your 'baby' cryptocurrency called tokens convincing them that your currency will be high in circulation and demand which then will increase its value tremendously in the shortest time span.At an event called an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) or token sale, you throw your offer open to the public, who then either invest in your project or not depending on your "power" of persuasion.It was on the 15th of January,2018, that digitex futures sold out 1billion tokens at its exchange in 22 minutes record-time and made a gross sale of $7million to raise funds to sponsor their exchange project.They even ran out tokens because the demand was steep.That is some power of conviction at work! The big question is how did they do it?And are the strategies applicable to my own business?
What sales tactics can we learn from Digitex Futures' ICO?
Set up your own website:
According to bill gates,
If your business is not on the internet, then your business will be out of business.Gone are the days when your local shop, word-of-mouth marketing were just enough to bring you business success.The world has changed and majority of your potential customers are on the internet.As a matter of fact, statistics records that in 2017, the number of internet users worldwide was about 3.5 billion.And in real-time,(you can see the internet usage for today from internetlivestats) at the time of writing, it stood at approx. 3.8 billion users.
Source: Internetworldstats.
Your website is your virtual office or store;where you create your online identity,There people get to know about and identify with your brand, products and services.The benefits cannot be over emphasized.Run a blog on your site:
Companies that blog receive 97% more links directing to their website.Source Hubspot
Before Launch of her ICO, Digitex Futures began to create awareness about it on their blog.They created articles upon articles about it.The white paper and 'how it works' video on their website weren't just enough.
Blogging is vital for your business because it helps you disseminate useful information to your site visitors, customers and followers which will help build credibility, acquire customers and retain existing ones.
Leverage Social Media.
Social media offers new opportunities to activate brand enthusiasm-Stacy DebroffOn their websites, they embedded links to Facebook, twitter, Reddit,and medium in order to engage the public, educating them about their brand, project and answering questions as they arose.This helped in building confidence and conviction in potential investors.
With your social profiles , you can create groups on those platforms, invite a couple of individuals who could be interested in your product or service, enjoin them to invite others and gradually, you begin to have a targeted audience who will become your potential customers.See social media statistics here
Leverage instant messaging.
According to a report, in 2017, 89% of individuals want to use instant messaging to communicate with businesses.And Telegram, a fairly new platform, prides itself as one of the most trusted and secure instant messaging platforms.The company used it to engage the public alongside the afore-mentioned social media platforms.
Find out which Instant Messaging platform is popular among your target audience, create a chat group, share the link with your target audience,who join the conversion and you can build from there.
Find out which Instant Messaging platform is popular among your target audience, create a chat group, share the link with your target audience,who join the conversion and you can build from there.
Run an enticing customer referral program.
This is the way of promoting products and services through referrals.This is a powerful system of not just acquiring but retaining customers that is based on trust- friends referring friends & family - and a reward system for active participation.A recent survey revealed that
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| Source Ambassador |
Digitex Futures asked investors to refer their friends with the promise of receiving 30% of whatever their friends spend in the ICO and the payment will not be in their DGTX token but in ETH (Ether), which is one of the strongest and most valuable cryptocurrency. Mouth watering, isn't it?
Carefully study the interests of your target audience to know what incentives and rewards that will motivate them.Come up with reward options.Analyse the cost implication on your business against the benefits and finally settle for the best system that favours both your business and your customers in the long run.
Carefully study the interests of your target audience to know what incentives and rewards that will motivate them.Come up with reward options.Analyse the cost implication on your business against the benefits and finally settle for the best system that favours both your business and your customers in the long run.
The last but not the least...
Identify and promote their Unique Selling Point (USP) on your website and social profiles
This in my opinion is the most important because this is what doesn't just make you different from your competition but what gives you advantage over them.It is you identifying their weaknesses and making it your strength.
Digitex Futures came up with a way for traders to trade without being charged for transaction fees which was the norm at other exchanges.The exchanges use the transaction fees to cover operational costs which could atimes constitute a financial burden to traders. Digitex found a way around it by generating their own DGTX token and making sure all transactions will be denominated in DGTX ie you will buy, sell and get paid in DGTX. This meant for you to trade on their exchange, you need to have their tokens.Automatically, the tokens creates a demand for itself.This translates into the exchange having enough to cover costs.Another thing they did was they made sure you had no fears about security of your account, because they leveraged the blockchain technology to securely hold traders accounts.And of course, the cost of their tokens was too inviting to resist, they offered it at a rock-bottom price of $0.01 to 1DGTX, when other ICOs offer theirs at $0.03, $0.06 etc.No wonder, there was a mad rush beyond their wildest imagination.
Identifying your USP is not something you rush into, it will involve you taking time to study the market you are operating in;identifying the loop holes that your competitors have created and plugging it,considering your own strengths and weaknesses as well.This will put you ahead of the queue in terms of demand for your product and service.After your analysis, document your USP in a short easily remembered phrase (your strapline) and promote it on your website (if you have one) your social profiles, and whatever digital platform you engage with your audience on.Let your audience know your uniqueness and be able to identify you with it.
Now,no matter how magical your tactics are, if your target market is not attractive enough you might you might find it difficult to get customers who will be interested in your product or service.How attractive is the market for your product or service?What is the demand like?These are questions you need to ask yourself before implementing any tactics.It is easier for an aspiring cryptocurrency project like digitex futures, and other successful ICOs to gain the attention of the public to invest in them because the cryptocurrency market is a very attractive one, regardless of its risks.Some questions you will need to ask yourself to find out if a market is attractive or not are:
Conclusion: The Digitex Futures ICO is definitely a successful use case that proves that great marketing tactics yield great marketing success.Their objective which was to raise a minimum amount of $250,000 (soft cap) in 30 days was surpassed in a matter of minutes! because of the above strategies.Implementing those tactics will definitely involve some investment of both time and money but I tell you, it will definitely be worth it
Like, comment and share on social media if you found this article useful so that others as well can benefit from it.
Digitex Futures came up with a way for traders to trade without being charged for transaction fees which was the norm at other exchanges.The exchanges use the transaction fees to cover operational costs which could atimes constitute a financial burden to traders. Digitex found a way around it by generating their own DGTX token and making sure all transactions will be denominated in DGTX ie you will buy, sell and get paid in DGTX. This meant for you to trade on their exchange, you need to have their tokens.Automatically, the tokens creates a demand for itself.This translates into the exchange having enough to cover costs.Another thing they did was they made sure you had no fears about security of your account, because they leveraged the blockchain technology to securely hold traders accounts.And of course, the cost of their tokens was too inviting to resist, they offered it at a rock-bottom price of $0.01 to 1DGTX, when other ICOs offer theirs at $0.03, $0.06 etc.No wonder, there was a mad rush beyond their wildest imagination.
Identifying your USP is not something you rush into, it will involve you taking time to study the market you are operating in;identifying the loop holes that your competitors have created and plugging it,considering your own strengths and weaknesses as well.This will put you ahead of the queue in terms of demand for your product and service.After your analysis, document your USP in a short easily remembered phrase (your strapline) and promote it on your website (if you have one) your social profiles, and whatever digital platform you engage with your audience on.Let your audience know your uniqueness and be able to identify you with it.
Now,no matter how magical your tactics are, if your target market is not attractive enough you might you might find it difficult to get customers who will be interested in your product or service.How attractive is the market for your product or service?What is the demand like?These are questions you need to ask yourself before implementing any tactics.It is easier for an aspiring cryptocurrency project like digitex futures, and other successful ICOs to gain the attention of the public to invest in them because the cryptocurrency market is a very attractive one, regardless of its risks.Some questions you will need to ask yourself to find out if a market is attractive or not are:
- What are the barriers to entry?In terms of technology, government policies, etc
- How strong are competitor brands?
- How straightforward is it for the customer to switch to another supplier?
- How many competitors are there?
- How easy is it to win customers?
- How much will it cost new entrants to enter the market and how quickly will the investment pay back?
Conclusion: The Digitex Futures ICO is definitely a successful use case that proves that great marketing tactics yield great marketing success.Their objective which was to raise a minimum amount of $250,000 (soft cap) in 30 days was surpassed in a matter of minutes! because of the above strategies.Implementing those tactics will definitely involve some investment of both time and money but I tell you, it will definitely be worth it
Like, comment and share on social media if you found this article useful so that others as well can benefit from it.
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