How to Market an NFT

Every day, thousands of NFTs are sold, and thousands more go ignored. The question is, how can your project make the cut and leave the rest behind?

Thankfully, it is not a mystery. At Scatter, we have minted over one thousand collections and we have seen what works and what doesn't. Of course, there are no guarantees with crypto, but experience teaches us that having a successful NFT launch isn't that hard when you know what to do.

There are many different kinds of NFTs: art NFTs, "utility" NFTs, game NFTs—almost anything you can imagine. For this article, we're going to focus on art NFTs. Most of our customers are interested in them, and luckily the advice carries over into other realms as well.

Planning

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” — Benjamin Franklin

The number one cause we see for an NFT collection to go unsold is a lack of planning. Sometimes creators didn't spend any time promoting. Sometimes they didn't set up a website or social media account. Sometimes they didn't even finish the art!

When preparing to sell, you must give yourself ample time to be ready. If you're new to the art game, we'd suggest completing the art and planning on spending no less than two weeks purely promoting the project, preferably a month. We will discuss the specifics of promotion in a bit, but you should give yourself time for your message to percolate through the Internet. People are rarely willing to buy the very first time they hear about a product, and that includes NFTs.

Social Media

By far the most popular platform for promoting NFTs is X (formerly Twitter). That is simply where the audience is. At a minimum, you should have an X profile complete with the following:

• A nice profile picture
• A relevant description in the bio section (with a link to where they can buy your NFT)
• A banner image related to your project

A dedicated website for the project is good too, and we recommend it, but an X account is 100% essential.

If you are a more traditional artist and your NFT collection is a set of limited pieces, it is probably appropriate to use your personal artist profile. This is especially true if the NFTs are meant to be an extension of your regular art offering. Larger collections tend to have their own dedicated pages, which serve as a nice hub for promotion, announcements, and explanation of the work.

Too often, artists will create a profile at the last minute or not at all. If your collection is large, lean into the social aspect of it; let people discover it and share it around. This is easiest when they have a place to point people to. Also, giving yourself some time to grow your followers helps foster interest in your project with social proof.

Being active on platforms like X also provides you ample opportunity to give your project some personality. With the NFT market becoming more and more saturated each day, particularly with regards to PFP (profile picture) collections, often a collection may launch with a great concept and impressive artwork but get lost in the ocean of currently minting projects due to lack of a defining social media presence.

Frequent and engaging social media content in the weeks leading up to your mint allows time for potential minters to grow an attachment or fondness to your project beyond just liking the art. Even in the case of cheap, humorous free or low-cost mints, people want to feel like they're part of or supporting "something" when they mint; an active and creative social media presence makes your project much more real to market participants. Make memes, engage with trending crypto/NFT topics. Make yourself heard, even if it feels forced at times.

Spaces are currently one of the best means of self-promotion on X. When you launch a Space, you're immediately at the top of the feed for your followers and the followers of anyone else who joins. Running entertaining Spaces can be tricky, but once again it comes back to planning. Many assume they can launch a Space and the content will come into their brains as they go. This rarely works out in practice. Try to have a plan on what you want to talk about. Don't read from a script, but having some outline of the Space's structure will make things flow much more smoothly. Organize guests and fellow speakers ahead of time; attempting to fill dead air in a Space on one's own can get awkward. Overall, ensure your Space feels purposeful; your audience should feel they gained some value—be it information, entertainment, or otherwise—for having tuned in.

Teasers

A compelling social media presence is something that is often easier said than done, even when not actively attempting to market something. 'Crypto Twitter,' (CT) as it's known, is a crowded room full of loud voices, and attempting to stand out from the crowd can be daunting. Hundreds of projects are on the timeline every day. How can you stand out?

One important consideration is the medium you use for teasers and promotional material. In the eyes of the algorithms, not all media is created equal. Broadly speaking, images are boosted more than text posts, and videos are boosted more than images. Video promos are one of the best ways to gain retweets and shares. While video production can be daunting, the extra effort tends to yield results. If you feel unable to produce the video content you have in mind, reach out to people on X or the Scatter Discord; we have many community members experienced in editing and video production.

It is also important to never underestimate the power of reply-guying in self-promotion. We're not advising you to be annoying, but working your project or artwork into quality replies to larger accounts can work wonders for your visibility. Again, you don't want to be annoying, and shilling without any creativity likely won't win you any favor, but tastefully dropping memes, videos, and images promoting your project in replies can get you seen by people who may not otherwise see you. This aspect of promotion can feel awkward for some, and that's understandable, but think about it this way: you're already charging people money for a picture on the computer; the time to be embarrassed has long passed.

Leverage Friends

Chances are, if you're online enough to be interested in NFTs and crypto, you've developed some sort of network of similarly online people who share that interest. Your mutuals and internet friends can be an invaluable weapon in promoting your project. Your cyber social circle should be the first testing ground for your collection; if people that know you aren't excited by it, why should a stranger be?

Be aware of talents and skill sets within your network that may be useful in promoting your project. Video editors, bloggers, people with larger followings are often only a DM away on crypto Twitter. Don't be afraid to ask for contributions from others, but also be aware that people may expect to be compensated for their efforts.

As well as direct contribution to the project, sharing with your network can help to build a core audience or community before your mint even goes live, allowing for the organic development of memes and a sort of "meta-lore" for your collection.

Affiliates

Scatter's affiliate program is a tried and true method for encouraging people to share your project. If you've ever used Scatter, you're likely already familiar with our affiliate scheme. Affiliate programs involve allowing users to generate referral links and subsequently get paid a percentage when others mint using their link. You can set your affiliate percentage to whatever you feel appropriate; we recommend 10–20% to motivate people to participate.

There are ways to get creative with your affiliate program outside of just the basic click-to-enroll setup. Consider offering prizes or free mints to your top affiliates to make the program competitive.

You can also restrict your affiliate program so that only users of your choosing may enroll. Consider offering affiliate links exclusively to a particular community you're looking to target, or to a small handful of large accounts you've attracted or involved. Gated enrollment means fewer links, which means more opportunity for your affiliates. This does, however, mean you are limiting your number of "salespeople" to some degree. It's a trade-off to consider; we usually recommend an open affiliate program unless you have some particularly compelling or relevant plan for a gated one.

Whitelists and Discounts

The parameters of your mint also play a role in promoting your product. Whitelists and discount lists are commonly employed to target particular pre-established communities and attract them to a new mint. It has become standard practice for new projects to offer free or discounted mints to members of other communities. Selecting quality whitelist candidates can be crucial to the growth and longevity of your project. You should aim to whitelist holders of projects with high visibility on X and other platforms. You should also seek out communities that have shown a willingness to support smaller projects; MiladyMaker and SprotoGremlins are great examples, but there are many others. It's important to find a balance of being broad enough in your whitelist offerings to attract new attention, but targeted enough that the gesture still feels special to recipients. It's often effective to select 1–3 well-known high-floor NFT communities and then 2–4 smaller, perhaps more recent projects that show some level of promise or hype.

You should, of course, also be sure to offer whitelist or discount opportunities to holders of any project you're taking direct inspiration from. For example, if you are creating a MiladyMaker derivative, you definitely want to offer Milady holders whitelist.

Need More Help?

If you want to speak with the Scatter team about promo for your project, or discuss marketing tactics with other creators, join the Scatter Discord.