Launching, Marketing and Listing Your Initial Coin Offering

Introduction:

There are numerous misconceptions about what an ICO is. A token sale or token creation event are other names for an ICO. A lot of individuals are still unaware of the requirements for launching an ICO and the kinds of enterprises that can use them.

Several things regarding blockchain remain unknown. As a result, when they are starting their business, the majority of people are learning about ICOs based on their personal experiences.

Here is an in-depth explanation of ICOs from those who have handled one.

Pre-Planning

Before beginning, you should ask yourself these two crucial questions:

• Why do you need the token, exactly?
• Are you certain that doing an ICO is the best course of action?

You need to consider whether you should use the blockchain to build your product if it is not a need. For instance, developing an application using Ethereum will be far more expensive than developing one over Amazon. You must be able to convincingly demonstrate why developing a decentralized system is superior to developing a centralized one.

Take your time and conduct thorough research before deciding if you are unclear about whether utilizing blockchain is the right answer for you or not. Learn more about Bitcoin and Ethereum. Because a decentralized system differs significantly from a client-server system, you will need to have a thorough understanding of what is required to develop on top of the blockchain architecture.

ICO

ICO is a different type of fundraising than a venture capital round.

The public will essentially be buying the right to utilize your platform in the future from you. As a result, you will effectively be accomplishing two tasks: bringing your business public while also guaranteeing that you own equity in it. This implies that you will have a tone of tasks to complete following the ICO. If you want everything to run smoothly, you must be organized.

Having a Strategy

After you have decided that this is what you want to do, you must have a plan of action to guide you through the process. The coin offering, whitepaper, token design, legal issues, protecting your system from hackers, and audience communication are the main factors to consider. You can do this by conducting interviews, releasing press releases, and maintaining your website.

Offering

There are two crucial questions in this situation that you need to address.

• How much money do you need, and why?
• What primary goals do you hope to achieve by utilizing the distribution strategy you've selected?

Whitepaper

This paper will give readers all the details they require about your project. This covers the system's inner workings and how the token will be applied to it.

The objective is that anyone interested in contributing should be able to find all the information they require in this paper, so they can decide for themselves whether or not to invest in your product.

The idea is that this document should provide any contributor who is interested in your product all the essential information that they need to know so that they can make an informed decision as to whether to invest in it or not.

A decent whitepaper requires more than 200 hours of laborious work. This should be a collaborative endeavor that is done by your own internal staff as opposed to hiring independent contractors. The only phase you might consider outsourcing is editing to make sure the paper is properly formatted, presented, and free of grammatical and spelling issues.

Once the whitepaper is finished, it's crucial to have influential figures in the bitcoin industry review it. Get their feedback on the whitepaper. Also, you can distribute the document to some of your intended audience. They'll provide you thoughtful criticism of the whitepaper. Clean up the whitepaper using all of these ideas before submitting it.

Legal

You'll need to work with a lawyer who has handled ICOs and created blockchain projects. The lawyer will give you advice on legal issues involving your business.

You should also be aware of the actions you can take to reduce the likelihood that the token will be a security.

You should also be aware of the actions you can take to reduce the likelihood that the token will be a security.

Other legal questions to ask include:

• A SAFT will you employ?
• Will the offer be geo-fenced?
• Will the token be managed by a foundation?

Since this material is not legal advice, it is crucial that you obtain the counsel of a qualified and recognized attorney.

Communication

Have your entire staff on board, and be prepared to answer any inquiries that may arise throughout the ICO. To connect with all parties involved in an effective manner, you can use a variety of platforms. Also, you must make sure that all your communications are coordinated and that you react to inquiries promptly.

Before the ICO

• If your ICO is dependent on registration, ask individuals to sign up in advance.
• Provide instructions on how individuals can sign up in detail.
• Release a blog post and video detailing the steps necessary for everyone who is interested in participating.
• Make a movie that demonstrates the purchasing process for your tokens. This film should be about 2-3 minutes long, and it should be semi-professional. Release the video on the day of the ICO and not earlier. Have a professional perform the voiceover.
• Check to see if somebody is attempting to hack into your system.
• Provide textual content about each step of the process.
• Live stream a Q&A session
• Organize the influx of inquiries and people who are interested in learning more about your goods. Before the ICO, there will be a tonne of questions.

Day of the ICO

• Be ready to handle all the inquiries and visitors that may occur. Inform your employees that you may need them to be available 24/7.
• Look for potential attack routes. Slack should be shut off if necessary.
• Emphasize that since a wallet allows users more private control, they should submit donations through a wallet rather than an exchange.
• Publicize the instructional videos you produced widely.
• Provide a single location where everyone may find the information they require about the product.
• broadcast in real time following the ICO.

After the ICO

Following the ICO, two common queries are

• Where are my tokens?
• On what exchanges will you be listed?

Where are my tokens?

It is very likely that the person's tokens are gone if they purchased the token through an exchange. They had to use a wallet to buy the tokens. You must produce instructional movies showing viewers how to buy tokens using various wallets. Don't forget to upload these films to your website. These persons who sent their contributions through exchanges will require a response from you.

Which exchanges will list you?

You will need to submit a formal application to be listed on an exchange, so get to work on it as soon as you can.

Despite this, whether you want to be listed there or not, you will be on some exchanges. On Ether Delta, for example, anyone can list tokens. Tokens can be purchased, sold, or traded on this peer-to-peer exchange platform. Others can use the token in this way without needing to seek your approval.

Running the Project

Managing the Project Regularly communicate. You need to keep your network of supporters informed now that they have contributed their hard-earned money to your initiative. These folks will ask you a lot of questions, all of which you must promptly respond to.

Even if you take all these precautions, your ICO's success is not guaranteed. Yet it provides useful insight into what you and your team should anticipate during the ICO.

It is not any simpler to raise money with an ICO than it is to do so through equity. It's simply different. You must be certain that holding a token sale is the best course of action for your business; else, you can be stuck dealing with the fallout for a very long time.

3 Ways to Market Your ICO

T The ICO market is progressively expanding. At the beginning of 2017, blockchain projects were able to raise $327 million through initial coin offerings (ICOs), as opposed to the $295 million that had been raised by venture capitalists, claims CoinDesk.

Nonetheless, ICOs have been outlawed by certain governments. There is just another justification for releasing your ICO without wasting too much time.

Announce in Popular ICO Calendars

There are several sites that post information about ICOs and blockchain in general. Make sure that you announce your ICO on these sites.

• Coinschedule.com
• CoinGecko.com
• IcoCalendar.io
• ICOCrowd.com
• ICOCountdown.com
• ICO-List.com
• Tokenmarket.net
• TokenSaleCalendar.com

Publications in Professional Communities

Post your announcements to communities and social media websites. Moreover, share pertinent links.

Spamming websites all over the internet is not necessary. Posting your announcements on relevant forums is what you should do.

The following are some online publications you ought to make:

• Dedicated Forums – Post in discussion areas where a lot of people are discussing ICOs. Such a forum can be found at Bitcointalk.com, for instance.
• Post in related subreddit threads that are themed. Thousands of people typically follow them.
• Conversations on Quora – There, people are already discussing ICOs and cryptocurrencies. Participate in these conversations.
• LinkedIn Professional Groups – This issue is covered by a number of groups on LinkedIn.
• Facebook Groups – Participate in discussions on cryptocurrencies and blockchain in these communities.

Make sure to adhere to the rules of these groups though.

Post on Blogs and Do Native Advertising

Benefit from online media. The best place to start is with your own blog, where you may post press releases and details about your ICO on a regular basis. You may do this using Medium.

Also, you want to think about distributing press releases to different publications. Yet, given how quickly blockchain initiatives are emerging, you might not receive all the attention you desire. Don't entirely rely on this strategy because the publication could utterly fail to disseminate the news, or the publishers could publish it after the ICO has ended.

Consider setting aside money for marketing, which you'll employ to spread the word about your work. The cost of this may exceed a thousand dollars. For instance, a $15k editorial regarding ICOs may appear in a regional publication.

Conclusion

Simply try several things to find what suits you. The approaches covered in this article are ones that businesses conducting ICOs have utilized to great effect. Have a 2–3-month plan for how you will execute your launch and marketing campaigns because this is all a lot of work.

Additionally, there are many benefits to using content marketing to advertise your ICO. Just be sure to start working on it promptly.

It takes a lot of digital marketing strategy to draw in new cryptocurrency investors when launching an ICO, just like when starting a new business. The most effective approach combines a variety of marketing channels, including sponsored media and influencer marketing on some of the most well-known bitcoin sources.