This tale unveils the present trajectory of marketing and foresees its transformative evolution to meet the demands of Web3 marketing.
Digital Marketing's Doppelgangers: The Issue of Duplicate Roles
It all began with traditional marketing mostly characterized by word of mouth, signages and billboards, then the internet became more user friendly and the term digital marketing was coined and ever since, we've witnessed a variety of roles in marketing. For instance, we have roles such as;
- Social media manager
- Product marketing manager
- Content marketing specialist
- Growth Marketing Specialist
- Content strategist
- Digital Marketing Manager
- Public relations manager
- Sales manager
It can be observed that certain roles are duplicated under different umbrellas.
These are just a few of the many marketing roles that are available today. The specific roles that are available will vary depending on the size and type of business. However, the abundance of marketing roles can create confusion due to blurred lines between them.
"Growth Marketing is tautology"
The author of this tweet believes that marketing efforts should be focused on growth, both in terms of acquiring new customers and retaining existing customers and there shouldn't be a demarcation for a specific marketing activity as all should be geared towards growth.
Marketing should be done with growth in mind. That's why it sounds like you're saying the same word twice but in a different way with "Growth Marketing".
“Hiring a Growth Marketer when you have other marketers in a team is a waste of resources”.
For context, Asun is a spicy grilled goat meat dish that is popular in Nigeria.
How to hire marketing professionals
You can follow this conversation on Twitter here
Clear cut out roles, better results
With vivid focus on building a community, roles like Community manager are in high demand in the Web3 ecosystem to help nurture the community for growth.
In addition, marketing professionals hired should be knowledgeable to tackle key demands that drive growth other than splitting the roles.
Root ownership -building brand evangelists
In view of the next phase of the internet evolution - Web3, there is a new direction on empowering users with ownership. Amanda Cassatt, the Web3 Marketing Queen says this in the most apt way:
If a brand "going into web3" does not actually offer people real root ownership of their digital assets, then it's not a real web3 onboarding.
The core of what makes something web3 is ensuring it has the benefit of offering people self sovereign, root ownership of their assets.
The main benefit of web3 is this idea that you, the individual, can hold your own asset in a way, or no one can take it away from you, someone could steal your Ledger, someone could hack your MetaMask, but the root ownership lies with you.
“Real root ownership” as described by Amanda, translates Web3 into a community centric environment.
With a community centric approach, you spend less on marketing
I’ve worked in Web3 and crypto since 2013 and have never worked with a project that spent meaningful money on sales and marketing. You don’t need to spend money on marketing when users are genuine owners, love what they do, and love telling other people about it.
Web3 allows the users and builders who create networks to own a meaningful piece of them, while also unlocking powerful new tools for entrepreneurs.
Community-Led Marketing against Product-Led Marketing
It's now about talking with and not talking to.
Community - A group of real humans(not bots😏) with pure interests, working together to solve problems and have stakes in the network.
That is the reason why Web3 businesses create comfortable online environments on Discord, Telegram, Reddit, or wherever they deem fit for community members to interact, ask questions, and participate in the good of the product. This new approach creates a sense of ownership among community members, which motivates them to contribute.
The evangelistic tendency of community members is by far higher due to inclusion- people will happily engage in referrals to win more rewards which gives them a sense of ownership and pride in the community.
Product-led marketing (PLM) on the other hand, are marketing activities led based on a product's features or type. The products in this case may be more appealing to the target audience if they are presented in a way that emphasizes their utility or their ability to solve problems.
The marketing strategy is focused on the product as the major driver of acquisition, conversion, and retention and that's why one of the most common ways of inviting users in this model, especially in SAAS is by providing free trials.
Web3 marketing’s Go-To-Market strategy employs 3 technologies, with Community being a pivotal metric to access growth.
Web3 is unveiling loopholes in marketing
Web3 hopes to achieve a more transparent path, removing blurry lines and etching bolder lines for users to really trust the system.
A number of things marketers have become familiar with in Web2 will be discarded for the Web3 mandate to be fulfilled. Here is a list of things that will change:
- Value over volume
With a community-centric audience, marketers will focus on providing value through the content types at their disposal, rather than feeling content with providing vanity metrics (numbers that can't be accounted for).
This is important because it will lead to more marketers building marketing strategies from scratch, rather than buying followers and bulk email lists as the "easy" way out.
- Talking with against talking to
Marketers should be ready to expect feedback openly from members, rather than just posting. Be open to suggestions from members and consistently find ways to improve communication. More deliberate efforts will be made to have a conversation with the target audience rather than a one-sided communication where only one person is talking.
- Marketing for growth and not merely as a task
As someone who has worked in a SAAS company as a Content Marketing Manager, I am aware of the tendency to post on social media because "today is Monday" hence Monday motivation, or to make a draft of an encapsulated religious activity called a social media calendar to put out specific types of posts on particular days of the week, especially if you have a superior that is wowed by vanity metrics🤧.
It can be tempting to follow these trends, but it is important to create content that is authentic and relevant to your audience. If you are only posting on social media because it is Monday or because you have a social media calendar, your community will be able to tell. They will be more likely to engage with your content if it is something that they are interested in and that they can relate to.
It's not wrong to create social media calendars, however they should be flexible enough to communicate effectively with your community members. Discard stiff contents that go all formal and provide no value.
- Messaging
As we gradually journey from Product-Led Marketing to Community-Led Marketing, the messaging will have to change.
In most cases, products are screaming "please come use me" with the free trials and bombarded ads, while that is an attempt at marketing, it is assumed that no useful product pushes that narrative.
The messaging for Community-Led Marketing should focus on the ways in which the community can help users solve their pain points and the other benefits attached.
By focusing on the community, marketers can create a more authentic and engaging marketing message that will resonate with potential users.
Web3 marketing requires community growth for advanced benefits of the users in the community when the product solves actual pain points.
- Incorporating ownership
For marketers in Web2 SAAS companies hoping to dare differently, and tilt towards Web3 you can try this out.
It's important to note that Web3 is still in its early stages so marketers are very much in a full experimentation stage to find out what works and what doesn't.
In terms of giving your target audience, a sense of belonging, product-led companies can choose to tokenize their utility for the following reasons:
- Access to exclusive content or features
- Discounts or rewards
- Voting rights
The goal is for both parties to win😊
You can package your company's value and purpose and place it inside a token that prospects and customers own. These token holders form a community, and the community works together to increase the token's value (yes, if done right, it can later be swapped for real cash). This increases the value of your company.
You can find out in detail how to go about this 👉