Crypto PR Tips: 3 Ways Coinbase Has Changed Crypto Forever, How Projects Should Adapt
Coinbase’s public listing is an important step forward for crypto. Some see it as legitimizing the entire industry. But how? And what does this mean for your crypto project?
First, to skeptics, it’s another proof point that crypto isn’t a scam or a bubble. Sure, it’s not the silver bullet to every naysayer’s criticism, but Coinbase being a public company moves the debate forward in our favor. Also, it goes beyond “skeptics,” many of whom will never change their mind (Have fun staying poor). There are millions of people on the sideline still, and Coinbase going public is enough for them to buy their first Bitcoin.
Second, it kinda forces our industry to grow up! I know for a fact that there are crypto project founders that are saying, “Shit. We should prolly look more professional.” And we have seen crypto projects mature in the past year through hirings and paying more attention to regulations. From Apple to Goldman Sachs, projects are hiring senior-level talent to reposition how they are viewed by the public.
And these two points make my third point the most important one!
In a rising tide moment, Coinbase’s direct listing shines light on a range of financial offerings that people — and reporters — have been skeptical about. Crypto is fintech, and from Stash to Robinhood to Revolut, these fintech companies offer a suite of products: loans, savings accounts, debit and credit cards and points — to name a few. NEWS FLASH: CRYPTO OFFERS THOSE TOO!!!!!
From earning bitcoin shopping with Lolli to depositing your crypto on Celsius and earning interest, crypto has the same products that mainstream fintech does but until Coinbase going public, many of these projects were met with resistance.
**So, what does this mean for your crypto project? Simple: You need to completely re-think how you communicate because crypto moves quickly and your positioning needs to keep pace.**
Crypto has had a communication problem since 2017 — when normies started learning about it. And the problem is that since 2017, crypto has only had to talk to crypto. So, how a project explained itself only had to make sense to people already in crypto. At Ditto, we have had the pleasure to work with a lot of these projects, and the project leads and founders are ridiculously smart developers who lead projects being built by more smart developers. And starting in 2017, we had to take very complicated topics and translate them to mainstream media who was covering crypto for the first time. And the target audience in 2017 was “the crypto community.” Well, it’s 2021, and projects need to change how they talk about their project because their customer is different.
How do you change how you communicate?
First, remember, the goal is to attract noobs and everyday consumers and to talk to them in a way that they feel comfortable and understand what you do. You don’t want to start with “crypto,” and you don’t want to talk about how you are completely shutting down some mainstream industry. People want to feel safe, they don’t want to hear “Fuck the banks.” They like their bank. That’s a huge deviation from how we talked about crypto in 2018.
Therefore, you need to understand what makes them comfortable and what they do understand and work backwards from that point into crypto. New projects are already recognizing this and their messaging from the beginning has been mainstream first, and they are being positioned as a fintech company as much as a crypto project.
For instance, people understand savings accounts, and many remember when a high yield savings account was at 2+%, but now rates are pathetic.
What you want to say: “I bet you have money in a savings account at a bank, and there’s a small APY that’s not really making you any money. Did you know there are ways to save and earn more than what your bank offers?”
What you don’t want to say: “Buy crypto and deposit it with us and you can earn 10% on it.”
Conclusion: Projects that have been in the space for 3+ years need to adapt if they want to attract this new influx of customers and take advantage of the huge awareness Coinbase has given our industry. If you are talking about your project the same way today as you were a year ago, your messaging hasn’t kept up with how quickly crypto has evolved.
