I frequently use the term narrative-building in my interactions with community members in Pocket Network.

Here I type up a few basics such as what it means to me, why is it important, and how it could be done. These are my mental models and I don’t claim them to be exhaustive and/or sacrosanct.

I generally use marketing and narrative-building interchangeably. Although here is how I define them-

Marketing is telling our stories to the right group, the right way and at the right time. That sets the narratives the way we want them to. Otherwise the market or foreign actors shape the narrative for us and we lose control. Narratives drive sentiments (political, markets, world, life) with or without substance. Sentiments decide winners and losers.

Effective Marketing (story tell) → Build the Narrative → Drive Sentiments → Influence Outcomes

Is Crypto/Web3 different?

Yes and No. The fundamentals of marketing and narrative building do not change. A Philip Kotler classic, marketing degree from Kelloggs, courses in digital marketing and grassroots alpha from Vayner Media can be applied in this space as effectively as in any other space.

The tools for distribution of the stories (aka the content) are the same as in web1 and web2. There are no web3 equivalents for distribution yet.

However there are at least 4 characteristics that set this space apart from the rest:

a) Financialization- The tokenisation of the projects make this space hyper financialized and that’s how it is designed to be. In addition, currently buyers, traders and investors of those tokens outpopulate users, builders and producers by a very big margin. Therefore, financial incentives and speculation are the dominating forces.

b) The Pace- Because of #a, because the markets trading those tokens are 24 X 7, and because of the high volatility of the prices of the tokens, everything moves at a 100X speed. The lightening speed is also because of the 100% digital nature of this space and all the participants being digital natives first before becoming crypto natives.

c) Subject Matter- This is a tech heavy space full of developers, engineers and data scientists. The tech savviness, the language full of tech and the birth of something new every minute can be overwhelming for newcomers with non-tech backgrounds.

d) The Culture- Crypto culture is not monolithic from inside once someone ages there. However it can be meme, troll and anon heavy, and full of tribalism (due to the financialization aspect). There is also a big nerd community in it. Btw if Elon Musk and Tesla fanatics had Tesla tokens, they probably would look very similar. Also because there are almost no entry barriers- age, education, financial conditions of participants can swing low quite a bit. In general, the culture is very young.

To be successful doing an F&A (Finance and Accounting) job in crypto, an understanding of crypto nativeness may never be required. I don’t believe I can say the same confidently about marketing in crypto. Growing into it if not being born with it may be needed to be effective.

Moving on-

The objective value that marketing (narrative-building) brings has always been debated just as sales at times, even though sales is way more quantifiable. At times the debate is about marketing or sales. Yes, the need for sales has also been debated such as in SAAS and in Silicon Valley. The tech space is abundant with such debates. You know the tech bros screaming “code is law” types.

At times its about the dollars- people demand marketing at the top of their voices but they don’t like to see the bills. It’s also true that lots of marketing dollars go waste because throwing money alone doesn’t solve problems.

That being said, I don’t see a lot of empirical evidence where products and services have done phenomenally well without S&M. There is always story-telling and outreach involved, they are just done differently.

I believe that it’s reasonable to assume that crypto/web3 will not displace those, that generally involves exploiting fundamental human natures.

Product-market-fit alone without a winning narrative could be a losing game.

Here I go by the meme- “why not both”??

Story-telling need not be random and unplanned. Putting content without a smart strategy and an execution plan, and without being backed by any data and/or reasoning could be a waste of time, effort and resources.

Even though that shouldn’t be the ultimate goal but between putting lots of mediocre level content across multiple platforms and getting data-obsessed, therefore ossified, I will pick the former in todays new age digital marketing just because of how distribution work in the platforms. More about this in the subsequent blogs.

Where to start and how to do it-

I like the classic approach of keeping sales and marketing separated, yet collaborating very closely.

I am not a fan of hybrid functions and titles such as “growth marketing” that blurs lines between the two. I have two reasons-

a) Accountabilities and therefore the KPI’s get mixed up.

b) The skillsets are different in this digital age. Effective marketing in B2C, B2B or even hybrid spaces can be pushed from the backend, being anons with no front-ending whatsoever. However, selling in B2B still requires front-ending and direct human touches. In addition, the demand for localisation is much higher there and might even get into uncomfortable territories such as ethnicity, etc.

In crypto/web3, a 3rd function “community” gets branched out.

And there can be frequent overlaps or even chicken/egg situations between the 3 functions. Such as a community set up can happen first before marketing starts or a marketing outreach can result in a community getting created. Similarly, leads can be captured and generated at multiple stages.

Let us use Pocket Network as an example.

Before proceeding, I have to say that marketing (narrative building) has probably been one of the weaknesses with Pocket. And this is despite having the fundamentals and ammo for driving the narrative.

As per the structure I laid out in my last blog, Pocket can be divided into the domestic economy and outside economies, the sellers and the gateways connecting the two, the foundation being the neutral governing body of the domestic economy. I should add the exchanges too as the connectors, specially in the token economy.

In short, the foundation’s one leg should be in partnering with, guiding and facilitating the marketing initiatives of contributing entities, and the other leg should be in building its own marketing division. The priorities can be set based on several factors

Let’s first discuss a few frameworks that could guide Pocket where to start/restart and how to prioritise and optimise-

A) A framework for “whom to target” (basically audience segmentation) and “how to target”. “How” could be unique to one group (verticals) or could also be shared by all fragments (horizontal).

Such as, following could be rough segmentation of the Pocket audience:

Initial optimisation could be by focussing on the horizontal basics that cuts through all segments.

B) Another framework to narrow down focus could be to prioritise based on:

Talking about the 1st section- organisational goals- in Pocket’s case, the foundation’s Project DNA that will give Pocket Network a shared identity, mission and values could be at the centre around which “the Pocket brand” can be built through marketing.

C) This can be put under the “impact” filter from above, but I believe it deserves its own place.

As I wrote in the last blog -

“The native currency or the token is the “Chi” or life-force.”

'“Token price lies in the middle of the economy of the DAO and the financial health of the protocol.”

“The value of the token doesn’t impact the token investors alone. It also affects the economy of the DAO and its participants- the DAO treasury, node runners P&L, builders and contributors, the quality of DAO management, etc.”

I would optimise impact by never missing any opportunity to broadcast facts that would do justice to the value of the token. And I would tell the story multiple times if needed.

To End-

Marketing can also be held to very high standards. Such as going beyond just basic reach and story-telling- to make the eyeballs become Pocket’s ‘community-promoters. Something similar to ‘word-of-mouth marketing’ but more active and engaged.

Although, such standards rely heavily on the quality of the product and U/C EX.

More about this in Part 2.

In Part 2, I will argue why the retail segment could be the path of least resistance and to optimal impact in narrative-building in crypto/web3, irrespective of the type of end-users.

Hear me out next time before assuming the cliche.

Thanks for reading.