Here is a fact: nearly every single blockchain and crypto company believes that their technology is the best.
But let’s be realistic — there are more than 5,000 cryptocurrencies in the market today, and thousands of emerging blockchain companies are all competing for a voice in global media and marketing channels. Every one of them is attempting to demonstrate why their product is #1.
On top of this, it is a very tricky time to get your company’s story heard. The media is distracted by issues of politics, health crises and market disruption, and the last thing journalists probably care about is your newly launched application, product or partnership.
But there is always a way to make your project relevant no matter what the circumstances. This is the art of PR. It’s noisy out there, but you have a shot — your product or service can be number one for someone. All you need to do is realign with what your company originally set out to do, and articulate how you provide solutions to issues concerning the community at this time — particularly when these times are tough. Let me explain.
Traditional forms of advertising just don’t cut it like they used to. To be heard, you need to tell your story in a compelling, authentic and genuine way.
Come back to your vision and mission statement
Consider the reason why you’re doing what you’re doing and why your company decided to venture out and build in the first place. The media relevance of your story starts with your mission and vision statement. These statements are often overlooked by businesses, but they are the fundamental core of your brand.
Your mission statement clarifies who you are and what you do as a company. It explains who you are serving and how you’re serving them.
Your vision statement demonstrates your goals and what you hope to become. It is the larger problem you are solving for the greater good that will capture the media’s attention. It’s human nature for people to care about how a product or service will benefit them right now and highlighting this will help strengthen your story.
Workshop your mission and vision statements before you consider any form of marketing or PR.
The newsworthiness of your value proposition will garner headlines
Let’s face it, not every announcement you make will be the most riveting announcement for the media. But there is always a way to shape your story in line with the news and frame it around what people want to know about.
This is where the art of PR comes in. It involves turning even the blandest pieces of information into enticing stories that can be inserted into the media narrative.
I’ll use an example here of one of our clients. Client X is an international cryptocurrency exchange — one of more than 200. The client uses Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency technologies to develop real-world financial products. Their mission is to empower individuals to take control of their financial freedom by accessing new and alternative forms of wealth.
This is critical right now when most nation’s fiat systems are crumbling. Inflation is on the rise, and many countries are already entering a recession never seen since the Great Depression.
This client recently announced a new tool that allows traders to obtain a quote on a fixed and agreed-upon price before purchase, enabling movement through larger orders without drastic price changes. The product is called an Over-the-Counter Request-for-Quote (OTC RFQ) tool. The OTC RFQ limit was $100,000. It’s not the most news-grabbing of information, and barely seems like the kind of news announcement that would make the headlines.
The client wasn’t the first to announce this tool, and they definitely won’t be the last. But their story landed in the most widely read top tier cryptocurrency and blockchain press, CoinDesk. How? By framing their story in relation to what was happening in the media and how they provide a solution to current crises.
Our client informed us that the moment the OTC RFQ tool went live, they had hundreds of customers, many of which were entering the world of Bitcoin, who were asking if they could increase the limits of the tool. In response to this request, they upped the limit of the OTC RFQ to $1,000,000.
This story was successful because the pitch tied in to what was happening in the world. In the media that week, for the first time in history oil fell in value into the negatives. The world began witnessing artificially low-interest rates and the worst market volatility of living time. Bitcoin wallets were on the rise, and finally people were seeing the alternative form of finance as a considerable store of value.
Leverage your opinion as part of the story
Here’s another example. Another client assists companies, institutions and high networth individuals with an end-to-end service of tokenizing assets and investing in them. Asset tokenization — the process of declaring ownership rights to an asset in digital form — is opening new market channels of wealth. It is an incredibly exciting and fruitful emerging industry, with estimations showing that more than $544 trillion worth of assets can become tokenized in the future, and our client believes it is those who understand its value who will reap the benefits of these news forms of wealth.
Not many investors have wrapped their heads around how it works and why its so important to understand right now, and this provided our client with an opportunity to educate and inform investors and readers about tokenizing digital assets. The conversation surrounding tokenization has emerged in the media narrative this year as investors feel a high level of uncertainty about where they should be investing their wealth. Fiat currency value is on the decline and more reliable stores of value including tokenized gold are on the rise.
To take advantage of this opportunity an exclusive opinion piece on the tokenization revolution and the area where this technology is flourishing was the best way for our client to demonstrate their expertise in line with investor thirst for new asset classes. From precious metals to real estate and art, entrepreneurs and investors who understand this space are already capitalizing on it. For those who don’t understand that the sky is truly the limit when it comes to what you can tokenize (see people who are tokenizing themselves here), they will inevitably fall behind. As investors seek new forms of wealth as fiat becomes less reliable, an opinion piece was the best way for our client to share the story of their product in top tier media.
Getting your crypto or blockchain company in the media doesn’t need to be an impossible feat. We live in a world where everyone is shouting to break through the noise, and are throwing money at advertising platforms to get their story heard. But traditional forms of advertising just don’t cut it like they used to. To be heard, you need to tell your story in a compelling, authentic and genuine way. This is how you can make your company’s technology number one to people out there, even when times seem dire.