We are embarking another rollercoaster year for the crypto space, marked by extreme highs and dramatic crashes.
For Attrace, these fluctuations have had mixed implications.
On the downside, some of Attrace's prospective partners and investors have either gone out of business or are struggling to survive, leading to delays and cancellations of some investments. Despite these setbacks, numerous partnerships remain in the pipeline.
On the upside, we are hoping that this new round of turmoil could finally foster a more rational approach within the crypto market, prompting both retail and institutional players to appreciate the importance of web3's core principles:
* Decentralization
* Full transparency
* Third-party verifications
Highlighting the Need for Core Web3 Values
The recent crashes should be a wake-up call, signaling the necessity to focus on fundamental web3 values. However, the Attrace team believes that the community has not yet reached a critical mass that prioritises these core values. The majority of investment, both retail and institutional, continues to chase short-term gains without fully understanding the importance of these fundamentals.
The Problem with Vanity Metrics
There remains an indifference among general users regarding whether a platform is decentralised or centralised, or how governance and tokenomics function. Post-crash of 2023, the focus still largely remains on when market prices will recover.
This focus has led to the persistence of what the Attrace team defines as "Vanity Metrics." These are metrics that seem important but do not provide real insights into real on-chain value. They include the number of social media followers or trading volume, which can both be easily manipulated and are often used merely to generate hype.
A Shift in Strategy
The Attrace team had hoped that 2023 would bring a shift towards more rational marketing behaviours. They anticipated that the market would start questioning the real value of increasing social media followings or artificially inflating trading volumes, considering the costs involved.
Yet, the market continues to focus on these Vanity Metrics, highlighting a significant disconnect between promotional strategies in web3 and their true on-chain value addition.
Evolving Web3 Marketing Strategy
As we are about to navigate another bear market, it is expected that web3 projects will become more discerning in their marketing strategies. This involves:
1. Evaluating Marketing Skills: Despite engaging with over 350 projects in the past 3 years, Attrace has observed that many marketing managers excel at social media but lack a deeper understanding of essential online marketing technologies and metrics that truly matter for achieving real traction targets, such as attribution analysis related to genuine on-chain value.
2. Assessing On-chain Impact of Marketing Spend: It is anticipated that assessing the real on-chain impact of marketing expenditures will become a standard practice.
Attrace is ready for the moment when the market recognises the need for marketing strategies based on the true web3 principles, aiming to be the preferred platform for performance-based marketing in a truly decentralised setting.
The crypto community will eventually realise the necessity for a web3 marketing approach that aligns with web3 fundamentals. It might take time but this will happen.
