Marketing, especially amid economic downturns, presents a distinct challenge, particularly for luxury brands and those whose portfolios consist of non-essential goods and services. This challenge is amplified for web3 brands, wherein the fluctuations in the cryptocurrency and NFT markets tend to dictate both demand and price elasticity. Ultimately, the degree to which a brand can capitalize on these market fluctuations will determine its success or failure in the ensuing upturn.
This article explores five components of winning marketing strategies during bear markets: understanding of the market, clear brand value proposition, proactive customer relations, continuously improved marketing channels, and investment in market research.
Understanding NFT and Crypto Market Cycles
Bear markets are often perceived as unfavorable, marked by falling prices and pessimism. However, they also present opportunities to reassess strategies, build strong foundations, and position one's brand for the next upswing. It is paramount for web3 brands to not only survive during bear markets but to strategically use these periods to their advantage.
In bear markets, many brands reduce their marketing efforts or even completely withdraw. This provides an opportunity for your brand to stand out. In these times, the digital advertising and content marketing space is less cluttered, allowing your brand to capture the attention of potential customers more effectively. With less competition, the cost of advertising and content creation often decreases, allowing for a greater return on investment.
However, standing out in a bear market requires a different approach than in a bull market. Audience numbers are on the decline during bear markets, quite the opposite of the feverish growth seen during bull markets. Marketing channels that once delivered millions of views to your brand's content are now quiet. It's not enough to just be present; you need to be strategic, adaptive, and innovative in your marketing efforts during a bear market.
Five Components of Winning Marketing Strategies in Bear Markets
In bearish markets, the established giants often pull back, providing ample opportunity for smaller, agile brands to make their mark. This unique facet of bear markets offers brands a potential silver lining during challenging economic times. By strategically diversifying their marketing mix, brands can reach out to new audiences, tap into unexplored channels, and consolidate their position for the eventual market swing upwards. Here are five marketing tactics that resilient brands employ during bear markets:
1. Understanding of the Market
The first step in forming a winning marketing strategy is a comprehensive understanding of market conditions. A bear market, characterized by falling prices and widespread pessimism, requires a strategic shift from the growth-oriented strategies that brands may favor during a bullish period. Some brands get stuck thinking of their consumers in terms of their bull market plan when the bear market settles in, creating a disconnect between the brand's messaging and the target audience's sentiment. In this environment, it is crucial to scrutinize market trends, analyze competitive actions, and assess the overall economic situation to resist the urge to rely on old beliefs.
Relevant market data to track will depend on the nuances of each brand, but will likely include price tracking on the top cryptocurrencies and any specific cryptocurrency that is tied to the brand. If marketing to NFT audiences, then tracking floor prices and trading volume for relevant competitive collections will be important for understanding buyer sentiment in almost real-time. If tracking NFT market data, it is important to investigate multiple marketplaces in order to identify the most used trading app by your target audience.
Some relevant market information can only be gathered through social listening. Follow trusted influencers who report on competitive brands and watch for messaging that goes viral. Review the comments to viral threads on relevant topics and take note of the sentiment by NFT PFP if possible. Participate in relevant Discord groups to gain an understanding of the volume of conversation about a certain brand or topic and the sentiment around it at the moment. Consider all of this information biased, but use it to develop a temperature gauge for your target audience.
2. Clear Brand Value Proposition
In a bear market, consumers tend to become more cautious about their spending. This shift in behavior necessitates a focus on reinforcing the brand's value proposition. Brands should strongly communicate the unique benefits they provide, whether it be superior technology, security features, community engagement, or other distinguishing factors.
Understanding your brand's unique selling proposition (USP) is always important. The art of navigating through the bear market lies in the ability to leverage your unique proposition, even when the market is not in your favor. Remember, it's all about staying relevant and valuable to your audience.
It's easy, even tempting, to follow the herd mentality in the face of uncertainty. Many brands fall into the trap of emulating successful competitors, believing that their strategies will prove just as effective for them. However, this approach can lead to a loss of brand identity and a disconnect from the target audience. It's crucial to remember that each brand has a unique value proposition that speaks to a specific audience.
It is crucial to revisit your Brand Vision and Mission and ensure that all marketing efforts during a bear market align with these stated principles. Although rough market conditions and poor consumer sentiment may be gnawing at your brand, resist the urge to impulsively change the plan that you crafted diligently. Gather intel, review your brand USP, act accordingly.
3. Proactive Customer Relations
During bear markets, maintaining strong and positive relations with existing customers becomes paramount. Brands should focus on keeping their current customers engaged and satisfied, as this not only helps in retaining them, but also increases the likelihood of referrals and increased social credibility. This may involve increasing responsiveness to customer queries, offering loyalty perks, or simply maintaining regular, value-adding communication with customers through their preferred channels, whether those be Discord, Twitter, TikTok, or YouTube. Help your customer get through the quiet of the bear market by providing them with engaging content. The markets may be down, but your brand spirit doesn't have to be.
Content marketing is especially effective for engaging existing customers during bear markets. Educational, insightful content not only keeps your brand top-of-mind but also positions you as a thought leader in the market. This is especially important in the fast-evolving NFT and crypto space, where being at the cutting edge of knowledge can give a substantial competitive advantage when markets enter the next bull cycle. Content creation can be time consuming and expensive, so find ways to involve existing brand champions in generating blog post ideas, contributing to blog post content, and/or creating social media threads based on branded content.
4. Continuously Improved Marketing Channels
Another vital component of a bear market marketing strategy is the adaptation of marketing channels. As the market dynamics change, so should the channels used for promotion and engagement. Brands ought to review their current marketing mix and consider whether it is still effective given the new market conditions. This could involve exploring low-cost digital marketing channels or leveraging partnerships for co-marketing opportunities.
Bear markets mean lean audiences on once plentiful social media platforms. Try to keep your brand ahead of major shifts in audience by enacting social listening on core channels. Be aware that some shifts are fads, and may lead to overinvestment on an unproven platform. For example, Meta's Threads which is launched as a direct competitor to Twitter X, attracted significant media attention and active users in its earliest days, but the platform quickly failed to live up to the hype. Bear marketing masters know to watch and wait for data to drive decision making in alignment with the brand's USP.
In addition to social audiences declining, website traffic may dwindle during a bear market. This reduced traffic, though seemingly detrimental, provides an opportune moment for brands to fine-tune their websites and landing pages. By focusing on optimization during this lull, brands can effectively prepare to capture and convert visitors once the market rebounds. Remember, the aim here is not just to survive the bear market, but to emerge from it stronger and ready to seize the opportunities of the next bull market.
5. Investment in Market Research
Lastly, but certainly not least, is the need to invest in market research. In a bear market, it is more important than ever to understand the changing consumer behaviors, market trends, and competitive landscape. By continuously monitoring these factors, brands can pivot their strategies as needed and ensure that they are well-positioned to take advantage of the next market upswing. Purchasing market research data or comissioning market research projects is time consuming and expensive, so web3 brands may find other methods more approachable.
For example, create online surveys for your current customers or holders to complete. Ask questions to determine how satisfied they are with the experiences they've had with your brand. Also consider questions that would determine their level of understanding of your brand road map and USP. Incentivize participation by providing some benefit to the respondents, such as allowing them to see aggregate results of the survey or some interaction from the brand's social accounts.
Conculsion
In the volatile world of NFTs and cryptocurrencies, timing is everything. A proactive approach to marketing during the current bear market not only helps to maintain brand visibility, but also strategically positions the brand to capitalize on the inevitable market upswing. However, the onset of a bull market rarely leaves much room for a reactive marketing strategy. Like shifting tectonic plates, the market dynamics can change rapidly and significantly, often leaving brands scrambling to adapt. This is why the real work begins now, in the heart of the bear market.
Remember the five components of winning marketing strategies during bear markets: understanding of the market, clear brand value proposition, proactive customer relations, continuously improved marketing channels, and investment in market research.
Review your brand's marketing tactics with the professionals at Quotidian Marketing to ensure that your Bear Market budget puts you on the path to Bull Market success.