NFT Social Media Marketing: Do THIS Before Running Paid Ads!
It only took 7 minutes to eat up my entire daily ad budget of $250. I lost my virginity, and it cost me!
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Last week we shared how to build an NFT community on Discord. You can listen or read to that one by clicking here.
In today’s newsletter you’ll learn:
- I paid $250 to lose my virginity
- Fine line between success and failure
- This is horse of a different color
- PS — Resist the dark side
$250 to lose my virginity! (it’s not what you think!)
Twenty-something years ago when I first started playing around with paid advertising, I was a young and naive… a “virgin” you might say. I was intrigued and ready to make the big bucks!
And then my innocence was taken from me.
I still remember my first. She was young… in fact, as inexperienced as I was. It was a new relationship, one I was prepared pay dearly for, and was ready to offer whatever was needed to be with her.
I trembled as I imagined what was about to happen. I still remember my nervousness as I reached out and touched her for the first time. I knew there would be a cost, and while part of me knew I may not have been ready, I could not resist her lure.
With my experience lagging behind my false sense of self-confidence, I thought twice before pulling my credit card out of my wallet. But I did it nonetheless, and it was at this moment I knew I was committed. There was no backing out. I was ready to score.
I remember the pure excitement, and while I knew I should start slowly, my enthusiasm took over and I gave in. Unfortunately, as it tends to go with the inexperienced, it was over in what felt like seconds! My $250 was gone.
.
Yes my friends… it only took around 7 minutes for whatever search engine I was running ads on at the time to eat up my entire daily ad budget of $250. Yes, I had some clicks, but it was a complete loss...
I’ve come a long way since, and while I won’t pretend to be the world’s greatest with paid campaigns, I have learned plenty. Between my own experiences, (both positive AND negative!) trial and error, testing, and lots and lots of paid “how to” courses and seminars on everything marketing… I am sure I can help.
A fine line between success and failure
As I said once before in a past newsletter, running a paid ad campaign can either make you wealthy, or send you into bankruptcy. What’s odd, is how fine the line is between success and failure.
There are a host of things you should know, as well as prepare for before running ads. Most of these are common sense or can be found with a quick google search.
- Have a decent website
- Have a budget set aside
- Know who your target market is, and their demographics
- Use great artwork and copy
- Learn to do keyword research
- Set clear goals, and know what success looks like
- Start small and test as you spend more
Most people see what bigger brands do and try to model something similar. Unfortunately, the difference between a small business (or an NFT collection) and a major brand is easily overlooked.
Coke, Amazon, and Proctor and Gamble are both established, AND can toss a fast $million at a campaign without blinking an eye.
You. Can’t.
So… to balance the playing field, we need to be more creative and use what’s known as “direct response marketing”.
DRM is when you don’t concentrate on getting the sale first… you concentrate on getting some type of RESPONSE from a potential client first, and then pursue the sale afterwards.
I know! It sounds counter-intuitive. Let me ‘splain, Lucy!
In direct response marketing, we first going make a free or inexpensive offer that people who are interested in the game, nft, project, or whatever it is will likely respond to.
We offer a free ebook, checklist, guide, or even a free NFT if it makes sense, to get them to say “heck yeah, that’s for me!”. It’s like tossing out a wide net and let the right people swim into it. When they accept the offer, we capture their name and email address… and bingo!
This is the start of an email list of prospects who have already raised their hand (by taking the initial offer) and showed us they are likely someone interested in our main, or “core offer”.
Once we have this list created, we can take our time and wine and dine this prospect by creatively emailing until they make a purchase, join our Discord, place an order or grab our core offer. (or tell us to leave them the heck alone lol!)
I’m sure you’ve found yourself on plenty of newsletters, subscriptions, and email lists over the years. Now you know WHY they create that beautiful “how to xyz” guide, or “let you” get that free book by mail and only pay the shipping! (to sell you the $500 course after you read it!)
In a prior newsletter I explained WHY you should at least use this to create a weekly newsletter, you can read or listen to that one by clicking here. At the LEAST, every NFT collection should be doing this.
It reminds them on a weekly basis you’re still around, shows project activity, is a way to contact the people who don’t visit Discord, share news and events… and you can even sell other things to this list down the line if you wish.
There’s ZERO downside. (I can set this up for you if you like as well)
I also wrote how the automation works. That one is found here. I suggest reading them both before getting started.
Now for a horse of a different color!
So now that you have a decent idea of what direct response marketing is, let’s get more specific on how to use it.
This is not what most brands do when they start running ads for their NFT project. However, if you’re willing to be a little different and learn something new, it can save you money, grow a nice mailing list, and help raise the floor.
The examples I included above are just a few of the usual things that are done to prepare for an ad campaign. They are pretty common, and it’s easy enough to do a search and find plenty more help to get the basics down.
However, the things that I want to cover today won’t usually be on those lists at all, and unless you know what to search for, you’ll probably never stumble upon them.
Those would include:
- A landing page
- A lead magnet and offer
- An autoresponder
Like I said, you won’t see these used much in the NFT industry except by true pros. It’s not that people make a decision to go without, it’s that they have never heard of these special techniques and strategies.
1 — A landing page. A landing page, sometimes called a “squeeze page”, is a special one-page website (or a special page on your website) that is made in a certain way to convert viewers into prospects by capturing their email address.
You SHOULD NOT be running paid advertising and sending clicks to your website homepage. No no no NO NO!
If you’re sending paid ads to your homepage, you’re losing money.
When they click on your ad and you send them to your website, they look at the pictures, click around a bit, scroll up and down, watch a video… WOW! They like you!
Since you never actually asked them do DO SOMETHING, they browse, and eventually the phone rings, the pizza guy shows up, an email dings, a text comes in… and POOF… they close your page and are off.
No problem, right? Maybe they even bookmarked your site!
WRONG. You’ll never see them again. (statistics overwhelmingly prove this)
It’s one thing when they came to your website from Facebook or Twitter. It’s a whole other ball of wax when you just paid $30-$50 in ad fees to get that single visitor.
The solution?
2- The lead magnet and offer. You should be sending them to a single page with NO LINKS and an offer for something cheap/free and attractive.
This is called a “lead magnet”. The reason we don’t have any links on the page is we don’t want them to scroll around “browsing”, just to leave when the pizza shows up. The less there is to look at and think about, the more likely they will take the offer.
We want to them to register… or leave.
We also know that statistically, they won’t leave if the offer is something that has a high perceived value and is attractive to the type of person you are trying to attract. Your goal isn’t to make a sale. (yet!) It’s to get the lead.
As an example, I sent the following message to a collectable card game project I’m building this system for… here is what I suggested:
I still like the idea of a couple of free cards, or a free monthly collectable card for subscribers ONLY… if you don’t claim it this month, it’s gone forever. (it will keep people subscribed longer as well) “Did you get May of 2023?”!
Or I feel we should write an ebook to offer a free ”History of Collectable Trading Card Games”. (or similar) And then we tag on something else for the ones who try and decline. (using an exit-pop form)
It doesn’t need to be exactly this, but you get the idea. Maybe “A guide to winning and profiting from collectable trading card games!” If we properly target card gamers the majority will take it.
THE WHY: We write the ebook with other games included, but it’s FULL OF pictures, examples, and subtle info about Champs. We got ’em! Especially if there’s a chart or something to go back to so they won’t ever delete it…
These are things that someone who is into collectable card games would go for.
They have a good perceived value, are attractive, and can be created and delivered digitally, for a very low cost.
They see the offer, add their email address to get it, and BOOM! Now we can email them every week. (or every day)
Capturing their info so you can touch them over and over is ALWAYS BETTER statistically than them seeing your page once and leaving.
By the way, if you’re interested in new, fun blockchain based card game, come play a few rounds with us… yea, I’m hooked too! (there are tourneys daily that are free to join, and payout ca$H!)
Check it out: https://champsofmagic.com
3 — An autoresponder. An autoresponder is the software system that we use to tie it all together. It will provide the forms that show the offer, collect the email addresses when the form is completed, send them the freebie and a welcome email, and add them to the list.
Bazinga! It’s like shooting fish in a barrel…
That’s only the start of what an autoresponder can do. You can pre-write and schedule from one to dozens of emails and have them go out automatically, for as long into the future and as far apart as you like. It can send one now, another in a day, another 3 days after that, and so on, and so on, and so on! (and you only write them once)
It will skip weekends if you like, test the responses you get from one to the next, and tag your visitors based on a plethora of options. If you want to send a special message to anyone who signed up on a Tuesday, then a new and different message or series of messages to your Monday group, you can.
By the way, we call this entire system and sequence a “sales funnel”.
My 2 favorite autoresponders are “Groove” and MailerLite. Give a click and play with them, both have free options.
They’re each a tad different, so I’d suggest letting me know what you’re doing in our Community Discord and I can help you choose.
Or if you like, I can build the whole kit and kaboodle for ya…
They do a lot… but my suggestion for an NFT collection? Just start with a simple newsletter, sent once a week. Like this one!
If you need help ask for it… if you don’t, PROVE IT!
Nick Cifonie
PS — Resist the dark side!
-Just as an aside… do NOT hire your nephew or cousin to run your paid ad campaign. I don’t think I need to say this, but I have heard it 100 times.
“Nah, we won’t need you guys to handle our ads, my nephew is doing it. He knows social media really well too, and has 5,000 followers on TikTok!”
And in 90 days we get a call back, along with some story about the nephew getting their account banned or losing $10,000 or such:
“Um, can you squeeze us in for that ad thing?”.
I resist telling them “I told you so”…
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