Private: What Awaits Crypto Marketing in 2024: Expert Opinion
It is always interesting to see what your colleagues think about the industry and compare their opinions with your own. The last and the first days of the year are especially fruitful in this regard, as it is customary to share your predictions for the coming year.
At the end of 2023, one of the most interesting predictions (at least for the crypto marketing sphere) was published by Ty Smith, CEO of Coinbound.io, in his X (former Twitter). Mr. Smith is one of the most prominent players in the field of crypto and Web3 marketing, so it is worth it to take a closer look at his opinion, especially since his thread gives us a lot to talk about.
NFT Growth Renewal
The thread opens with the hottest take: Ty Smith expects that the NFT market will double in volume in 2024 from the current $40 billion to $80 billion by 2025. Such optimism can seem unfounded given the recent crash of the NFT market, but most experts do, in fact, agree with it, at least partially.
There are three major factors that will help the NFT market to grow this year:
- Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. A lot of crypto executives, from John Crain (CEO of SuperRare) to Jason Lau (OKX’s chief innovation officer), agree that RWA tokenization will be the main driver of the entire blockchain economy in the near future. And the drive will be spearheaded by the real estate market, where NFTs are already used.
- Blockchain gaming. Blockchain games and GameFi projects have been crucial components of the NFT market for years. However, major mainstream game development companies have only begun to dip their toes into the blockchain gaming space. Also, we can see the priorities of blockchain game developers shifting. NFTs stop being the main novelty factor that is supposed to carry the game — we see more and more projects focused on gameplay where NFTs are used to enhance the player experience.
- Bitcoin NFTs. In 2023, the first cryptocurrency gained its own version of non-fungible tokens — Bitcoin Ordinals. While there were a lot of controversies around the Ordinals and their use by malicious actors, their success is undeniable. By the end of the year, Bitcoin even overtook Ethereum by monthly volume of NFT sales, almost doubling Ethereum’s result ($744 million versus $391 million).
Naturally, not everything is sunshine and rainbows for the NFT market. Significant regulatory issues and some stigma surrounding NFTs are still present. So, it remains to be seen whether the market will actually double. However, even if the growth would be more modest, it is obvious that the NFT marketing segment will expand to meet the demand of the expanding market.
Further Decentralization of Both Finance and Marketing
Ty Smith expects that DeFi will grow at the expense of traditional finance. This is a reasonable assumption, given the marked improvement in user experience in the DeFi segment and the general maturation of the industry. The entire segment becomes more user-friendly and can rival TradFi in ease of use and quality of service.
Decentralization also affects the marketing industry in more ways than one. First, decentralized platforms for paid ads like Brave and Theta Network are gaining more and more traction by the day. Second, social media-based marketing communities like SafaryClub are rapidly growing in popularity and influence. A ‘hivemind’ of Web3 marketers gradually becomes a reality.
Thus, DeFi developers should be ready for even fiercer competition in 2024, and crypto marketing specialists have to adapt to a new reality with more decentralization in the industry than ever.
A New Surge of Influencer and Social Media Marketing
Social media is by far the most effective channel for crypto marketing and offers the best ROI out of all marketing channels, and the disparity between social media and other channels is only increasing. There is no indication that this trend will be reversed in 2024, so it would be a sound strategy to focus the majority of your marketing efforts on this segment.
Closely tied to social media is the topic of influencer marketing. Ty Smith expects that we will see a resurgence of crypto influencers in 2024. The overall trend toward more transparency in the Web3 segment can restore public trust in influencers and make them even more valuable for marketing in a few months than they are today.
AI Usage in Crypto Marketing
The proliferation of AI technologies influences all aspects of our lives and economy, and marketing isn’t an exception.
In 2024, AI tools will provide invaluable assistance in analytics. It will be much easier to analyze consumer behavior, tailor marketing campaigns to specific audiences, and optimize campaigns on the fly with the help of AI. It is hard to argue with this point.
We at ICODA, however, would like to caution against overreliance on AI tools for content creation. AI-generated content is still relatively easy to spot and can easily cause negative reactions from the audience.
Increase in Competition and Budgets
Ty Smith predicts that advertising budgets will go up across the board. Digital ad spending has been growing consistently for half a decade now, and there are no signs of a trend reversal.
However, marketers should not forget that with bigger budgets comes fiercer competition. The “arms race” in crypto marketing is at full speed, and it is essential to keep up with the ever-changing environment and stay ahead of the curve. Effective use of all the tools available and precise tailoring of marketing campaigns means more than the raw size of the budget.
