PR and marketing

As we’ve seen, constant communication with consumers in a crisis is essential. Users are far less likely to forgive an exchange for a hack or service disruption if they’re greeted with radio silence when they’re trying to find out what’s going on.

Pavel Jakovlev, a strategic advisor to several crypto and blockchain companies, said the worst thing a platform can do with its communication strategy is to promise things and fail to deliver. He added:

“Crypto is driven by its community. If any crypto business is honest and transparent with its community — it will command respect. Overpromise and underdeliver — and there’s a risk to lose the community.”

According to Jakovlev, social media works wonders, and Twitter and Telegram are the crypto industry’s go-to channels, especially when wooing new users. “Once customers are acquired, email marketing is the way to go,” he added.

The big challenge when marketing a new exchange is ensuring campaigns acknowledge there’s a broad cross-section of users out there, and each of them has different needs and wants. The desires of traders and institutional investors are vastly different from crypto novices who are looking to purchase Bitcoin for the first time, but Jakovlev said there are a few areas where their interests overlap:

Intersection of interests

Ease of use.
Fast deposits and withdrawals.
On- and off-ramps to fiat.

An array of trading pairs.
Good liquidity in altcoins.
Leveraged products.

Strong security.

Emphasizing this in marketing materials can help. In the experience of Scalable Solutions CEO Mark Berger, margin trading, a robust API, lending products, charting tools and futures contracts also tend to be universally desired.

Jakovlev said the big challenge when marketing a new exchange is that there is a limited number of existing customers, with most trading across two to five platforms. He added that the best strategy is to target these users with distinctive offers — and warned that luring people to trade exclusively on one exchange takes a lot of effort. To get the best results, he recommended a mix of online and offline marketing campaigns, ranging from ads on Google and social media to physical giveaways and merchandise. He said:

“Creativity and current marketing and advertising technologies can do wonders these days.”

Jakovlev also encouraged new exchanges to focus on growing their communities in different countries — and was upbeat about the opportunities that are out there:

“There are crypto trading hubs in Ukraine, India, Turkey, Russia, Indonesia and others. Asia is particularly interesting, as folks there living the crypto lifestyle. Find your communities, nurture them and offer them something special. Continue to underpromise and overdeliver.”

Berger said demand for off-the-shelf exchanges is particularly strong in Latin America and Asia, with mobile trading applications proving especially popular in developing economies.

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