To Market, or Not to Market Ethereum

Is that even a question?

To market, or not to market?

The question has been a hot topic for discussion in the Ethereum community as of late.

From MarketingDAO opening for proposals to commentary from leaders throughout the ecosystem, everyone seems to have an opinion on whether or not — and how — to market Ethereum.

In this article, I’ll share some of the opinions shaping this conversation and share my thoughts as a marketing professional who’s spent the last three years helping startups and their audiences understand decentralized technologies.

Conflicting Opinions

Ethereum Foundation community manager Hudson Jameson admitted that his opinion on marketing Ethereum has changed:

Jameson goes on to say, “It’s normally the tech that appeals to the most people by getting their name out,” which is a great point. Developing new technology for mass adoption is as much of a social challenge as it is technological.

Developers may work on obscure projects for large paychecks but the platforms they use when building their portfolios are probably the ones that will see some degree of longevity.

In his blog, DeFi Dude explains:

“I’m not against marketing Ethereum at this point. I’m also not directly for it either…There’s no use in explaining the greatness of DeFi and other concepts when the user would have a very hard time using it in the first place…

This is also a fair point. Most dApps and DeFi products aren’t ready for users who aren’t already familiar with Ethereum, however, users are far from the only audience marketing efforts could be targeted at.

Quantstamp community manager @safetyth1rd notes that progress on certain technologies within the Ethereum community aren’t always well-communicated to outside audiences.

While I can’t speak to communication on the development of decentralized infrastructure, I’ve struggled in my work to encourage greater communication between dApp developers working to solve similar problems.

Successes and Failures

The best example of effective marketing in the Ethereum community I can think of was the campaign to establish DeFi (decentralized finance).

A group of companies with different approaches to FinTech development got together, defined their common ground, and successfully promoted their brand and principles in a way the community has embraced.

Lessons to take away from this:

1. Communication is key

Taking the time to coordinate a collaborative approach helped amplify the message once it was ready for distribution.

2. Good marketing takes planning

Efforts to market Ethereum need to be coordinated in an open, transparent process with defined goals and

3. Be inclusive

Finding opportunities for meaningful engagement isn’t easy but embracing the input of eager supporters is the surest way to retain their attention and multiply your efforts.

This brings me to MarketingDAO, an effort to fund projects that contribute to the marketing of Ethereum.

When looking into participating, I found myself shuffled into a telegram group and asked to submit my proposals to a faceless entity with no clue as to what others might be proposing or what resources are available.

I can only speak for myself but I know I wasn’t the only marketing professional confused and disappointed with what I experienced. Transparency and opportunities for engagement should be at the forefront of these efforts.

Do Ethereans understand marketing?

If we want to grow Ethereum to the best of our abilities, we need to be able to honestly assess our weaknesses.

The Ethereum community has undeniable talent and been incredibly fortunate, both financially and in terms of the generosity of the community when it comes to supporting the development of decentralized technologies.

I don’t know whether or not that statistic is true and I don’t believe Richard’s idea that “has money” equals “good community” but it’s obvious that an impressive number of early investors have made impressive sums of money on their cryptocurrency investments.

That’s great for those individuals and we’re lucky that so many are generous in funding the development (technological and otherwise) of decentralized technologies but being well-funded isn’t the same as being able to build sustainable businesses.

I don’t bring this up to pick on founders; but to emphasize the need to solicit input from professionals with all of the different skills necessary to build a business.

Far too many startups stand in their own way by trying to reinvent basic business practices instead of respecting them. Different skill sets are needed to move a business forward.

Why marketing matters

It’s critical that we, the marketing professionals of Ethereum, take responsibility for the misconceptions spread by the less informed, less moral practitioners of our craft.

Contrary to popular belief, marketing isn’t just about finding new customers for an existing business. Marketing is not about spam or “hucksterism” or deception.

Good marketing is effective communication.

There’s a good reason it’s often referred to as marketing and communications. Marketing starts with the conversation between founders and their first customers as a startup finding product/market fit and evolves as the company (hopefully) scales to serve larger audiences.

It starts with a series of questions:

Is there a market for a product? If so, how do we communicate with that market in an effective and scalable manner? If not, who can help us better understand the problem our product aims to solve and how can we tailor the product to better suit that market?

Once a company understands who it’s serving, then it makes sense to start designing campaigns and finding ways to measure and optimize growth.

What does this mean for Ethereum?

In terms of promoting the growth of Ethereum, it means a few things:

1. Defining audiences

I see a lot of discussions promoting the idea that developers are Ethereum’s primary audience. That makes sense but building sustainable businesses requires more than just developers.

Ethereum needs marketing to connect and educate investors, designers, educators, marketers, and entrepreneurs on what Ethereum is, why it matters, and how to get involved.

Our community could also do a better job of coordinating between startups working on dApps and decentralized infrastructure and groups working on “enterprise applications” like supply chains and self-sovereign identity.

2. Measuring growth

Learning about your audience and producing helpful content are important parts of marketing but distributing content isn’t marketing if nobody’s keeping track of whether or not it supports the achievement of organizational goals.

This is where metrics like the number of developers working on Ethereum, market capitalization, etc. come into play.

3. Being sustainable

Sustainability is often discussed in the context of funding the development of open-source projects. Many projects largely rely on things like grants and donations with no plans for monetization but financial sustainability is an important element to consider.

Facilitating donations to fund projects isn’t as sustainable as encouraging projects to find ethical paths toward monetization.

Want to share your thoughts?

I believe Ethereum could benefit from effective marketing. What do you think?

Please feel free to reach out using the following channels:

Email: goldfarbas@gmail.com

Twitter: @GoldenChaosGod

LinkedIn: @asethgoldfarb