How to find and sustain product-market fit in Web3: case studies from Web3 leaders
Epic Web3 Weekly Newsletter
Hey, Web3 builders 👋
This is the Epic Web3 Newsletter — a weekly dose of best practices & insights from the top industry experts to help you boost Web3 products.
In this week’s deep-dive, we’re gonna to:
Invite you to an exclusive meetup on how to grow Web3 products;
Learn more about marketing challenges in Web3 and how to overcome them;
Share some spicy news from the Web3 world.
🎉 Struggle to find the right PMF in Web3? Experts are here to help.
Growth, product-market fit and Web3 — how do you match them all?
We’re bumped to announce our virtual meetup with industry experts who are gonna solve this puzzle. Four leading stars from RZLT, Mava, Blue Studios, and Roll will be discussing all the secrets of how to drive growth for Web3 products.
What will be covered:
— Finding sustainable product-market fit for Web3 products
— Creating innovative growth strategies
— Mistakes and challenges: lessons learned
— Web3 product growth case studies
🎟 Extra benefits: sign up for Epic Web3 subscription and enjoy this and other virtual events. You’ll also get access to the token-gated chat with Web3 founders & your own NFT.
Hurry up to join the meetup — we start at 3:00 PM (CEST).
🧑💻 Marketing hasn’t changed but context has. Community Insights on challenges that Web3 marketers and brands are facing now.
With the development and expansion of Web3, people started to promote marketing as “the new way” of doing it, as if it was never seen before. However, while many things will change in relation to what we know, marketing is still the same.
We asked Nathalia Montenegro, Senior Brand and Marketing Manager at Zapper, in what way new context influences marketing strategies in Web3.
Zapper is a Web3 explorer where anyone can access on-chain information and track assets across Web3, enabling them to connect the dots and make better decisions informed by data.
— Who are you?
I am a Senior Brand and Marketing Manager at Zapper, and brand strategist for over 7 years helping to bring clarity and human perspective to product-focused companies. Now, I am re-learning everything from culture to brands in Web3.
You can find me on LinkedIn or say ‘hi’ on Twitter.
— How do you see marketing in Web3?
Marketing in Web3 is still about raising awareness about your brand or product in a way that is relevant to the audience you aim at.
However, what people care about and what attracts their attention has changed. Let me describe it in detail.
The challenges of Marketing in Web3:
1️⃣ Telling your brand story
The mistake that I see brands doing is that they are using the Web3 narrative as if it was their own. Positioning themselves against the traditional Web2, and often using the Web3 principles as appealing benefits to attract a user base. The result is brands using similar value propositions, which in the end are not unique.
For example, part of the story of Web3 is about freedom. It is about breaking free of intermediaries, managing your own information, assets, and whatever comes next. For brands that are focusing on onboarding people from the traditional system to Web3, it would make sense to merge their own story with the Web3 story.
2️⃣ Hype isn’t everything
Many projects in Web3 have gained awareness by generating hype. On one side, this was seen as cool and attractive, and on the other was strongly associated with scams and bad brands. What you don’t want is to build hype without having a strong long-term communication and marketing strategy in place.
Remember, the strongest currency is trust. To have an effective marketing strategy you need to be backed with foundations that position your brand as a trustable player in the space. Make sure to communicate this to your audience.
3️⃣ Audience in Web3
A challenge that almost all companies are facing today is successfully marketing to multiple audiences. From newcomers to degens, from the non technical person to developers.
They care about different things, they speak different languages, and have different levels of understanding and knowledge in their space. That’s why I highlight the importance of being aware of the language you’re using to communicate, make sure you understand how it will impact your audience and who you will be leaving on the outside.
There is value in speaking the language — slang, wording — of the space, but understanding when it is the most appropriate time for usage is the key.
For instance, take a look at Goblintown that uses its own language, made up of weird words and sounds, like “ₐₐₐₐₐₐₐᵤᵤᵤᵤᵤGGGₕₕₕₕₕ”, “gₒbbₗᵢₙₛ”, “ₙₒ dₑₛcᵤᵣd”. Their whole marketing strategy seemed unconventional and a lot like absurd, but specially stylized fonts and slang created a sense of curiosity towards the project.
Read more about how Goblintown went viral.
4️⃣ Economic value and identity
At this current stage, Web3 mostly orbits around people searching for opportunities of generating economic value.
However, because we are early, many people also attribute a lot of meaning to participating in Web3 because they feel like they are building “the future” and they want to be part of something bigger.
So although economic value is a big reason that motivates this space, it is not just that. And it would be a mistake to focus only on that, and leave the appeal of identity and meaning on the side.
5️⃣ Communities
Communities in Web3 are different from Web2 — they are active. Instead of just consuming content, they are actively building, contributing to brands, and to the space.
People want to matter in space — they want to have a voice and be heard. And it also matters because a huge factor for growth in Web3 now is the network effect, or word of mouth. People are usually part of multiple communities, meaning that by cultivating individuals in your communities you are building ambassadors that will proudly spread the word in other groups.
6️⃣ NFTs as community building strategy? Be careful.
Using NFTs to hack community building (without a plan to back it) seems to be a mistake.
While NFTs can be a tool to connect your brand with your audience in the long run, think about how this will add value for them.
When launching an NFT project, clearly outline your vision about the role that the NFT project will take in your community structure and strategy. Think of the glue that will make people want to stick together.
P.S. You definitely don’t want to become this meme. So besides bringing “unique” NFT artworks, think of adding value to them.
In conclusion, remember this: marketing is a lot like building a product. There are principles to it, but it is exact science. There is a lot of experimentation behind it.
Understand the marketing principles and don’t hurt them.
Define your hypothesis about what your audience cares about, and add value in your context.
Understand the intentions behind every marketing initiative and action.
Observe the results, compare with the intentions layout out before and learn from it.
Act again, adjusting to your learnings.
Web3 is a fast-changing industry, that’s why we can’t leave you without up-to-date news. Here are the juiciest ones to share this week:
1/ Stacked, a streaming platform run by its community, raises $13M in funding. The Web3 alternative to Twitch aims to turn creators into shareholders by giving them governance tokens.
2/ a16z leads $50M in funding for NFT organization Proof Collective. It prepares to debut its latest NFT collection, including collabs with artists & curated releases.
3/ New York City museum plans to sell digital NFT artworks. After NFTs exploded in popularity last year, many museums moved to cash in on the craze — and Big Apple’s one isn’t an exclusion.
That’s it for today! Hope you found this week’s dose helpful 👋
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Talk soon,
The Epic Web3 team