In the last couple of years, ICOs have made headlines for a number of good and bad reasons. Companies raised billions of dollars via token sales, opening up a new horizon for startups to raise funding for their projects. However, due to the regulatory ambiguity surrounding digital currencies, a number of technology companies declined to support the industry through their platforms.

Take the example of leading social networks – Facebook and Twitter which announced that they will ban any advertisement that is related to ICO or cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, Twitter announced: "We have added a new policy for Twitter Ads relating to a cryptocurrency. Under this new policy, the advertisement of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and token sales will be prohibited globally."

Google is another prime example that declined support for the cryptocurrencies and token sales, totally banning the advertisements pertaining to those. While nonavailability of these tools is certainly painful for the industry, but the world doesn’t end here. In response to these announcements, the cryptocurrency community modified their approach towards selecting and marketing initial coin offerings.

ICO Marketing:

Here’s what you can do (too) to ensure that an ICO is marketed successfully!

• The foremost area to pay attention is to ensure that your presentation of the ICO, and the overall process is very transparent, depicting stability.
• Get your token-sales listed on some leading listing sites - such as Top ICO List, ICO Alert, Bestcoins, and others. They have a very thorough process to separate fake from real ICOs, and help companies in establishing trust. This is very effective as compared to the typical marketing games of comments and likes.
• There are companies who used celebrity endorsements, but don’t forget to pay heed to what SEC said: “These endorsements may be unlawful if they do not disclose the nature, source, and amount of any compensation paid, directly or indirectly, by the company in exchange for the endorsement.”
• ICO marketing teams are moving fast towards the emerging services that take the responsibility for rating ICOs based on their own guidelines. Since this ensures greater transparency, it warms up the environment for the institutional investors to feel comfortable and invest in a particular project.
• Make sure to claim the right thing as it can have strong legal ramifications for the project as regulators are following them very closely. Careful selection of words is fundamental in the successful, yet legal advertising campaigns.
• There’s no denying the fact that cryptocurrencies (as a whole) are a highly subjugated subject by public perception, and it’s always difficult to win the trust. Therefore, marketing teams need to continuously stay abreast of the latest trends, regulations, cases, and happenings – as they can reshape the industry or can have direct impact on the legality of their token sale.
• Focus more on the traditional outreach, networking, and events, instead of digital PR as it has proven quite deceitful in the recent years – and people have stopped taking them so serious (particularly with regards to blockchain market).
• Content marketing, blogs, and educational videos can be a great source of helping people understand your project, the ultimate goal, and how you’re going to spend the amount raised – after all, content is the king of marketing.

While there are companies and people who have learned a lot in the cryptocurrency space, the market focus should continue to be on highlighting the viability, longevity, and transparency of the project. It’s the given attributes that win the trust, and help any ICO marketing campaign succeed.