How not to screw up the GameFi project entering the market?

Before moving on to the main theme of the material, I will allow myself a little lyrics.

It is no secret that every Founder considers his project the best in the market. I think each of you has heard at least once in your life that “we are the best because we are better”. This attitude to its project leads to the fact that in 90% of cases (if not in 98%) the product does not only fail, but is not even able to enter the market – there is no capital, and investors do not give money for development.

Web3 market will now be very. Every day there are releases of dozens of projects, which “accurately solve the user’s problem, will definitely allow him to earn money, as if we are sure of this”.

One of such victims was the Gamefi sphere. After the explosive growth of the niche began, thousands of projects filled the market, where every second became the clone of the previous one. Gamefi began to resemble a clone factory from Star Wars.

Of course, there are many projects that are able to benefit the market and have already found their Product/Market Fit. However, dozens of problems that they face at the Fandraizing stage prevent them from doing this.

Today we are not talking about this, but my first advice will be as simple as possible. Our wonderful Strategy Marketing Director Roman Aliyev prepared a simple checklist, which will help telling what stage of readiness for investment is the project. Take your time; First check yourself.

Now to the main topic.

Marketing is a key element for the project to enter the market. Even if your product has already succeeded, without marketing you cannot scale new gears.

The BDC team conducted analysis and research for dozens of GameFi projects, and today we want to reveal the topic of successful marketing tactics, which were based on the most successful of them.

An important point: This material is not a ready -made strategy for the display of your product to the market. Rather, this is a set of successful tactical elements with which you can strengthen the strategy.

Attract a new audience, but do not forget to stimulate Core users

Positioning is the basis of any marketing strategy. But it is more important to understand the audience you want to see in the project.

For example, you are going to conduct NFT Sale, where each NFT is an intra -game item. Who will you attract? I am sure that many will answer: users who want to earn on the Ixes, because the only way you can get money to attract new players.

Congratulations: adhering to such tactics, you are likely to kill the prospects of your project in the root. Fast money is good, but a lot of money (after all, everyone wants it, yes?) only loyal users will bring you.

And how to attract such users? We need a collaboration of grocery and marketing departments.

It is important to designate: Having spent a lot of money at once, you will not get a long -term result. It seems that it can be more effective: to reward players for any actions, to arrange endless contests for prize in USDT, to pour thoughtlessly traffic. Most likely, users will play your game (provided that you will give them money), but what will happen in the end?

All stories have already been told: there is one very large project periodically included in the top 5 games in volume. At the beginning of their journey, they had a completely different product, they poured more than $ 100K into the attraction of users into a very short period.

What they got? The volumes inside the game reached $ 550K (according to Dappradar). However, then the popularity of the application began to navigate sharply and irrevocably, because of which the team had to completely change the strategy and perform “Pivot” in order to preserve the audience.

Moreover, they did not just make another game: a whole platform appeared, with the promotion of which the team no longer made mistakes with the thoughtless pumping of the audience with money.

Do not forget that marketing should not be aimed exclusively at attracting a new audience: any product makes the same Core audience that has already joined the project.

Now let’s move on to specific steps.

Organize AirDrop and contests – But reward the participants with intra -game objects. So you give new users the opportunity to try your product.

Suppose you arranged two competitions: in the first prize-$ 50, and in the second-a NFT staff. What will the winner of the first competition do? Will earn. And the second? Will earn in perspective, But the main thing is that it will get the opportunity to try your product – which means that it can become part of your ecosystem. And bring you money in the future.

One of the popular elements – Creative contests in the community. For example, the user can present his character vision. This will allow the community to come to life, rally, communicate more.

But the best that you can give the user in gratitude for participation is to introduce the character he invented or the game element directly into the game. Imagine the enthusiasm of the players if during the competitions they will literally become part of the project: this is a great demonstration of care for players.

Refereal systems Also show themselves perfectly in Gamefi. Give users the opportunity to invite new participants and receive small gifts for this – for example, intra -game NFT for the largest number of players involved.

Here I would like to note the interesting case of ARC8, OSC bans KuCoin which, even before the official release, launched an application with token mining, implementing a referral system in it. Participants received +20% for each referral. Bottom line: 1.5 million users installed the application even before the official release of the platform.

Ambassadors. How to find good ambassadors and how to use them effectively? This is probably a topic for a separate material, but Tier-1 projects have found, in my opinion, the most trusting way to use opinions: Content. Yes, you can order advertising from influensers. But imagine that the TOP-1 influenter in GameFi makes weekly content for your blog. Moreover, he does not publish it on his channel, but only. And if it is also a stream-process? It’s like if you called Keanu Reeves into your shooter! Or it was already?

And remember that your competitors can become your friends. You already have similar audiences, and joint competitions in Discord will help both of them and your followers to find out about products. Perhaps over time it will result in something more?

Content marketing as an on -board tool

A good product not only gives the user value, but also completely immerses it in himself.

Ask yourself the question: what is most valuable to you in the crypto?

We can endlessly say that any Gamefi project is primarily a source of passive income for the player. But let’s think: how this will help to gain a foothold for a long time? Thoughtful mythology, complete immersion, the user’s love for the world in which he is – this is what will force him to return again and again. The fact that he will stimulate him to call friends in the game, create content about the product and share it with friends.

Imagine if Web2 games were sharpened exclusively to users’ earnings. What would happen if the players did not see another value in them? Then the entire Gamedev industry would simply depreciate over time and lose the audience.

Therefore, creating crypto players aimed at users who simply want to earn money in the emerging market (in the historical context of Web3, this is no longer an embryo, but still a baby), the phantors are in the framework of primitivism and creative impotence.

You can give the opportunity to collect all the cream from your project, but do not give the user anything more. And tomorrow he will go to another project, and the day after tomorrow – the next. Such users will never become your Core audience. The market develops very quickly, and the audience becomes more demanding.

Ask your audience: what is the market problem now? I suppose 8 out of 10 they will say that this is the quality of the games – they are uninteresting.

Study the market – and you will see that even the materials of most projects are made as cheap as possible. If we are talking about global adoption, we should look at the top classic projects: they do not allow themselves to produce cheapness.

That is why history, ENT (mythology) and content that you create around the game are so important. It is necessary to learn how to broadcast the story of the game in the same way as Blizzard does.

Do everything so that every post, each article immerses the user into the world in which he wants to stay. In the end, content marketing is one of the cheapest and most viral types of marketing.

And by the way, do not forget according to the Ama sessions: the more your community, the more information the followers want to receive from you.

Intra -game activity and collaborations

Perhaps it is from the product that this is the primary point. Conducting intra -game events, new collaborations, seasonal updates, adding new game content – all this allows you to increase the product metrics of the project.

It is on the deduction of the user that the earnings of the platform will depend. Not a one-time tributary of users makes the success of the project, but the satisfaction of the Core audience throughout their entire life cycle.

Fortunately, this is confirmed by Tier-1 projects: they drag their strategies for users and do not leave them without updates.

Take an example from games in Web2. Regularly introduce new seasons (for example, once a quarter, change the thematic design or quests), events in honor of the holidays and, most importantly, consider the interests of the audience.

Of the interesting cases, it can be noted how projects form guilds right inside their community and arrange a competition between them. For example, in honor of the players, the players can be divided into several planets (depending on the subject and content inside) and arrange a competition for the extraction of any information. In prizes, offer intra -game objects: let your users feel more comfortable in the game.

Do not forget to reinforce all the achievements of events on social networks and celebrate holidays together with users. This makes them feel that they are involved in something great.

We will also touch the collaboration – perhaps not the most obvious but very successful way to attract new users to the game.

• Release of a joint NFT collection with an exchange;
• A crossover with another GameFi project (for example, adding characters from it to your product);
• Everything you can agree on.

Yes, this is an overflow of the audience. But this is also a wonderful information water. What would happen if Marvel and DC arranged a similar? Of course, the scale is incomparable, but we are all dreamers!

Start with joint broadcasts, ama sessions, conferences, and subsequently arrange thematic events in games.

Bizdev as an integral part of success

Many greatly underestimate this direction, however, according to our observations, it is Bizdev who makes 80% of success for any project (we can again say that the law of Pareto works).

It may seem that partnerships are not so important for GameFi. After all, as we found out above, you only need to take into account the wishes of the audience and make the product you need, and success will come by itself.

But the reality is that none of the major projects has achieved success without partners and large investors. They become a guide to the Premier League, where everything else already depends solely on the project itself.

What is the correct Bizdev? After analyzing the Field of several projects, we revealed a consistent chain: strategic partners (for example, Animoca Brands) allow us to attract the attention of large investors (for example, Alameda). This, in turn, attracts the interest of large exchanges and launchpads (for example, Binance), which already attract the attention of the audience.

So what needs to be done to attract partners? Bizdev cannot take and go to the Animoca LPR, chat with it and make friends of two companies? Of course. Here is the game again and marketing enters. You must accustom yourself to the fact that successful fauners are public people. Speaken at conferences, organize your own mitaps and switch to the LEVEL UP event where you can get acquainted with future partners.

In secret: often more or less large events first require a record of a speech to make a decision whether to invite a speaker or not. All successful projects have either background, or connections, or both.

For example, the aforementioned ARC8 from a simple mobile application with reordinated made a qualitative leap in both content and product precisely after the start of cooperation with Animoca Brands. What happened next? Tokensele announced during the day on the website of the subsidiary of Animoca (not even launchpad) was sold in 7 minutes. At the start of the application, the project already had 1.5 million users and a partnership with Manchester City.

A very important point: all Tier-1 projects will immediately go out on large exchanges. It is almost impossible to do this without partners.

Instead of conclusions

The most important thing to understand is marketing is only part of the successful development of your project. First of all, you should make products with an eye on long -term prospects and desires of users. Without this, you cannot become part of the developing Web3 market and form your story on it.