Marketing challenges in front of Web3 adoption

Most Internet users don’t see the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. No one cares. All that matters is that Facebook’s servers and other platforms run continuously. The giants of this market have assumed the role of gods on whom the future of your Internet presence depends. Your privacy is also in their hands, as well as data that you don’t even know about.

The upcoming revolution related to decentralization and dispersion in blockchain architecture is ideologically turning the market upside down. It’s too early to say what Web 3.0 is. Apart from great - and sometimes wild - ideas, we have a long way to go. In this paradigm, we should also take into account the cryptocurrency market, which is slowly and consistently gaining in popularity. This brings us all to a completely unknown place, which the vast majority do not understand, do not know, and above all, are afraid of.

Narrow perspective of the market

I have had a unique opportunity to look at the market (crypto, Web3) as an observer for many months now. To put it simply. On the one hand, we have pure projects focused on the cryptocurrency market and indirectly on the blockchain, where the primary beneficiaries are traders and owners who want to monetize their projects by distributing tokens. They built communities, created hype on Twitter with the intended result. Some projects want to utilize the hype associated with Web3, where it is really difficult to get a uniform definition of what the successor to Web 2.0 is. But the hype isn’t everything. Especially for a product or service that is intended to be a tycoon in the market. Building a long-term communication and marketing strategy is not based on hype. It never was. It is like taking a vessel, pouring a substance into it, and slowly stirring it, hoping it will spill over the world. Or maybe, you are counting on the butterfly effect? Unfortunately, open window at our favorite hotel in Bali will not create a tsunami wave on the California coast. It is about time to wake up. I have deliberately outlined the revolutionary form of this post, so that you feel your inner disagreement. If you disagree with what I wrote here, then we can move on.

Communication bubble

Nearly all projects or startups in the crypto/Web3 area start marketing activities from building a community. From Reddit, Discord through Twitter, consciously or not, they lock themselves in the communication bubble. There is nothing wrong with creating a community. On the contrary, the ability to build and maintain a community is a priceless trait in an age of over-stimulus, where marketing messages just pop out of the fridge. Building a group of loyal fans and popularizers was recognized decades ago as one of the most valuable marketing tools. Unfortunately, relying only on one element from among many marketing tactics brings us to distort the perception of reality and, as a result, to close marketing activities only to the group of fans that we gathered around the project. While it targeted our product or service at a tiny group of people, such action is highly recommended. Unfortunately, the crypto and Web3 environment require a series of awareness-raising activities among the public to achieve universal adaptation of technologies and services following it. Closing ourselves in a communication bubble, in which the major recipients are blockchain geeks, stock market traders, Web3 and crypto fanatics, prevents us from popularizing our project. And this happens usually because such startups rarely act beyond the creation of closed communities.

Sorry, what? Education?

When something completely new appears in the world, previously unknown to society, we can define this period as the time of spread and adaptation. This is when a company or a group of companies introducing a product or service, performs a series of activities aimed at popularizing and, most importantly, educating the public. Through a series of educational activities, potential customers gain awareness of the advantages of a given product or service, which means they reach the point where they either make a purchase or become users of a given service. This stage is an indispensable and elementary part of the adaptation process. Just like it was with the Internet and its capabilities, online banking, etc.

At such an early stage, with the Web3, conducting educational activities by a specific startup is of colossal importance for building brand awareness. A prime example is disposable diapers, where, especially in early 90s in Eastern Europe, the word "Pampers" began to be used instead of the word "diapers". This results from effective communication and marketing activities that do not focus on stimulating the closed community.

User Experience

The current level of simplicity in using the crypto/blockchain market can be related to the amount of work that needs to be done, to make the solutions useful, easy to use, and intuitive for the user, of course.

Connecting wallets, private and public keys, the fear of whether our funds will be sent from the exchange to Metamask or Binance Wallet shows how early we are. Designing usability, understanding the user’s needs, and addressing potential concerns are the foundation for creating an excellent service. This is the foundation on which we build a marketing strategy in such a complex world as blockchain. All of this is a network of connected vessels that many companies simply forget.

Trust

When MySpace, Google, or Facebook were gaining wide adoption on the Internet, privacy was hardly thought of. And the very awareness of privacy on the Internet was extremely low. In general, we have given credit to these giants. Unfortunately, the number of scams in the crypto world, extortions, and hooks in the DeFi put the popularization of Web3 in hard light. Because in addition to the user’s attention, we must show that our product or service is trustworthy and that the users’ data is trustworthy, and what is worse, their money will not evaporate along with the entire team that created the service.

What happens if we reach a point where consumers find the new system so much more convenient that governments don’t dare reimpose the old rules, to avoid incurring the wrath of their voters? - Richard Gendal Brown

You can cite here the great public concern when American Express introduced the first debit card in 1958, years before easy internet access and e-banking. People didn’t understand how it was all supposed to work. They were afraid that if they paid with this card in the store, the cashier would give us the change. All fear comes from lack of knowledge, and the same is now crystallizing what Web3 is and what role it will play in the new digital world.

Conclusion

The creators of the world of Web3 face a great challenge. On the one hand, the success of startups depends on the wide adaptation of the Web3 environment among statistical Internet users. On the other hand, the aspect of education, there is also the aspect of building the foundations of trust and transparency towards society. Therefore, community building on Discord is just one of the building blocks that go into your marketing strategy. And the most important. Building communities on Discord shouldn’t be a marketing strategy. Maintaining communities on Discord, Reddit or Twitter is just a part of the social media strategy, which is a part of the overall marketing strategy. 

Crypto or Web3 enthusiasts shouldn’t be your only target group, but one of many. Did you ever wonder how you could reach potential users who are not aware of Web3 or crypto? There is much to be done, but the effort must be made jointly by all startups simultaneously. This is the only way to convince Internet users that Web3 solutions are a better solution than what they are used to.

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