NFTs are becoming more mainstream by the day, but what does this mean for small business? Everything. Today we’ll focus on a few marketing ideas.
If your small business doesn’t have a marketing plan for NFT’s, do you really own a business?
I worked in marketing for most of my professional career – including being a Chief Creative Officer for a digital branding company with 20 employees and over 150 customers and clients. I know a marketing plan takes a lot of time to put together. I also know a good marketing plan can take years to execute.
Since the early days of the Internet, the marketing plan put forth by most digital marketing firms follow the same path: branding, website, socials, email, and SEO. Followed by paid advertisements.
Enter the NFT:
NFTs greatly increase the chance that your marketing plan could be turned on it’s head – by the competition. Especially if the competition beats you to the punch of getting into and releasing NFTs.
Faster and more nimble businesses, able to transition their focus quickly, always have an advantage. But they will double their advantage if their focus suddenly becomes NFTs and giving their customers value in other ways.
How?
Let’s imagine you have a pest control business and it’s your goal to keep your older, loyal customers; while still attracting new younger customers who you hope will stay with you longer.
You may need to incorporate an NFT loyalty program into your marketing plan.
The longer a customer has been with you, the ‘bigger’ the NFT. Customers can “earn” NFTs simply by staying longer. And of course, you always encourage the customer to remain a customer to “collect the whole set”. When that set is collected, release another set, and keep the momentum.
As examples, the NFT can be badge (silver, gold, platinum), a trading card set with a pest on it and information about the pest, or it can be your mascot doing different activities (NFTs can be practically anything, but the objective of a small business having an NFT is to incentivize your customer) . Whatever it is, it needs to have value outside the pest control ecosystem – meaning, your customer could potentially sell the item and make money from it. People always love “free”, but they love valuable free stuff even more.
And guess what? If they ever sold their free NFT, as part of the smart contract you could receive a royalty. For each and every one that sold, no matter how many times, your business could “make money” from those NFTs.
But what if the adoption is low?
Imagine you set up your NFT loyalty program but the adoption isn’t high. No Purchase Necessary raffles are a great way to increase adoption – and keep in contact with your customers. “Opt-in to our NFT loyalty program and be entered to win X”. Whatever X is, a large screen TV or a car, you’ve just added more value to the proposition (and yet another reason for your customer to sign up and remain a customer).
Now, let’s talk partnerships:
You’ve dropped your NFT to your customer but you want them to have more ‘utility’ than simply be a .jpeg. This is where local partnerships can come into play.
Let’s say Sally’s Ice Cream Shop is one of your favorite places to go, but her business is down and she needs some help. Maybe your customers can show Sally they own your NFT and receive a free scoop of ice cream, and she can ‘up-sell’ a sundae and a soda.
Have a baseball team in town? Already advertise with the team? Partner with the team to give out bobbleheads for showing your NFT. Have your NFT showing on the big screen. Invite others to become customers and get their own NFTs.
And reciprocate. Be open to Sally having an Ice Cream NFT that her customers can show you for a 20% discount on the first service (in addition to getting YOUR NFT).
There are always 1,000,000 partnerships that can be created in a community.
Enter the Press:
NFTs are a ‘hot’ press item. “Local Business Releases It’s Own NFT, Partners With Others” is a great headline. A TV interview, a newspaper article or two. Maybe even a sit down on a radio show or podcast. Everyone wants to talk about NFTs. You lead, they’ll follow. And you can’t put a price on ‘free publicity’.
Conclusion:
We’ll talk more about marketing and NFTs in subsequent posts, but the main thing this article was meant to do is to open your mind to the possibility that your small business can join the NFT revolution too.
NFTs are the equivalent of the 1995 Internet – the dawn of a new era. And they aren’t going anywhere. In fact, the blockchain technology that powers them will one day soon power everything. It only makes sense for business to get in early, because the sooner you get in, the better positioned you will be.
An Aside:
The elephant in the room when it comes to traditional digital marketing firms (like the one I used to work with), and I can tell you this first hand – most don’t yet understand NFTs, and yet they are jumping on the bandwagon to sell services centered around NFTs without this understanding. Don’t be lead astray.
NFT Creative Group does understand. We welcome you to get in touch: NFTCreativeGroup@gmail.com
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