Marketing in web3 is all based on certain cognitive biases, when you know and apply them, your conversion rate skyrockets.

While working for over 5 web3 brands I found out that these cognitive biases form the heart of collaboration, community building, community journey, and web3 marketing at large.

We would be looking at these cognitive biases in web3 marketing
1. Deprival Superreaction Tendency (Scarcity)
2. Reciprocation Tendency (Kantian fairness tendency)
3. Inconsistency Avoidance Tendency
4. Lollapalooza Tendency

Don’t mind the funny words, I can assure you that you would have used one or more of them without even knowing it

Now you’ll get to know why they are important in web3 and how they can help maximize conversion

Amazing right?

Well then, let’s get to it

— Deprival Superreaction Tendency

Otherwise known as scarcity simple states that

The more limited an offer is, the more our hearts are drawn to it and we are compelled to take action especially when it’s within a time frame

This is commonly used in web2 and has now come to form the foundation of web3 — Scarcity.

The reason why people pay hundreds of dollars for a jpeg or any other form of NFT is not just because of its utility but also its scarcity

People love to OWN something EXCLUSIVE

I’m sure you’ve heard about scarcity a million times, so let’s move to the more serious ones.

To better understand the ‘more serious ones’ let’s look at web3 marketing from the beginning

As with any kind of marketing you first

Find Your Audience

You find your audience by looking for a hungry crowd, not rich folks

Gary Halbert once said, and I paraphrase

Take a crowd with money to pay, take the best location… Take every marketing advantage and just leave me with a hungry crowd yet I’ll still sell way more than you”

He didn’t just say these words, he proved them

That is telling us that before you even create your product you first look for what people are hungry for (a problem or need), the crowd who are hungry for it (your audience) and then you can create a solution (your product)

Once this is done, we can move to the next step.

Look for Where They are Gathered

Don’t go sourcing out for them one after the other

No no, that’s like finding a needle in a hay sack or using a fishing net to capture a pin

People exist in clusters, they form groups based on similar interests from music to football clubs and the list goes on

It’s even common to see fans of a particular celebrity create a community for themselves and give themselves a name

Bringing it to web3, every project and brand has its values, vibe and interests.

We see that people who resonate with a project’s vibe and interests cluster around and be a part of its community which could be on a discord server, telegram channel, email list and so on

So let’s say you have a gaming project you are looking to market

You look for your target audience in places they would likely be clustered like gaming alpha groups, gaming YouTube channels, Guilds, gaming projects, gaming newsletters and gaming podcasts.

Create a spreadsheet of communities under the listed sub-niche

Plan a Strategic Outreach

You see, a gaming Guild will have a community manager. A gaming podcast will have a podcaster…

Just beside each community on your spreadsheet, write out the names of the community head

Then create an irresistible offer tailored to each of these communities, something that offers jaw-dropping value to the team

Your mode of contact to get access to those communities is the community head.

Usually, the collaboration and partnership manager is in charge of overseeing everything relating to marketing and is your best bet to strike such deals.

When the collaboration has been agreed upon and planned, we move to the next phase

Engage With The Community

There has to be a form of communication between you and the community you are collaborating with, after all, they are the ones you are after, not the community head

And if they don’t KNOW anything about your project, how can they TRUST you, and if they don’t trust you, how can they MINT?

You can set up a Twitter space, AMA, interview… basically anything that gets you to connect with them

My mentor said

“Engagement is a key factor in conversion”

How true

While some projects/communities might not be interested in an AMA, you can always engage with the community in this least talked-about way

It makes the whole process even more interesting

The method is to make the WL giveaway, not a raffle or FCFS but a form of registration where they click your link and register to be whitelisted

Now, I know some projects have been employing this strategy, however, none has maximized the full potential

Do you know as a way to engage with this your “soon-to-be” community members, you can upload a 5-15mins video on that registration page and attach the transcript for those who are more text inclined?

How cool is that?

In the video, you will appeal to the emotions and logic of your customers, talk about what’s in it for them, sell your product, tell them what they stand to gain and how it’ll Improve their status

If you aren’t a good salesman, get a fluent and persuasive one to do the video

Once they are in, 30% of the work is complete

Get Them on an Unforgettable Customer Journey.

Literally, take the community on a journey they’ll never forget, let them be a part of building the roadmap, making suggestions, games, activities… As we established during our talk, people love to be a part of a community so it’s your duty to make them feel like they belong.

Give them a reason to click on your server every day

You can assign specific events to days like Follow Friday, Movie Monday, and Trivia Tuesday…
That way they resonate and feel like a part of your community

This is where The Reciprocation Tendency comes to play

Reciprocation Tendency states that

You can’t ask people to take an action if you haven’t done anything for them

So give them at least 3 things for free… Anything, it becomes a killer when those things you offer are associated with your product.

If you have done your research and know their likes, it won’t be hard to find some sort of value you could offer for free

It could be a free video explaining how to do something really hard

Just ensure that you track how many people say yes to your offers, or as I like to call them “Selling pitches”

The deal here is that when you have given your community 3 valuable stuff for free and you present your product to them, they almost feel compelled to buy because their mind has been looking for ways to repay you

They naturally want to reciprocate.

We have all felt this cognitive bias, if someone buys you a birthday present, you would like to reciprocate the gesture

The point of all this is to lead them on another cognitive bias called Inconsistency Avoidance Tendency

Inconsistency Avoidance Tendency states that

It’s easier to resist at the beginning than at the end
~ Leonard Da Vinci

How it works is that when you get the community members on this memorable journey, from the decision-making to the sales pitches you get them in a form of commitment

And with every step, they get deeper into the commitment until the mint day

So at the mint they have already done amazing things in the community, said yes to all of your sales pitches, played games with other members, voted for major changes — they are already too invested to say No

They now identify with the community and that’s just it

Let’s talk about mint day for 20 seconds

What happens on the mint day?

When they click the button, they get transferred to the mint page

Let’s say you’ve done a good job with all we discussed, plus you kept a killer copy with your offer, guarantee, credibility and benefits of minting

What happens is that all the cognitive biases you employed — scarcity, Reciprocation tendency and inconsistency avoidance tendency — begin to work all at once

They remember the amazing customer journey you took them through, the massive value you gave for free and how far they have come in building the community

That point where all those cognitive biases are in effect all at once is called the Lollapalooza effect

Phhew! That was a long ride, I hope you enjoyed every bit of it. Don’t forget to put ’em into practice, after all applied knowledge is power.

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