Passion Economy equals Creator Economy times skin-in-the-game

We live in a world where influencers thrive on narratives. They build their persona, share their world-view, and offer a different type of entertainment to consumers. We are now in the middle of the attention economy.

The world of Facebook, Instagram, Tik-Tok, YouTube, Twitter all rely on the continuous scroll of consumers. This has led to some disastrous results, BTW. But it’s also given rise to on screen personas. Personas that would not exist on TV where advertisers pay. This is a world where people are getting tired of distant celebrities. They want to adore people who are more like them. People invest in the world these influencers build.

It’s D2C entertainment, and it’s no surprise that D2C brands have been sponsoring influencers to promote their products. Influencer marketing’s global market size increased from $1.7B in 2016 to $16.4B in 2022 at 46% CAGR !

But what got D2C brands here will not get them to the next level. The world of middlemen has not gone away. They may have lost some power, but they still exist. Walmart exists. Amazon exists. Low cost goods will never go out of need, because there is always someone who needs dollar savings. But are D2C brands ready to deal with the world of shelf space economics, Amazon pricing territories, and music label marketing budgets?

There’s a problem though. Producers have the choice to stick to their community or to go global. Today, these two do not have a geographical separation but an economic and status separation. In going after the established brands such as Amazon, Walmart, and music labels, you will be sucked into their playing field, one that was always stacked against individual sellers.

Web3, the passion economy, and my 1000 fans

As belligerence goes (see previous post - Technology Implies Belligerence), blockchain has been a deeply belligerent technology. We are still in the early stages of the world of Web3, but it has come at an interesting time. The passion economy is a natural outcome of the attention economy.

Attention is passive. Passion is active.

Of a brand or artist’s consumer there are bound to be a subset of people who feel so deeply that they are willing to participate beyond consumption. Social media’s effort to employ likes, reactions, comments, shares a reflection of this.

But what if you could own your passion? Kevin Kelly did some math, and we know that if you have 1000 “true fans” you can pretty much earn a decent living. You won’t have that mansion in Malibu, but you can pay bills, rent, and cost of living. That’s not bad. If there are people out there who love your work deep enough, you should be able to engage with them.

Web3 allows you to do that. There’s a reason musicians have been trying to fight for Web3. Not only are they badly affected by music labels’ lopsided revenue sharing deals, they are also powerful influencers on all the right platforms. Jay-Z points out in his interesting conversation with Warren Buffet that for a long time, the music industry had convinced musicians that getting wealthy from making music was taboo. Most musicians were careful to not showcase their wealth. It was seen as a precursor to their artistic demise. Fortunately, times have changed. And while popular musicians are widely celebrated, many upcoming artists now have the tools needed to reach out to their audiences.

This is why Web3 is so powerful. It enables us to build a deeper connection with our fans. It allows us to bring in our fans on our artistic journey and gives them a share of the pie. Detractors will say this is too small a share of the pie and they’d be right. But the idea was never to hand over the reins to the business. It’s to give you a representative share in line with your passion and love for your favourite artist.

Layer-E is the leading Collectible Relationship Management product suite in web3 built for creators, companies and fandom to turbocharge revenue and reach. Interested in being part of our exclusive club of launched brand including Coinbase, Flipkart, Mercedes and more? Get in touch with us here to build your Collectible Relationship strategy with us.

Ever since Zuckerburg took the plunge into the metaverse, the world has been polarized about the term, and it’s possibilities - from designing to development to applications to commerce. There's a place for imagination than perhaps real users in the metaverse as of today.

Although there are numerous interpretations of the metaverse, the fundamental definition is this - a virtual world where users can interact with one another. A common misconception is that the metaverse is equivalent to virtual reality. This is false. Virtual reality is a subset of the metaverse - just one variation of the aforementioned virtual world where users can interact with one another.

Everything you see in the real world is beginning to be emulated in the metaverse.

• Plenty of games being developed and catered to the metaverse

• Fashion brands designing virtual clothes for people to wear

• Musicians peforming concerts where people can tune in through their VR headsets

• Educational institutes beginning to teach students in virtual classrooms

• Collaborative work to make WFH a lot more interactive & human

and much much more.

To build a virtual world of this caliber, there’s no doubt that a monumental technological foundation is necessary to sustain the intensity of all these various activities. The code behind web3, arguably, is what makes web3 so strong, secure & reliable.

So let’s have a look at some of the popular & widely used programming languages that are building the pillars of web3.

Web3 Programming Languages

Solidity

Solidity was the first-ever smart contract programming language and the most widely used web3 programming language, with around 4,000 developers using it every month to develop smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.

Developers can build dApps on the Ethereum blockchain and on any blockchain compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

Clarity

Clarity is the counterpart of Solidity but for building dApps in the Bitcoind ecosystem. Since it was created many years after the inception of Solidity, it has implemented many lessons learned in the infancy of Solidity.

Clarity is known for its simplicity and security. It prioritizes security and predictability.

Others

Rust, Vyper, Go and Huff are other programming languages for web3, each with their own set of advantageous & disadvantageous features.

Rust has been recently gaining heat due to it being a multi-paradigm, low-level programming language. It is mainly utilized for Solana blockchain programming.

The Need for a New Language

There are so many programming languages out there, many of which are web3-centric. So the question arises - is there a need for another programming language?

The answer - no.

But also yes.

The metaverse is shaping into an entity that will support millions of users and billions in transactions. There will soon be an entire social & economic construct within the metaverse and for this, a programming language catered to these requirements is necessary.

Solidity, Clarity, Rust, and all the other programming languages have a strong focus on the development of smart contracts, but a much smaller focus on social interactions and the open economy.

This is where the need for a new programming language arises.

Meet Verse.

Verse

Verse is a new programming language developed by Epic Games, the creators of the popular video game Fortnite and Unreal Engine. It is specifically designed for the development of metaverse applications. Verse aims to be much more scalable, transactional & interoperable than all its counterparts.

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, sees the metaverse as an open economy with rules but no corporate overlord. The Verse, to him, is a platform open to all programmers, artists, and designers to support the creation of social interactions in a shared real-time 3D environment.

It was created with a simple vision -      Growing the immersive 3D reality of the games world into the immersive 3D social      reality of the metaverse.

And just like the vision of the metaverse, the Verse is also open for everyone. Epic Games is intending to publish papers & specifications for anyone to implement and they will offer compiler, verifier, and runtime under permissive open-source licenses with no IP encumbrances.

https://twitter.com/saji8k/status/1339709691564179464?s=20&t=2zK7lJdDSTQjWFtBMwiqPg

What is the Verse programming language?

Fundamentally, it is a functional-declarative programming language, which means a variable names a single value, and not a cell whose value changes over time.

It is an open-source language that utilizes functional logic, such as Curry or Mercury.

You can read more about the technicalities of Verse in the image below, which is a screenshot taken from the Verse presentation video by Epic Games

Features of Verse

There is no inherent need for a new programming language. At some level, the various programming languages out there are sufficient to climb the metaverse mountain. But with Verse, the metaverse can simply do better than what it has already been doing.

3 key areas where Verse intends to make overtaking progress are its scalability, interoperability, and ability to rapidly transact.

The goal is to have a language that is scalable to an extent that it is written by millions of programmers, who do not know each other, for billions of users and can be upgraded over time without affecting the existing underlying code. And it must be transactional from the start, which important as the metaverse will definitely involve a large number of financial transactions.

In addition to its focus on real-time social interactions, Verse also supports an open economy that is governed by rules and without a corporate overhead. This allows for a more transparent and fair economic system within the metaverse and encourages innovation and creativity. Verse is open source and available to artists, designers, and programmers, which allows for a wide range of creative possibilities.

Finally, Verse leverages the operating standards of multiple game engines, including Unity, which allows for a more flexible and diverse development environment within the metaverse.

The Differentiating Factors

Verse as a web3 programming language is distinctive because it is particularly geared toward real-time social interactions and an open economy. This sets it apart from other languages like Solidity and Clarity, which are more commonly used for creating smart contracts on the blockchain.

Rust is another popular web3 language that is well-regarded for its ability to handle the development of highly scalable projects, but it does not have the same emphasis on social interactions and open economy as Verse.

Verse's specialized features make it an exciting choice for developing the metaverse and differentiate it from other web3 languages.

The Potential Verse Carries

Verse could be influential in the realm of the metaverse because of its open-source nature and distinctive characteristics.

1. Creativity & Innovation

Verse's open-source nature presents a wealth of creative opportunities, as it allows anyone to use and modify the language. This allows for a diverse range of applications to be developed within the metaverse, such as immersive 3D environments and interactive experiences that were previously not possible.

Additionally, the open-source nature of Verse enables greater levels of collaboration and community involvement in the development of the metaverse. These aspects of Verse have the potential to significantly expand the creative and social possibilities within the metaverse.

For example, artists, designers, and programmers can use Verse to create immersive 3D environments and interactive experiences that were previously not possible.

2. Social Interaction & Online Communication

Verse has the potential to revolutionize online communication and interaction in the metaverse, which could become a major force in computing and the internet. This is due to Verse's emphasis on real-time social interactions, which enables users to engage with each other in a shared 3D environment in a more immersive and interactive way than is possible on traditional web2 platforms.

This ability to create social interactions in real-time is a standout feature of Verse and distinguishes it from other web3 programming languages. The potential for Verse to enhance online communication and interaction in the metaverse could lead to significant advancements in this realm.

Final Words

As of now, there is no conclusive date as to when the Verse will be launched, but speculatively, the launch will most likely occur in 2023 in a limited capacity.

But as a programming language built on web3 technology, Verse stands as a promising tool for the advancement of the metaverse. Verse’s focus on social interactions and efficient transactions could revolutionize online communication and interaction.

The key areas - scalability, transactions & interoperability - will be crucial to enhance the creation of larger, more complex virtual environments that can support a large number of users.

How much impact will the Verse have? It’s too soon to say.

But as the metaverse gradually becomes a reckoning force in computing and the internet, Verse and other web3 technologies will play a vital role in its development and evolution.

Layer-E is the leading Collectible Relationship Management product suite in web3 built for creators, companies and fandom to turbocharge revenue and reach. Interested in being part of our exclusive club of launched brand including Coinbase, Flipkart, Mercedes and more? Get in touch with us here to build your Collectible Relationship strategy with us.

The consumer doesn't care about the old internet or the new.

Here’s a simple thought experiment - Where does a user exhibit their true self? Their Rinsta? Finsta? Or somewhere else ?

Let’s work through this. We’re measuring authenticity. Your Fake Instagram or your Real Instagram.

It’s D2C entertainment, and it’s no surprise that D2C brands have been sponsoring influencers to promote their products. Influencer marketing’s global market size increased from $1.7B in 2016 to $16.4B in 2022 at 46% CAGR !

Let’s first look at your Real Instagram, where you put gorgeous selfies, happy photos, and scenic clicks on “throwback Thursdays”. Is that really you? For those of us who trudge along the trenches of modern living, life isn’t always nice or easy. But that’s what your Rinsta shows: a happy life.

Your Fake Instagram is where your likeness most likely does not exist. You speak your mind and sometimes get a little mean. You tend to troll on hot topics and you’re probably more cynical than you are in real life. Your true self is hidden behind all this anonymity. This side of you is unpalatable for run-of-the-mill social circles and you’re probably not going to behave like that in real life.

Interesting, so neither your Rinsta nor your Finsta is your true self. Let’s look somewhere else.

Let’s look at social forums, where you respond to questions and ideas. Forums have rules (until someone invokes Godwin’s Law). If you break the rules, you’re penalised or worse, banned. The biggest social platform of them all is Reddit. Reddit has over 400M monthly active users and about 30B monthly page views. And it’s run entirely by individual communities (some of our favourites are AskHistorians, noSleep, and Fitness). Every user adheres to the rules, participates in the community, and rakes in karma points. Over time, these interest based communities become a part of your life. Sounds like we’ve got our answer! We’re most ourselves among strangers with whom we share common interests while respecting the rules of the space.

Now, what if we added self-expression to your Reddit accounts? People don’t often put up their real names, photos, or reveal their identity on Reddit, so there’s been no real outlet. Yet.

In July 2021, Reddit announced that it was launching a new feature called "Reddit Avatars" that allowed users to create and customise their own unique digital avatars on the platform. These avatars could be used to represent users in comments and posts, and could be customised with a variety of different features and accessories.

The result? See for yourself:

Dive deeper? Here's the Dune Dashboards link for you to nerd out.

There are a few key reasons why avatar NFTs have become popular on Reddit. One reason is that they allow users to stand out in the Reddit community and show off their creativity and personality. They can also be seen as a way for users to support their favourite creators and show their appreciation for their work. In addition, avatar NFTs can be seen as a way to monetize one's online presence and activity on Reddit.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a product-market fit!

Layer-E is the leading Collectible Relationship Management product suite in web3 built for creators, companies and fandom to turbocharge revenue and reach. Interested in being part of our exclusive club of launched brand including Coinbase, Flipkart, Mercedes and more? Get in touch with us here to build your Collectible Relationship strategy with us.

Surprise: There's a lot more to it!

1. Virtual Teleportation

   Virtual Teleportation is a technology that allows two individuals to wear extended reality headsets and map their immediate surroundings (in 3D) via a photorealistic VR into each other’s view feed. Microsoft has used this technology to build their Holoportation experiences.

2. Interoperability

   When an existing information is utilised by a computer, application, or software to access new information or derive an outcome, the ability to do so is called Interoperability. For example, a metaverse using data from the real world to mimic a VR rendition falls under interoperability.

3. Digital Twins

   A digital twin is a digital representation in a digital ecosystem, of a real object from a real world, using a technology we often call simulation. For example, a simulated F1 car in a digital ecosystem is the digital twin of the real F1 car.

4. Liminal Spaces

   Liminal Spaces are timelines and thresholds that you access within the metaverse that allows you to connect with your past (pre-fed data) and simultaneously envision a futuristic version of yourself.

5. Extended Reality

   The technology to mirror the real world around you and extend possibilities within it, using AR and VR is called Extended Reality. The digital and the physical world are interlinked to each other within this ecosystem, also known as Mixed Reality.

6. Virtual Reality

   The technology that lets you immerse yourself in a virtual world using a headset, while your motion and head movement is tracked to impact your experience, is called Virtual Reality.

7. Mirror Worlds

   A rendition of the real world within a digital frontier is called a Mirror World. The world lets you be and behave in the same way as you would in a real world. You can interact, purchase and do more inside a mirror world.

8. Portals

   Portal is often a page or a getaway for you to access something on the world wide web. Portals ushered people to web links and pages in the Web 2 era. In the Web 3 era, they are also taking people to Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality experiences.

9. Holograms

   Within the world of immersive technology, holograms serve as the digital rendition of an exact real object or being, that is achieved by projecting 3D images on a physical surface, in the form of a simulation.

10. Mixed Reality

    Achieved with the help of immersive technology, mixed reality is a shared eco-system wherein both physical objects and entities as well as virtual elements co-exist. For example, scanning an image with the help of an AR app can project its virtual, interactive form within a smart device.

11. Augmented Reality

    The ability/technology to infuse digital images and information onto a real surface is called Augmented Reality. There’s usually a medium, such as a smart device or a projection device that usually assists in AR. For example, Pokemon Go works on Augmented Reality.

12. Digital Goods

    Any good that is sold or transferred in digital form using digital surfaces is called Digital Goods. For example, an NFT or a movie purchased or rented on YouTube is a digital good.

13. MMORPG

    MMORPGs or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games are competitive online (video) games that combine elements of role playing along with team-based battle arenas and have always been an esports favourite. World of Warcraft is an MMORPG title.

14. Metaverse Wallet

    A close cousin of the blockchain wallet, Metaverse Wallets are loaded with more features than them. These wallets can be used to receive, store and trade digital goods and NFTs as well as create and issue smart assets.

15. Metaverse Marketplace

    Within the digital ecosystem, any digital marketplace or store wherein you can buy and trade digital goods, virtual lands, in-game assets and NFTs is called a Metaverse Marketplace. Decentraland is a metaverse marketplace.

**Layer-E** is the leading Collectible Relationship Management product suite in web3 built for creators, companies and fandom to turbocharge revenue and reach. Interested in being part of our exclusive club of launched brand including Coinbase, Flipkart, Mercedes and more? Get in touch with us [here](https://layer-e.com/) to build your Collectible Relationship strategy with us.

Web3 Twitter can be daunting. Come armed!

1. Airdrop

   The action of sending NFTs, digital collectibles, cryptocurrency and tokens, for free to wallets.

2. Ape

   Short for Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs.

3. Ape In

   To invest in a project or a token, usually out of FOMO. This usually lacks research.

4. BUIDL

   BUIDL is the warped version of 'Build' and refers to the movement in the space pertaining to meaningful contribution to the blockchain ecosystem, moving beyond the whole trading gambit. To BUIDL is to start contributing proactively in order to help adoption.

5. Burn

   Burning an NFT means taking it out of circulation by destroying it. This is usually done by sending it to a wallet address that is inaccessible.

6. DAO

   Short for Decentralised Autonomous Organisation, a DAO is a structure with no central authority. Usually a bottom-up entity, it is collectively owned and the members share a core vision they believe in.

7. Degen

   Short for 'degenerate', it's a widely-used term for crypto investors who play the game day in and day out, mostly in decentralised finance.

8. Delist

   To delist is to remove an NFT from an exchange.

9. Discord

   A social platform where Web3 communities talk about stuff they're BUIDLing, NFT projects, Metaverse Projects, DAOs and anything under the sun belonging to a shared interest or goal.

10. Diamond Hands

    An investor who refrains from selling an investment, volatile holding despite downturns or losses.

11. DYOR

    Acronym for 'Do Your Own Research'. Often added as a disclaimer when crypto pundits dish out any advice on tokens and NFT projects.

12. Flipping

    Buy low, sell high. Much like houses or furniture, flippers trade NFTs for profit.

13. Floor price

    The floor price of an NFT collection is the lowest price of an NFT within the collection. Updated in reatime, it's the minimum amount required to pay to own the NFT in that collection.

14. Floor sweep

    When someone buys all the NFTs off a project's floor. Floor sweepers are often likened to ticket scalpers.

15. FUD

    Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. Usually used when an NFT collection is feared to be a dud or when the market is on a downhill slope.

16. Fungibility

    In simpler terms, replaceability. A currency is fungible because you can pay for it using the same amount of money. A painting or a belonging, however is unique and therefore, non-fungible.

17. Gas fees

    Transactional fees that blockchain users incur to use the computational resources that make transactions happen. Gas fees ensures spammers don't get the best of the blockchain by clogging the network with a high volume of transactions.

18. Generative art

    A project in which NFTs are generated from a pool of limited assets. In a generative art collection, each NFT can have a unique set of traits while still sharing individual traits with other NFTs in the collection.

19. GMI / WAGMI / NGMI

    Gonna Make It / We Are Gonna Make It / Not Gonna Make It are all terms used to express feelings of optimism and pessimism about the future of Web3.

20. Metadata

    The collection of data that assigns ownership and differentiates one NFT from another.

21. MetaMask

    The widely-used Ethereum wallet for transacting ETH and trading/minting NFTs on various platforms.

22. Metaverse

    A a shared, realistic, and immersive computer simulation of the real world environment that uses augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and blockchain to create a space for users to interact with each other.

23. Minting

    Minting an NFT refers to converting digital files into digital assets stored on the blockchain. When you mint an NFT, you're basically bringing it into circulation on the chain and it's now stored on it, and cannot be altered.

24. Paper Hands

    It's the opposite of Diamond Hands and it's exactly what it sounds like. Someone who's flimsy with their trading habits i.e. someone who sells in panic when the market is down and gives into FUD.

25. PFP

    A profile picture. A PFP NFT is often used as social currency on social platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Reddit.

26. POAP

    Short for Proof of Attendance Protocol. A type of NFT you claim when you attend an event, in real world or virtual. A POAP is used to verify the attendees or to unlock benefits and experiences for the holders.

27. Rarity

    A measure of how different or unique an NFT is from others in the same collection. Rarity can range from common features that appear in the entire set of NFTs to one-of-one traits that only appear a single time or a few times in a collection.

28. Roadmap

    A document that charts out the goals and future plans for an NFT project.

29. Royalties

    Money collected by a creator or artist through an NFT's or token's resale. Artists can forever earn royalties via NFTs if it's hardcoded in the smart contract. Some NFTs pay royalties each time it's sold.

30. Rug pull

    A rug pull is a scam where a creator or developer creates a worthless token, collects substantial funds from investors and then runs away with the money.

31. Shill

    To shill an NFT is to shout from the rooftops about how awesome it is.

32. Smart Contract

    A self-executing digital contract on the chain. It automatically executes, controls or documents events and actions as per the terms hardcoded into a contract or an agreement.

33. Utility-focused NFTs

    NFTs that unlock real-life or virtual experiences or value for you. For example, the Flipkart x eDAO digital assets aka 'Culture Sparks' unlocked a host of offers and experiences for the holders.

34. Whale

    Whales are entities, individuals, institutions and exchanges that hold significant amounts of tokens of a particular cryptocurrency.

35. Whitelist

An early bird list of buyers or users who get guaranteed access to mint a new NFT collection at a specified date and time before anyone else.

Layer-E is the leading Collectible Relationship Management product suite in web3 built for creators, companies and fandom to turbocharge revenue and reach. Interested in being part of our exclusive club of launched brand including Coinbase, Flipkart, Mercedes and more? Get in touch with us here to build your Collectible Relationship strategy with us.

1. Stripe - Payments

2. Shopify - Shopping

3. Etsy - niche eCommerce

4. Google/Facebook - Digital ID

5. Khan Academy - Education

6. Substack - News/blog publishing

These companies either took on century old industry practices, or they disrupted an industry to an extent that the effects are incalculable. The funny thing about disruption is that most people want it to seem like the business strategy equivalent of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. It’s laughably not. In fact, it’s been (for these companies at least) a theme that ran contrary to the gargantuan incumbents - don’t look for a big piece of a piece, just increase the size of the pie. If we apply this to industries that serve end consumers, this is the necessary block to reduce effort on the part of sellers/service providers to go D2C. Let’s look at them again:

1. Stripe - Payments are tough. Coders are in short supply compared to producers. So why not make a platform that does payments for any producer looking to integrate a payments solution. Anyone who has spent time online has come across at least one D2C purchase page made by Stripe. They’re everywhere, providing seamless experience to consumers and the brands for frictionless payments.

2. Shopify - Marking a shopping experience is a difficult exercise, especially when brands want to operate it independently. This requires building the website, integrating with various logistics and warehousing modules, live inventory capture. Why build everything from the ground up when you can integrate Shopify and get access to solutions such as marketing, shipping, and customer engagement tools, all for about $30-$2000 a month. It’s a service that brought small business to your digital doorstep.

3. Etsy - If you own a warehouse or studio where you make custom handicrafts, it can be really difficult to find your niche audience, especially on Amazon-like platforms. So why not sell on Etsy, a platform exclusively for such individuals, where the experience for the consumer is crafted for the niche customer. You also get access to your consumer to build deeper interactions and thereby a sustainable reputation (I bought a clock recently on Etsy, and as usual I immediately changed my mind about the color combination. I sent an urgent request to the seller via direct message on Etsy’s platform and the seller was more than happy to make the change. 10/10 would buy again).

4. Google/Facebook - When people see the “sign up” button on a website, I wonder whether they remember the early internet and its many long forms for signing up. Today, I almost expect a subsequent “sign up with Google” or a “sign up with Facebook” and wonder how many people still use the long forms. Authentication and tracking orders via email is so much simpler now. (BTW, if you are one of those people who fill sign up forms on websites, use the website’s name as your middle name. If you ever get spam mail addressed to John Website Smith, you know who sold your information. h/t r/lifeProTips)

5. Khan Academy - Salman Khan’s website is now among the leading platforms for educating people for Maths and Science. And while we’re on the subject there’s a popular saying today “for every technical subject, there’s an Indian guy on YouTube who has a video explainer for it”. There’s truth to this. YouTube is chock-full of engaging and comprehensive content to explain difficult concepts in technology.

Most D2C startups began as a rebellion against or through a negation of existing systems. They took to social media to drive their brand narrative. They used plug and play solutions to simplify their admin, logistics, and data capture. These brands resonated deeply with people. Dollar Shave Club broke Gillette’s long held market domination from 70% in 2010 to 54% in 2018. While doing so, DSC also got into the business of subscription revenue (more on that in some other newsletter)

Kickstarter has enabled sellers, individuals, and fund-seekers to raise $6.1 billion for creative work across 222k projects. Warby Parker took on the behemoth Luxotica to provide good quality, low cost glasses to people. WP went from being founded in 2010 to commanding a 7% share of the market dominated by Luxottica’s 40%. Today, the brand is struggling against another low cost competitor - Zenni.

What they have in common is strong brand narrative and tight control over quality/efficiency of service delivered. And if their customers did not like the service, these brands actually gave a damn. Customers began to become people again (Next election mandate: Make customers people again?)

Many brands followed suit. People attached their identity to those brand narratives and experiences. They cared about the environment and loved that their brands did so too. They cared about the farmer, and loved that their brands did so too. They cared about transparency, and loved that their brands did so too.

Layer-E is the leading Collectible Relationship Management product suite in web3 built for creators, companies and fandom to turbocharge revenue and reach. Interested in being part of our exclusive club of launched brand including Coinbase, Flipkart, Mercedes and more? Get in touch with us here to build your Collectible Relationship strategy with us.

Development Stage

This is the phase before the product is launched into the market. It consists of the groundwork - research, finding investors, and development of product prototypes. During this stage, brands spend time and money understanding their product-market fit without necessarily making any sales or revenue.

Introduction Stage

This is the stage where the customers are introduced to the product for the first time. During this phase, marketing teams begin to build product awareness and reach out to potential customers. The focus is on creating marketing campaigns to build brand awareness and test out different distribution channels to educate potential customers about the product.

Growth

The growth stage is when customers have accepted a product and have started using it. During this phase, the product grows, and brands start seeing revenue and also competition in the market.

Maturity

The maturity stage is when the product has been around for a while but the sales don’t seem to be rising as they did during the growth phase. In an attempt to revive interest, companies re-evaluate their pricing, offer discounts and start to get creative with their product marketing in order to continue growing and expanding to new customers.

During this phase, marketing campaigns are focused on building a distinct brand identity to seem different from competitors in the market rather than building brand awareness. This can be a profitable phase for brands since a lot of the building cost is already reduced and sales start to climb.

Saturation

During this stage, there might be more competitors in the market and sales start to see a decline. This is the stage where the product gets one last chance. The market is flooded with competitors and sales are regularly declining. Brands need to continue to provide unique value, competitive pricing and/or additional features to stay relevant and not reach the dreaded Decline stage.

Decline

That’s it. It’s pretty much over at this point. The product hasn’t become widely adopted or accepted at this point. There’s a constant decline in sales & customer engagement.

At this stage, a company would usually discontinue its product, sell its company or innovate and pivot in a different direction altogether. It’s safe to say that this isn’t a stage any product wants to see.

Growth and marketing are essential at every stage of a product cycle - right from the inception of the product to maturity and decline. Growth models adopted by brands seem to be at the forefront of what makes a product last in the market or decline. Good growth strategies can turn ordinary solutions into memorable brands. Here is a comparative study of how growth models have evolved:

Stacking the evolution of Growth Models with the Evolution of the Internet

Every business needs the means to sustain itself. Sustainability means getting people to pay for your product or service that covers your costs, and then some. As soon as revenue exceeds costs, you are self-sustaining, which is the first milestone of sustainability. However these days, startups aim to not only sustain but to exponentially grow by investing surplus revenue back into growth. It’s a positive feedback loop.

Web 1 and Web 2 companies explored many business models. Most of these models were a mix of AARRR (awareness, acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and referral) funnels and different forms of growth loops. Here’s a comparative study on how these models have evolved with the evolution of the internet:

Web1: Brands could share information with their Customers

The web was originally about sharing information - one giant hyperlinked document. Many people tried the business model of copying and pasting offline content **into the online world and this didn’t work very well for brands.

Some Web 1 companies tried a web-native business model - treat the webpage as an application to buy things or interact with others and take a cut. Some of these worked quite well, such as eBay and Craigslist. Ebay’s model was based on an AARRR growth model and their strategies focused on:

During a time like this, Amazon came up with its famous loop.

Their idea was to improve customer experience to drive more traffic at every stage of growth. A better customer experience gets more traffic which gets more sellers, this brought in a better selection of items sold and hence provided a better customer experience. This is a growth-based model and is self-sustaining in many ways. As opposed to AARRR models that work only when you keep pumping more money towards the top of the funnel to generate more growth, growth models were more sustainable and provided better customer experiences. Growth models allowed to lower costs which lowered prices and further improved customer experience. With the help of this loop, and with time to see the results, Amazon has become one of the world’s most valuable companies in the world.

Web2 - Customers and Brands exchange information with each other

The Web 2 generation brought mobile, social media, and the cloud. This made their customers more than just buyers. Customers became the driving force for the success of any company. Brand loyalty was paramount and social media, digital and influencer marketing campaigns became necessary with customers relying mostly on reviews for making purchase decisions. Data collection and CRMs became essential as they helped brands personalize customer experiences and drive sales.

Here are a few ways in which brands adapted to this new age of social media and digital marketing:

• Email Marketing

Brands started paying for subscriptions to software solutions like SalesForce, Meetup, and MailChimp to generate leads and follow up with them through emails and SMS.

• Referral Programs

Referral marketing is when you encourage your customers to share your business with their networks. A referral email is a newsletter that offers incentives for existing customers to share your newsletter or offers with their contacts. This type of program usually involves an offer for both the referrer and the referee, so it’s a win-win for everyone involved.

• Targeted Ads

Targeted advertising is a form of online advertising that specifically targets customers based on particular traits, interests, preferences & demographic. Advertisers discover this information by tracking user activity on the Internet or third-party cookies.

Today, ads are all over the place. They’re in dedicated search platforms (Google AdWords), 3rd party web pages (Google AdSense), social media (Facebook, Twitter), apps (most free mobile apps), and content (YouTube). We may hate ads, but they do make for sustainable businesses on the web. However, people are getting tired of seeing ads and have been against the idea of companies selling user data to these third-party advertisers.

The fastest-growing products are best represented as a system of loops instead of funnels. Loops are closed systems where the inputs through some stages generate an output that can be reinvested into the input at a later stage. There are growth loops that serve different value creation including new users, returning users, defensibility, or efficiency and there are mainly two forms of growth loops in the market - the closed loop and infinity loop.

Using growth loops in marketing is a strategy that involves gathering feedback about customers through customer interactions and distributing it to various teams. This method is used to create targeted content and test its efficiency for different audiences, develop marketing campaigns, and reach better ROI.

Growth Loop Strategy

The strategy can be implemented in four steps :

1. Identify your site users

   Websites with engaging content like blogs, videos, and educational content drive more traffic. To analyze leads that come from different sources, companies often use different tools like Google Analytics, Moz Keyword Explorer, Bitly, and more to provide brands various insights about their visitors such as - location, sources of referral, visited pages, time spent on each page, etc. As a result, you’ll know a brand’s main sources of traffic, and most visited pages, and understand content visitors don’t need.

2. Explore your customer’s interests

   Once you have created a list of visitors on your website, they can be divided into groups based on their interests. Some of these visitors will may not make purchase decisions while some can become potential clients. The most common ways of sharing information with your clients & customers are blogs, youtube ads, social media channels, pay-per-click ads, Google ads, and other marketing tools. If there are people interested in your brand, they will let you know by subscribing to your newsletters for updates or following your on your social channels.

3. Create a visitor database

   Once you have a list of potential clients, you need to create a database of them. The best way to do this is by using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. It helps you collect all the necessary information about your customers, understand and record their behavior, create marketing campaigns, build strong relationships and generate more sales.

4. Manage customer relationships

   The final step is to build strong relationships with your clients and ensure collaboration between the marketing, sales, and customer support teams. There are plenty of marketing tools that can be used to build good customer relationships, such as email newsletters, rewards for loyalty, posts on social media, giveaways, etc.

Here’s an example of two different kinds of growth loops used by Netflix and Tik-Tok:

AARRR funnels focus on acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue; whereas growth loops are self-perpetuating cycles in which each new user brings in more users, and so on.

The AARRR framework is a good way to grow sales; whereas growth loops help keep users engaged and ensure user retention.

Most successful brands use a combination of both by applying growth loops at every stage of the funnel to make them more effective.

Web3 - Customers are in charge of their data

CRM in web 2 stands for Customer Relationship Management. It’s a software system that helps brands track all forms of communication with their clients and nurture relationships. A good CRM allows businesses to be better organized and efficient, with better time and resource management by tracking customer data and behavior across a platform.

A CRM consolidates all communications, user data, and leads to help you better manage and personalize user experiences. CRMs connect all the data from sales leads and customers in one place.

However, with web 3, users are in charge of their data and can choose who to share it with and what they share. They also rely on using web 3 wallets and social media platforms like Twitter, Discord, and Telegram for all communication with the brand. Most of the community engagement happens on these social media platforms.

Web 3 gives communities direct ownership of their relationships and allows them to bring those relationships to any token-enabled experience. This redefines brand-customer relationships massively.

So, how do you create growth loops for a web 3 community?

Let’s get into how a web3 brand’s life cycle looks like:

1. Discovery: Finding your brand-community fit

Finding your target community and catering to their needs and wants will reward web3 brands generously because we're building for a group of people who share values, needs, and ideologies.

Targeting these groups using social media campaigns, airdrops, loyalty programs and more will prove to be more beneficial than spamming users with newsletters and emails. Remember, these are web3 natives, not web2.

Collectibles can tell a lot about a user's persona. The type of communities a user engages with, giveaways they show interest in, DAOs they are a member of, POAPs they've collected from events, wallet activity, and community engagement across various channels help paint a clearer picture of the user than traditional web 2 touch points. This data can be used to identify your potential customers & target communities, and build a product that caters to them.

A web 3 native CRM could gather data across various touchpoints to create comprehensive customer profiles and understand how users behave within various collectible-based communities.

2. Build: Creating a Product for your target Community

Building in public has become a very popular way for brands to operate in web3. This involves sharing every stage of your product design process openly with your community and taking feedback wherever required.

Mozilla was the first web 2 company to popularize this idea by open-sourcing their entire rebranding process and writing several articles diving deep into every stage, idea, and decision made by the brand.

Today web 3 brands like Questbook, ENS, Ethereum, and several NFT projects take this a step further by allowing community members to become a part of the building process and rewarding them for the efforts made. This not only builds a stronger sense of community but also helps create a great product for a larger community. This can be done by just sharing updates with your community on your social platforms and asking for feedback, offering job opportunities or bounties to encourage your community members to build the product with you, or giving them complete control by the formation of DAOs.

3. Onboarding: Activating your community with effective launch strategies

To build a brand in Web3, you need more than a PR-team-approved positioning line for your most ardent fans to memorize. You need a story even your casual fans will remember, and having one will give you an edge over everyone else.

The onboarding step mainly consists of preparing your community for the launch of your NFT collection through different marketing strategies and getting creative with the method of drop. These are a few steps brands apply to activate your community before launch:

1. Storytelling:

This is the first and the most important step that goes into creating a web3 brand. A lot of brands are called “Headless” and this might be true for most. The truth is that most of the people who get behind a cryptocurrency or an NFT project have no idea about its underlying technical fundamentals. Very few look deeply into the technical, contractual, or governance fundamentals of a single cryptocurrency — let alone evaluate those fundamentals relative to alternatives competing for the same use case.

We saw that quite spectacularly last week in the collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin Terra, just as we’ve seen it many times before. It is all about speculation and telling a story of a brand that will echo forever.

Here are some web3 brands that were built purely because of speculation and storytelling:

Dogecoin

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency that is just a copy of the Bitcoin blockchain. Software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer decided one day to create a payment system as a “joke” to make a joke on the state of cryptocurrency speculation and trading at the time. DOGE was the first of its type - “meme coin”, meaning its visuals took the form of a meme popular among the crypto bros of Reddit and elsewhere.

Needless to say, that community — the then dominant sub-culture of the crypto speculator metaverse — loved it. When Elon Musk picked up on the trend and flogged it on Twitter and Dogecoin went to the moon.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1391523807148527620?s=20

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency success built on a story that captured the imagination of a community. Even though it’s a meme coin, we cannot deny the fact that its current market cap is $8B.

Goblinstown

“AAAAAAAUUUUUGGGHHHHH goblins goblinns GOBLINNNNNNNNns wekm ta goblintown yoo sniksnakr DEJEN RATS oooooh rats are yummmz dis a NEFTEEE O GOBBLINGS on da BLOKCHIN wat? oh. crustybutt da goblinking say GEE EMMM DEDJEN RUTS an queenie saay HLLO SWEATIES ok dats all byeby“

This is literally what is written on their OpenSea description and yet the project has an all-time trading volume of 50,000 Ethereum which is approximately equal to 65 million dollars (1 ETH ~ 1300$ today). On the official website, the team outlined their plans in bold letters: “No roadmap. No Discord. No utility. CC0.

They launched this project in a bear market, during a three-hour-long twitter space we saw the founders of the project introduce it by making Goblin Noises. It was a group of about a dozen grown men making barely comprehensible goblin noises for three hours. They spoke unintelligibly and at length about serving burgers to people in the audience with "Gary Pee sauce," a reference to NFT OG Gary "Vee" Vaynerchuk.

https://twitter.com/notthreadguy/status/1531659117890347016?s=20&t=aK0UnBh_Vg5DfnnLOPk4vw

This just proves that web 3 brands can be a success or a complete flop depending on the stories you put out, initial speculation over the project, and of course community.

2. Allowlist or Whitelist:

Plenty of NFT collections today employ an allowlist or whitelist mechanism to identify potential buyers and secure their spot before the mint. This avoids a gas war during the drop and guarantees a good percentage of sales from those who have received a spot. This also creates hype for the project before the launch and paves the way for successful launches.

Anyone can win a whitelist spot by participating in giveaways, joining the project’s discord, engaging with the community, or applying to get whitelisted through discord or the project’s website.

y00ts - a project by Frank DeGods on the Solana ecosystem employed an interesting allowlist campaign. To be listed for the y00ts mint, users had to receive a scholarship to be y00tlisted. The y00tlisting process was similar to whitelisting for a project but with a twist – you apply, much like an application for a job, that would either be approved or denied at the team’s discretion.

This campaign attracted a lot of influencers and NFT enthusiasts to the project even before the actual mint and was one of the main reasons for the project’s hype and success.

A lot of projects also partner with other communities to give their holders special allowlist spots before mint. A lot of these allowlist spots are also given away to users who are active on social media, through giveaways and brand partnerships.

3. Dropping the Collection:

It is possible to create NFT contracts and drop styles in all sorts of different ways. It’s also possible to blend different drop approaches in interesting ways. These are a few drop styles that have been adopted by projects in the past:

1. First come first serve (FCFS) mints

Just like the name suggests, this is a style in which minting is done on a “first come first serve” basis - either to the public or to specific members of the community who were whitelisted. These can be done in a few ways:

Permissionless — Anyone can mint on an FCFS basis. Example: Bored Ape Yacht Club

Token-gated — Anyone who holds a specific token can mint on an FCFS basis. Example: y00ts which could only be minted by users who had 375 $DUST in their wallet and has been y00tlisted.

Raffle-based — Uses a raffle system to allocate a limited number of allowlist spots for an FCFS mint. Example: Boki’s final sale, Azuki, y00ts and so many more. This is the most common minting process in the NFT ecosystem at the moment.

Price-tiered — a drop style in which different supply tiers in a collection have different mint prices, e.g. NFT IDs 0-999 at 0.1 ETH, 1000-1999 at 0.2 ETH, and so forth. Example: The Hashmasks

2. Dutch auctions (DAs)

An NFT drop style in which a collection’s NFTs start at an initial mint price and that price drops by a particular sum periodically until a designated price floor is hit or a demand equilibrium is reached and all the NFTs sell out.

Examples: Vee Friends V2, ENS domain name auctions, Art Blocks, Azuki, etc.

3. Free claims/Free mints

An NFT drop style in which a collection’s NFTs are free to mint besides the gas costs associated with the claim transactions. Projects that opt for this style rely on secondary sale royalty rates to bring in revenues.

Examples: Cryptopunks, Goblinstown, Loot.

4. Daily auctions

This is an NFT drop style pioneered by Nouns DAO that entails generating and auctioning one new NFT every day indefinitely. Lately, we’ve seen a wave of projects adopt this method of distribution style while experimenting with its NFT pacing, i.e. releasing more than one NFT a day and so forth. Ex: Nouns Dao, Wizards Dao, Lil Nouns Dao.

There are several other methods of dropping an NFT such as having unlimited Open Editions, Bonding curves, and MultiRaffles. A lot of projects also use a combination of two or more of the methods mentioned above to make their drops interesting.

We at Layer-E provide brands with several options for launching their collection with our smart contract solutions making it easy for you to track and manage allowlist spots, drop styles, and more.

4. Engagement: Sustaining your Community

Give your NFTs utility by offering your holders with special rewards, running raffles and quests, providing token-gated content, exclusive access to events, and offering physical and digital goodies.

We at Layer-E help brands engage with their audience through strategies like engage-to-earn. Here, users can earn rewards for engaging with the brand and brands can create phygital drops to tie physical claims to their digital NFTs and engage deeper with their audience to build loyalty. Our CRMs help brands identify diamond-handed holders and reward them for their loyalty which incentivizes your audience to engage more with your brand.

5. Revenue and Scaling: How to scale your brand in web3

Most web3 projects scale their business by collaborating with web2 brands or other web3 projects, offering metaverse compatibility, launching a second collection, or releasing tokens for use in their marketplaces.

The idea is to keep providing long-term value to your community through collaborations or new utility which in turn generates revenue for your brand. Here are some examples of how web 3 brands are scaling:

Yuga Labs - the creators of Bored Ape Yacht club recently launched their metaverse called Otherside. Otherside is one of the most anticipated metaverse projects due to its gamification plan and connection with Animoca Brands. They announced this with the launch of their native token $APE which can be used within the metaverse for purchases and is also tradeable. Holders received an airdrop of $APE tokens depending on how many Yuga Labs NFTs they held.

Boss Beauties recently collaborated with Mattel to create Boss Beauties Barbie Dolls, Gary Vee’s Vee Friends recently announced their collaboration with Macy’s and Toys R Us to create physical toys of their NFTs to further expand their brand.

These are just some ways in which NFT brands can continue to expand and find use cases within the digital and the physical world.

Launch your brand collectibles with Layer-E

The process of minting your brand’s collectibles and managing your collectibles might seem like a daunting task. With so many steps involved, community interaction needed at every point along with the involvement of smart contracts and different ERC standards might overwhelm brands.

We make this process simpler by following a simple three-step mechanism to manage your brand collectibles in one place:

1. Mint

We provide brands with custom APIs and solutions to launch their own NFT collections on any chain. Launching a collection on Layer-E is very simple and the best part - you own your collectibles and smart contract.

We also provide brands with options to create raffles, whitelist spots, and treasure hunts to onboard your community and engage with them before the drop.

2. Manage

We help brands create engaging collectible launches and build brand loyalty with their customers through quests, events, collaborations, engage-to-earn, and several other engagement options.

We also provide brands with web3 CRMs - Collectible Relationship Management - to help identify your most loyal users and engage with them to build stronger relationships.

3. Monetize

At Layer-E, we help brands scale at every possible step by helping them onboard new users through engaging campaigns, and collaborations and providing exciting utility to the holders.

Our vision is to help brands bring value to their customers through collaborations, token drops, phygital drops, and more, in turn creating new sources of revenue for the brand.

If you’re a brand looking to launch your NFT collection and find the process overwhelming, we at Layer-E are here to help you every step of the way through our solutions right from the development of the idea for launch to scaling your brand after the drop.

Layer-E is the leading Collectible Relationship Management product suite in web3 built for creators, companies and fandom to turbocharge revenue and reach. Interested in being part of our exclusive club of launched brand including Coinbase, Flipkart, Mercedes and more? Get in touch with us here to build your Collectible Relationship strategy with us.

Who would’ve imagined meetings in a topdown metaverse like Gathertown would be so much fun!

With the changed perspective on how events can be conducted and the exponential growth of the web3 space, it was just a matter of time before both came together to take the experience to next level. Now that offline meetups are also back on the menu, the possibilities here are near endless! And we believe that NFTs will be leading the charge on revolutionizing how you will create and experience events.

Disrupting the Events Industry

The applications for NFTs in events are unfathomable and it has the potential to disrupt the entire events industry. NFTs will soon become entrenched in live, virtual, and hybrid events hence allowing us to build experiences like never before.

NFTs can represent physical assets like art, rare bottles of wine, music, or even land – both in the real world and virtually. But they can also represent experiences through embedded utility. For example, imagine planning an event for a group of attendees. NFTs can provide exclusive access to the best parts of the event, such as a private dinner, a VIP section at the venue, or even a personal concert from a top performer.

What makes NFTs desirable for events

NFTs can be easily made and be programmed to have specific properties or embedded utilities, for example, the creator can make a small revenue every time the NFT is resold.

Embedded utilities allow organizers to offer unique experiences to the audience, this could include exclusive access to certain parts or even event memorabilia. Brands may also use NFTs to partner with artists to bring a unique digital experience to consumers.

Another desirable feature is that ownership is provable and there is complete record of it on the blockchain making it 100% safe, this provides a sense of ownership and they become valuable or carry some meaning to the person.

Selling or gifting NFTs does not require a ticketing website, notorious for imposing hefty fees. Selling an NFT on Polygon, for example, is much less expensive than using a traditional ticketing platform and doesn’t require any extra effort beyond the creation of your NFT. This gives you more control over your costs – which means that you can keep everything else about your event the same while increasing the profit margin.

Ticketing with NFTs

Using NFTs for ticketing is a game-changer. First, the ticket’s code lives on the blockchain, so authentication is more rock-solid and you can prevent resale fraud and even earn a commission when the original owner resells their NFT ticket while also effectively blacklisting scalpers.

Using NFT tickets makes it cost-effective, ticketing sites have set costs and typically take a high percentage of each ticket sold, however, building and minting NFTs can be created for less than a couple of dollars if structured correctly.

Tickets in the metaverse are also dynamic, so you can update their information or let your attendees exchange them for different NFTs that unlock free swag.

The Layer-E Ticketization Module does all this and more!

https://twitter.com/dehidden_/status/1497177897383043072?s=20&t=UmKdwb2Bi2WSMddZv-mvUw

Swags and Merch

NFTs as event merch is the most obvious application, and organizers can get extremely creative with these as NFTs can be individualized for each person. NFTs as virtual swag helps mitigate shipping costs follows sustainability initiatives and ensures each gift is completely unique.

You can sell NFTs themselves as swag, these can even be translated into Phygitals allowing us to take the URL→ IRL and to make it even more exciting imagine all the swag you could embed into them and it could serve as future signposts.

In a virtual and hybrid world, we have to rethink how we show our attendees recognition, and the whole thing about NFTs is scarcity. Custom digital badges, GIFs, virtual clothes and awards in addition to tangible mailers elevates the experience while translating to virtual and hybrid experiences.

The Layer-E Phyigtals Module and QR Module has all these features and we’re working on more exciting things!

https://twitter.com/dehidden_/status/1495616367407828992?s=20&t=eUxnxUk6lDcicHdU4LdLmA

Capturing Live Memories

Live Minting of event memories is such a unique and fascinating experience for both the creator and the audience as it allows you to create NFTs in real-time and the audience can also be a part of the minting process.

Modern technology allows us to take, save and share pictures quickly and easily but we also very easily lose these pictures in the clutter. Imagine going to an event and being able to immortalize your experience and memories from that event on the blockchain and even maybe own an NFT of those very same memories, well we make all of this possible with the Layer-E Live Mint Module.

https://twitter.com/dehidden_/status/1496012596515794944?s=20&t=yZCsYRQE6TNTccS4BtcyIQ

The Layer-E Event Suite

Layer-E has been changing the trajectory of how live events take place from ETHDenver2022 to NFTPune and most recently at SXSW2022.

We believe that NFTs increasingly represent a major component of the events industry and can potentially change the future. They present increased marketing and revenue opportunities, as well as the chance to enhance event attendee experiences.

The Layer-E Event Suite is what you are looking for if you want to incorporate NFTs into your events and elevate the entire experience, combining all the utilities you’d need for your event.

Layer-E has powered some very unique experiences for the audience at events and we loved every minute of it. This is just the beginning for us. Come along with us in this journey to get early access to the Layer-E Event Suite and much more!

Layer-E is the leading Collectible Relationship Management product suite in web3 built for creators, companies and fandom to turbocharge revenue and reach. Interested in being part of our exclusive club of launched brand including Coinbase, Flipkart, Mercedes and more? Get in touch with us here to build your Collectible Relationship strategy with us.

"Having a deep knowledge and understanding of who customers are, where they are coming from, and their behavior on and off the site all help inform how and where to best serve customers." - Elina Vilk, Chief Marketing Officer WOOCOMMERCE.

Knowing your customers is the cornerstone of any successful business strategy. Today, the brands that win are the ones that serve meaningful, relevant content to their most engaged customers. If you listen to your customers and your data, you can obtain a holistic view of them - allowing you to anticipate their needs before they even have to ask.

However, this is much easier said than done. With major companies shifting towards consensual data tracking and strict privacy policies, relying solely on third-party data has become hard. Google recently announced its plans to phase out third-party cookie tracking on Chrome browsers by the end of 2023.

"We don't believe these solutions will meet rising consumer expectations for privacy, nor will they stand up to rapidly evolving regulatory restrictions, and therefore aren't a sustainable long-term investment. Instead, our web products will be powered by privacy-preserving APIs which prevent individual tracking while still delivering results for advertisers and publishers," - Google.

If you're a brand that relies on third-party data for creating brand strategies, marketing campaigns, and advertisements you must be wondering how to navigate this new landscape.

So let’s dive in.

How do you market your brand in the era of data privacy?

The answer is simple - just ask your customers!

Marketing based on Zero Data and Customer-First Data has been the main way of reaching existing customers and attempting to convert them into repeat customers. With targeting options now reduced on several ad platforms, it is quickly becoming the only way to reach them.

Unlike third-party data, the zero data and customer-first data approach is driven by consent. It refers to the data you source directly from your customers, including :

• Information customers willingly share for personalized experiences, like their email address, phone number, or birthday.

• Information brands can gather by observing user activity on various channels, such as - pages customers visit on your website, links they click from your emails, etc.

Third-party data is implicit - based on the "clues" and "fingerprints" people leave behind as they make their way around the internet.

However, collectible-first data is explicit. It considers actual evidence regarding whether people want to engage with your brand or not. Then it allows you to nurture those relationships by delivering personalized marketing experiences consumers expect and demand from the brands they love.

First-party data that is owned by companies is based on observable behavior like purchase trends, website activity, email and SMS engagement, and customer service interactions. Good customer-first data can answer the following questions:

• Who has or hasn't made a purchase?

• How long will a customer take before ordering from your site again?

• How much money do your customers spend on average, and on what? And why?

• Do your customers have a habit of buying during gift-giving holidays?

• What makes a particular customer unsubscribe?

• Who is likely to open transactional emails, and who is more likely to click on promotional or educational material?

• What makes a customer click? What makes them buy?

Online stores, e-commerce data platforms, and back-end integrations like third-party logistics, loyalty program tools, and customer review tools are good places to gather valuable first-data.

In other words, with customer-first data, you're listening - not spying. And based on the quality of the marketing it inspires, consumers can tell the difference: According to Google, using first-party data helps marketers achieve up to a 2.9x revenue uplift and a 1.5x increase in cost savings.

How to collect customer-first data - watch, listen, and ask!

"Whoever gets closer to the customer wins." - Bernadette Jiwa, Founder - Of the Right Company

Watching what your customers want

Once a customer volunteers to share their contact information by placing an order or signing up to receive emails or texts, you'll be able to see individual customer-specific data in the back end of your online store. Whether you're using Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, or another e-commerce platform, your dashboard can provide powerful insights into what individual customers want.

Who has or hasn't made a purchase? How long do they wait before ordering again? How much are they spending, when, and why? Who's spending big, and who's bargain-conscious? Who's spending more during holidays? What products do they seem to like the most, and what effects do they often buy together?

All this information can be gathered by observing user activity on your channels. Understanding who your customers are and their behavior on and off-site helps you gain insights into how to serve them best.

Listening in on your customer's needs

Pay attention to your marketing channels for insights into what kinds of email and SMS communications drive the most engagement with your customers.

What makes someone unsubscribe? What kinds of messages receive the highest engagement? What types of messages work better as an email versus a text, and vice-versa?

With collectible-first data, you can go beyond vanity metrics like open and click-through rates and deep dive into your data to understand what kind of communications drive revenue.

Asking the right questions

The more questions you ask, the more data you have at your disposal. If you're piecing together multiple solutions, you may have to get a developer on board to ensure your data points from several sources are talking to each other.

Here are a few examples of how to ask relevant questions to understand your customers better:

• Sign-up forms

  Pop-ups, fly-outs, or embedded sign-up forms are vital for capturing data from first-time website visitors. Go beyond core fields like first and last name, contact information, and preferred method of contact by using forms to ask customers about everything from their shopping intentions to their interests.

• Quizzes

  Quizzes are beneficial for gathering data about your customers' preferences. You can offer personalized product recommendations tailored to their responses, send promotional emails to more relevant audiences, and even experiment with specific campaign quizzes for special sale events.

• Post-purchase surveys

  Set these up to auto-send once the customer completes a purchase and has had a chance to use the product.

  Why did they buy it? How was their experience? Make it worth their while by offering everyone who takes the survey a discount code or gift.

• Reviews

  By integrating with major review platforms, your collectible data can help you pull in data that will shed light on how your customers feel about products and services. Then, you can use that social proof to power up your marketing efforts.

• Loyalty programs

  Loyalty programs collect data about your top customers' purchasing habits. Keep customers engaged by reminding them when they're eligible for their next reward or approaching a new loyalty tier.

.…and more.

From referral programs to help desk providers, it's possible to integrate your collectible-first data with hundreds of technologies and platforms, empowering you to unify customer data from many sources.

Understanding your customer’s needs better using collectibles

First-party data comes from your website, apps, or phone calls with customer service. Collecting this information still requires asking many questions to individual users and personalizing user profiles based on this data.

Web2 companies use Customer Data Platforms to gather and organize first-party data from various touch points to build comprehensive customer profiles. These profiles have helped marketing and product teams everywhere to create high-impact strategies that power the personalized and customized omnichannel experiences customers have come to expect. However, this data is not always very accurate and doesn't answer many questions about what makes a customer or a community excited about a brand.

Public blockchains are distributed, decentralized databases that anyone can access and are the building block of web3. Unlike the guarded databases of web2 platforms, transactions recorded on-chain can be read forever by anyone. Wallets and communities built on social media platforms can represent a user's web3 identity more accurately by answering questions about a user's needs and purchase behavior. Web3 maintains an untampered history of a customer's purchases and behavior on-chain.

We can answer the following questions about a user or a group of users solely by understanding their wallet activity, the communities they are a part of, and the collectibles they own:

By analyzing a user’s wallet activity, you can answer the following questions about them:

1. How much do they spend on collectibles and on-chain purchases?

2. Who are your most active collectors?

3. What events have your users attended recently?

4. What DAOs do they participate in?

5. How old is your average collector?

6. Who are your top 5 collectors, and how much do they spend on brand collectibles?

7. What communities are your users a part of, and how often do they usually interact with them?

8. How often do users engage with their communities, and what are their expectations?

9. Which other community members would be interested in your brand? Would they buy from you? How much would they potentially spend?

All this information can be gathered just by observing a user's on-chain activity and their interactions with the communities they are a part of on social media platforms such as Twitter, Discord, or Telegram. This data collected from users by understanding their on-chain activity is called Collectible-First data.

Customer-First Data v/s Collectible-First Data

Web3 is driving a new shift in customer-brand relationships and creating an era of "empowered customers." With web3, customers can own their data and choose who to share it with.

Customer-first data works when your customer's interactions happen on platforms you own, like websites and apps. But what about customer interactions happening on-chain or on Twitter, Discord, Telegram, and Signal?

The solution to this is collectible-first data. Web3 users engage with brands through communities built over off-chain platforms like Twitter, Discord, and Telegram and on-chain wallets like Metamask, Coinbase, Rainbow, and several others.

So, how do we use a combination of on-chain and off-chain data to understand users better?

Use wallet activity to understand your customers better

In web2, users create separate accounts for all platforms.

In web3, users connect with public wallets, and all their interactions are stored on-chain using collectibles and tokens.

These tokens are the building blocks of community in web3. They serve as on-chain connections between wallets and intelligent contract addresses, which are stored on decentralized blockchains instead of centralized platform databases. These databases are united by validators such as ENS address, Polygon ID, and other wallets.

Collectibles define the relationship between a community and its members.

In web3, community members hold collectibles representing their relationship with the brand and its community. Using these collectibles, brands can do anything to engage directly with their customers:

• A brand/creator can directly access who holds which tokens on a decentralized, transparent chain. This is useful to reward members, understand their buying habits and create strategies to target them for promotions or advertisements.

• Members can try new token-gated experiences together without creating new wallets.

• Brands can understand who their most loyal customers are and reward them accordingly.

Web3 gives communities direct ownership of their relationships and allows them to bring those relationships to any token-enabled experience. This offers brands a chance to create interoperable experiences and services for communities that were previously not viable.

Use Aggregated data from Decentralized Wallets and Centralized Community Channels

In web2, the product is software delivered to a customer.

In web3, the product is often art, information, community, relationships, and ownership using blockchain.

Examples include:

• Blogs or articles on Substack, Mirror, or Medium

• Community on Discord, Telegram, Twitter, or Signal

• NFTs purchased through on-chain marketplaces like OpenSea or LooksRare

Almost all of a web3 project's interactions with its customers happen on platforms the project doesn't own.

While web3 enables cross-platform engagement, it becomes hard to aggregate data. This is because we're dealing with both off-chain and on-chain data, which isn't available in an aggregated format.

To get a complete user profile, a web3 NFT project would need to link customer touchpoints across every platform and standardize data inputs. To run a community effectively and enable personalized community experiences, we need a solution that can gather cross-platform data together to build a complete user profile.

Web3 CRM - Collectible Relationship Management

We observe a cascading behavior of users across various social platforms. When connected in a network, customers can influence each other's behavior. This effect is amplified in the case of web3 communities.

Collectible-first data can help create personalized campaigns targeted toward individuals and communities. This can also allow brands to identify loyal customers and reward them with perks and incentives to continue engaging.

Collectibles can tell a whole lot about a user's persona. The type of communities a user engages with, giveaways they show interest in, collectibles and POAPs they've collected from brands, wallet activity, and community engagement across various channels can help paint a clearer picture of the user than traditional web2 touch points.

A web3 native CRM could unify data across all these touch-points to create comprehensive user profiles from these on-chain and off-chain data sources. This comprehensive dataset can then enable more traditional CRM capabilities for web3 brands.

Layer-E is the leading Collectible Relationship Management product suite in web3 built for creators, companies and fandom to turbocharge revenue and reach. Interested in being part of our exclusive club of launched brand including Coinbase, Flipkart, Mercedes and more? Get in touch with us here to build your Collectible Relationship strategy with us.

Community is not just essential for marketing today but is also a necessary part of building the brand and shaping its identity in the market. People participate in communities for various reasons - to find emotional support and encouragement, to explore ways to contribute to the greater good, and to cultivate interests and skills, to name a few. People are more interested in the social links from brand affiliations than in the brands themselves.

Networked communities - Catalysts of Culture

The term "networked community" is created with the help of a network-based system (like the internet) or a set of strategies designed to meet the social and economic needs of a spatially defined community of individuals.

A community can be defined as an area where people share like-minded values and interests and feel a connection or belonging to something. Area, important for marketers, refers to an abstract idea of a shared environment. It can be online (like a newsletter or forum) or offline (like an office or apartment block). Beyond this definition, there are 3 markers that researchers say indicate a brand community:

1. The consciousness of kind - an intrinsic understanding that people in a community are connected, and different from outsiders

2. Rituals & traditions - specific acts and behaviors that solidify culture and meaning in a community

3. Sense of obligation to the Community - a sense of moral responsibility that drives community members to serve each other

The rise of brand communities marks a unique opportunity for brands to connect deeply with their customers. While communities have existed for as long as human beings have, brand communities are a relatively new concept. Customers are now creating deep connections with fellow supporters of a specific brand and even the brands themselves.

Web3 communities take this relationship even further by allowing customers to participate directly in decision-making by making them co-owners of a brand. In web2, brands build communities, i.e, the brand comes first and the community is built around a product whereas in web3, the community comes first and a product is built after finding the right product-community fit.

Managing Customer Relationships - The web2 way

CRM in web2 stands for Customer Relationship Management and is a software system that helps business owners easily track all communications and nurture relationships with their leads and clients. A good CRM allows businesses to be better organized and efficient, and manage time and resources by tracking customer data and behavior across a platform.

A CRM consolidates all communications, user data, and leads to help you better manage and personalize user experiences. CRMs connect all the data from your sales leads and customers in one place.

A CRM is a tool used by businesses to manage their relationships with customers. This can include everything from storing information about them such as their birthdays, order preferences, email addresses, and phone numbers, to managing newsletters, SMS subscriptions, customer service requests, and much more.

CRMs allow brands to market and communicate with their customers in a deeper and more meaningful way.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands utilize CRMs to maintain data about their customers, as consumer behavior changes when macro and micro economic factors pivot. E-commerce CRMs integrate with all of the tools that a brand already uses which includes their website and e-commerce platforms, such as Shopify or Bigcommerce, Facebook and Google advertising campaigns, email and SMS campaigns, and much more.

How to use Web2 CRMs to build Brand-Customer Relationships

For most web2 brands, a customer's journey is mapped using a sales funnel or a sales loop which outlines all the touchpoints your customers interact with your brand before they are ready to make a purchase.

A sales funnel is a pictorial representation of a buyer's journey right from their first interaction with the product till a sale has been made. A sales funnel is a multi-step process that converts leads into buying customers. This is what a typical sales funnel looks like:

The steps of a sales funnel include:

1. Awareness:

   A sales funnel starts when a prospect becomes aware of your company, service, or product. The awareness stage is the widest part of the funnel - this may be the first interaction they've had, maybe with your website, reading your social media post, or even hearing about you from existing customers. To understand what marketing strategies are working best for your clients, you can look at your analytics for your website and the corresponding keywords that are ranking for your audience.

   At this stage, a brand needs to leverage online marketing automation tools to gauge how well your audience is interacting with your product and the traffic it brings. This stage is very essential as it helps understand brands understand their product market fit.

2. Interest:

   Interest equates to comparing your product with your competitors, free trial, doing in-depth research, and mulling over their various options. Increasing a potential customer’s interest may start with online content describing topics relevant to your business's offer and, in turn, building authority and credibility with your brand. At this stage, prospects shift their focus by taking steps to follow your social media channels, subscribing to your email marketing list, asking questions, or even sending direct messages.

   At this stage, sales reps can initiate a discovery call, sales meeting, or a demo with the potential customers to identify their challenges and explain how the product can solve problems.

   This stage is crucial for sales teams to push the lead to convert leads and make them into paying customers.

3. Consideration + Intent + Evaluation = Decision:

   The third, fourth, and fifth stages of the CRM funnel involve decision-making by the customers. The prospect plans to purchase your product or use your services. They evaluate their options by comparing your pricing and features against your competitors’ offerings. This is an important stage as it may result in a win for your company or a loss.

   As your customers know everything about your brand and its features, it is important to follow up with them and understand their needs so that you can provide them with better offers and services than your competitors.

   This is the stage where a good CRM comes in handy.

4. Purchase/Enrollment:

   This is the stage where a client has decided to use your products/ services and has made a purchase. Once the purchase is made, the sales reps move the deal to the won stage in the sales process and begin onboarding the new customer. It is important to have a smooth onboarding process to not lose the customer at this stage.

   As a lead moves from awareness to purchase, CRM software gathers data that supports your sales and marketing teams’ efforts to convert leads to customers.

A CRM funnel can automate the closing process and help your company to increase its revenue stream. It can also provide the following benefits:

• A CRM funnel can help your business to deliver its services in a way that better meets your customers’ needs. Since the CRM contains information on customers’ issues, you can use it to improve customer interactions and raise the level of your customer service.

• Your CRM contains data that can help you to understand your customers’ behavior. You can then use a CRM funnel to introduce products or services to customers when they need them or when they are open to learning about them. This will help you to identify your most profitable customers and avoid spending time on less profitable customers or leads who are unlikely to convert, optimizing the sales process.

• A CRM funnel can help your company to increase its sales using the information stored on current and potential customers.

Marketers often struggle to obtain a holistic view of how marketing activities contribute to ROI. An entire 63 percent of digital marketers don’t feel confident in their ability to measure it. This typically originates from a limited view of how customers interact along the purchasing journey, especially when it comes to lower stages in the funnel.

In many organizations, there is a massive disconnect between sales and marketing teams despite how interlinked their roles are. This creates blind spots for bottom-of-the-funnel stages in the customer journey, making it exceedingly difficult to see how marketing activities help secure sales.

If marketing teams want to prove ROI with confidence, they need to use both marketing and sales data to get a complete view of the sales funnel. Closed-loop marketing provides a framework to do so.

Marketing feedback loops are the process of using feedback to improve your results.

A sales loop is a feedback loop where outputs become inputs and vice versa.

As marketing receives input (feedback) from sales, the output (marketing strategies) improves.

Here’s what a typical sales loop looks like:

• Gather Feedback:

  The first step of your feedback loop is gathering feedback. This process involves gathering feedback from both sales and marketing channels and using them to develop a more wholesome CRM solution. This might mean sending out employee and customer satisfaction surveys, Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, or gathering information from your CRM, emails, chatbots and live chat, your customer support system, review sites, and more.

  There are also social media listening tools that make it easy to collect data from social media. Brands also send out regular employee and customer satisfaction surveys as well as regularly pulling and analyzing data from other sources.

• Analyze and Prioritize Feedback:

  The feedback that you'll be getting and dealing with is likely to fall into the category of qualitative or unstructured data. This kind of data is a bit difficult to analyze because it's not easily distilled into ratings, numbers, or percentages. However, it's also incredibly valuable because it gives you the context you need to understand what your employees and customers want so you're more likely to be able to successfully implement changes.

  There are several tools available that can help you analyze your customer feedback like Feedback Loop, GatherUp, and MonkeyLearn. These platforms help you create a test, target the people you want to hear from, and get your data in the form of charts, text responses, sentiments, and machine learning-generated insights.

• Decide and Take Action:

  Once you've analyzed your feedback and have a better understanding of what it is your employees or customers want, it's time to act on that feedback. This means using the data to improve your internal business operations, products, and services.

• Follow up with the customers:

  Acting on feedback will naturally bring up additional opportunities for getting more useful feedback. Reach out to your customers and employees after implementing changes to let them know about the changes that have been made. This lets them know that you've taken their recommendations seriously and that you're listening to them. You can even ask those who might have left negative reviews if they'd be willing to update their review with the new information. This builds a stronger relationship between brands and customers and makes them more loyal in the long run.

  When it comes to your marketing feedback loops, listening to your employees and customers is key! Listen to your customers, sales teams, marketing team, and your data. Once you understand what you’re being told or shown, you can work to improve it. Implement changes based on the marketing feedback loops, try new things, hone them, get them working perfectly, update and try them again, keep trying new things until you know what works for you – and then add another new thing. Marketing feedback loops are all about taking the information that you’re given and using it to build your success.

Customer Relationship v/s Collectible Relationship

However, the issue with web2 is that users need to create new profiles for every new platform, and we cannot rely on third parties to understand user behavior anymore. With major companies making a shift towards consensual data tracking and strict privacy policies, it has become hard to rely solely on third-party data.

First-party data is an asset companies own in this case and has been used for building effective web =2 CRMs. It’s unadulterated and can capture the entire lifecycle of a customer’s relationship with your company. Many companies use software solutions, like Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), to gather and organize first-party data from different touchpoints to build unified customer profiles. These profiles have been a boon for marketing and product teams everywhere to create high-impact strategies that power personalized and customized customer experiences.

This method works when all your customer’s interactions happen on platforms you own directly, like websites and apps. But what happens when most of your customer’s top-of-funnel interactions happen on Twitter? Your conversions on Discord? Or when all purchases are made on-chain?

Simply put, what happens when you own the customer relationship but not the customer data?

With the growth of web3 and community-centric models, companies that understand and leverage the true scope of their data will be better positioned to run effective personalization, customization, and go-to-market campaigns.

With web3, users are in charge of their data and can choose who to share it with. They also rely on using web3 wallets and social media platforms like Twitter, Discord, and Telegram for all communication with the brand. Most of the community engagement happens on these social media platforms, and not on the brand’s websites or apps.

Web3 gives communities direct ownership of their relationships and allows them to bring those relationships to any token-enabled experience. This redefines brand-customer relationships massively. With web3, a user owns their collectible and in turn is in charge of the growth of the brand.

Customer engagement is key to succeeding in a competitive market. However, web3 still does not have a tailored one-serves-all platform.

A web3 CRM should be able to track wallets and collectibles and interact with customers through airdrops, discord, Twitter, and more. This means a web3 CRM seamlessly connects community, social media, and on-chain data. The critical difference between a web2 and a web3 CRM would be that web3 CRM would be used to cater to communities of people with shared interests rather than individual users.

Web3 CRMs can be used to establish community and growth KPIs. We can create segments based on community or wallet activity and identify and reward top contributors accordingly. We can study on-chain data to analyze existing users and identify potential users. We can evaluate the effectiveness of campaigns for communities rather than individuals and target them accordingly.

When we target people connected in a network using such tactics, we notice a cascading behavior in user activity. People seem to influence each other's behavior.

Web2 = Market → Product → Channel → Model

Web3 = Community → Market → Product → Channel → Model

How do you use web3 CRMs to build better Community Relationships?

"This is one of the most common mistakes among founders when I ask, "How does your product grow?" The answer is typically a long list of linear tactics. It is typically because there is no hypothesis on what the growth engine is, and as a result, they are compensating by trying to cobble together a lot of little things."

- Brian Balfour (Founder/CEO at Reforge, Ex-VP Growth at HubSpot)."

Community models in both web2 and web3 are the new norm, and these unfold across many different platforms. Getting organized and usable data from these platforms is hard since they’re all scattered across different platforms and linking this data is even more challenging.

Web3 CRMs help unify all the data from these data points to give brands a clearer picture of how their customers interact with public blockchains, what DAOs and NFT communities are they a part of and how often they engage with them, how much money they spend on brand collectibles and how do they interact with them.

All of this data can then be used to target customers from specific communities who are more likely to be interested in your brand, create targeted campaigns for communities, and automate personalized experiences. Collectibles can provide a more accurate picture of your customer by giving you a combination of on-chain third data and collectible first data.

Here’s how web3 CRMs can be used to grow your brand & personalize user experience:

1. Find your community

   Finding the right communities to target within the web3 ecosystem and using effective tools to attract them to become members of your community is essential. But how do we find these communities and how can we create meaningful engagement between them and our brand collectibles?

   With web 3 companies, these questions are answered through collectible-first data. Collectible-first data is gathered by understanding what communities could be your target customers and making campaigns directed toward those. A web3 native CRM could unify data across all touchpoints to create comprehensive customer profiles from these fragmented data sources. This unified dataset can then enable more traditional CRM capabilities like relationship management and member segmentation, using data collected from both on-chain and off-chain resources.

2. Product community fit

   With web 2 we’ve all become familiar with the term product-market fit where brands gather feedback from potential users and market surveys to build a product that satisfies market demand. However, in web3 this is all replaced by product-community fit. We’re building collectibles for communities in web3 and finding the right community fit becomes essential.

   Finding your target community and catering to their needs and wants will reward web3 brands generously because here, we're building for a group of people who share the same values, needs, and ideologies. Web3 CDPs and CRMs help find the right community fit for your product and target them in ways that have worked in the past for such communities. Targeting such a group using social media campaigns, airdrops, loyalty programs and more might prove to be more beneficial than spamming users with newsletters and emails.

3. Growth strategy

   Once we understand how our product grows and fits with our community/market, channels, and business model, we can define a sustainable and scalable go-to-market or growth strategy. This strategy can be developed based on observing how communities in web3 behave on and off-chain and target only those communities whose values seem to align with that of your product.

4. Building a Growth team and Collaborating with the right Communities

   As more and more companies put together their teams to push for unique go-to-market and growth strategies, winning at growth will require you to not only have the best approach but the best team structure to deploy this strategy as fast as possible.

   Growth strategies by most organizations in web2 are defined by large centralized products/services like Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and Twitter where the growth strategy is to invest significantly in sales and marketing teams as part of a traditional go-to-market (GTM) strategy that focuses on generating leads and acquiring and retaining customers.

   With web3, we have seen projects investing more in community management, community building, and events - targeting people who come together because of shared goals, wants, and ideals. Using a web3 CRM would mean identifying these communities by analyzing on and off-chain data and making them feel a sense of belonging with your brand to convert them.

   Collaboration with web3 communities whose values align with your brand is another way to grow your community in web3. A lot of web3 brands such as VeeFriends, BossBeauties, and RTFKT have done this by partnering with both web2 and web3 brands whose values align with that of their communities and have used this to grow their brands.

Own your Collectibles, Own your Growth

Web3 gives communities direct ownership of their relationships and offers them the ability to bring those relationships to any token-enabled experience. This offers tremendous incentives for builders to create an ecosystem of niche, interoperable experiences, and services for collectives that were previously not possible.

This also allows brands to create suitable incentives for building brand loyalty, better programs to reward their most loyal customers, build stronger products for their community, and in turn build long-lasting relationships with their customers.

Web3 has seen a massive explosion in adoption and engagement but projects and brands are still learning how to leverage this new technology to build and engage their communities.

We at Layer-E make this process easy for brands through our solutions which help brands mint, manage and monetize their collectibles.

Managing your collectible growth with Layer-E is made easy with our CRM solutions that help your brand engage with its community and build brand loyalty in multiple ways. Our solutions help brands:

1. Identify diamond-handed holders and reward them for their engagement and loyalty,

2. Collect relevant collectible first data from customers and personalize experiences by creating products and collaborations with the right partners to provide value to your community

3. Incentivize users to engage more with your brand through engage-to-earn campaigns and much more

Layer-E is the leading Collectible Relationship Management product suite in web3 built for creators, companies and fandom to turbocharge revenue and reach. Interested in being part of our exclusive club of launched brand including Coinbase, Flipkart, Mercedes and more? Get in touch with us here to build your Collectible Relationship strategy with us.

Wading into the murky waters of Web3 will seem daunting at first. However, this provides the perfect opportunity for brands to figure out what works for them through trial and error and by observing what succeeds and what fails.

Brands should strike when the NFT iron is hot. The opportunity for brands to capitalize on this is technology to leverage fan engagement, and potentially generate revenue is at its all-time high. All of this while staying ahead of the curve and keeping pace with innovations in commerce and technology.

Leveraging NFT as a marketing tool

NFTs can be a value-adding tool to your marketing strategy by offering consumers a clear differentiator from your competitors. They can help improve consumer experience and build a community by creating a new way of engaging with consumers.

Layer-E has already helped some brands enter the space very early and create some unique experiences for their fans. Prada and Adidas selected 3,000 fans to turn their own original images into an NFT that they’d mint as their own. Prada and Adidas allowed the users to mint the tokens for free, and the owners got to hold onto the intellectual property rights and could sell their NFTs at will.

There are a few ways that brands can engage with NFTs, with the caveat that this is an ever-evolving landscape.

• Today, most brands enter the NFT market by exploiting scarcity. They employ NFTs to drop a product or give unique admission to an event.

• The luxury and fashion industries were among the first to get on the NFT bandwagon. Brands have begun to manufacture limited-edition NFTs or to reward customers with NFTs that are linked to tangible consumer experiences. Early adopters include Gucci and Givenchy to name a few.

• Brands can also have a presence in metaverse platforms (Decentraland and the Sandbox, for example), where they can own virtual land and sell NFTs. NFTs and the metaverse will change the way we look at a typical consumer journey. Consumers will want their digital experiences and physical experiences with a brand to feel intertwined. The Layer-E Phygitals Module is made for exactly this, it helps bridge the gap between the real and virtual worlds.

• There may also be possibilities to engage in the long run and to build and nurture a dedicated fan base, for as by creating a club. Many celebrities and brands are utilizing them to engage with their audiences.

• Brands can monetize ads multiple times over by turning them into NFTs; they can further their equity via storytelling and collectible assets; or, create a buzz in the lead-up to events and product launches via early access tokens

Ultimately, NFTs are ways for brands to get next-level engagement, one that lasts and could create more than advocacy. Brands will need to go make sure they understand their current value in people’s lives.

Creating brand identity

Most companies don’t want to be in the business of generating and selling digital art in the long run. Connecting your NFT collection to your brand identity is critical. A new philanthropic dimension can also improve brand perception. Many brands donate the proceeds from NFTs to charity. This is not just a great method to establish a business as a useful community asset; it’s also an important approach for attracting today’s customers, who are more inclined to buy from purpose-driven companies.

Brands can also use NFTs to collect data or to reward those who participate in crowdfunding. For years, companies like Starbucks and P&G have been soliciting product ideas and feedback from customers. Co-creators can now be compensated for their efforts by owning a piece of the finished product.

NFTs don’t just provide a way to provide exclusivity but also provide a way to build some excitement and bring attention to your project. For example, to mark and celebrate the integration of Polygon NFTs in Coinbase Wallets, Coinbase decided to have an NFT mint, and this wasn't a regular old mint, this was one of the BIGGEST NFT mints in the world, this caught the attention of the community and we’re well on the way to a million mints. With this little stunt, Coinbase established themselves as a brand that's exciting and ahead of the curve.

As NFTs are gaining popularity, this would be the perfect time for brands to step in and experiment with NFTs. Exclusive experiences provide companies with the ability to make more money and interact with their core fan base. For digital media makers, new business models could be tested, allowing them to circumvent traditional platforms and earn directly from their consumers.

Providing exclusivity within communities

Exclusivity is just one lever that shapes consumer interest. Brands may also use NFTs programmability to make them more collaborative and engaging. Gap’s NFT collection has been made more gamified by allowing many common NFTs to be blended into fewer, more restricted ones. Community elements in an NFT collection can help to boost engagement even further. Part of the reason for the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s higher interest (and prices) than its CryptoPunks precursor is its social significance.

Layer-E also bring together different creators and creator studios to a single platform and this helps provide value to all people in the network and creates a positive-sum effect.

We’ve also helped some big brands like Mercedes come into the web3 space. Powering NFTs for the Mercedes-Benz Blockchain Day 2022 and providing the Mercedes Community with a new experience. The drop consisted of 2 types of Soulbounds- for the expert speakers, and the other for the participants. We made the mint completely gasless and enabled a social wallet onboarding, making it seamless for all web3 newbies and enabling the community to easily shift to web3.

NFTs are disrupting the current marketing landscape by putting the power back in the hands of the community by letting them decide what’s popular and incentivizing them to support what they like and prompting brands to find innovative ways to incentivize their audience to engage.

NFTs are particularly crucial for building out these communities and encouraging customer participation since they allow data gathering possibilities, which businesses can then utilize to acquire insights and improve their marketing approach.

The future of Brand NFTs

The good news is that NFTs’ actual significance will manifest gradually over the next few years, giving us plenty of time to figure out where brands can fit in. Focusing a brand's metrics on factors that will help you envision a future in which NFTs underpin all real-world products and experiences while extending them into the digital realm.

A new era for brands is only coming and those that act now can position themselves as pioneers. Those who dismiss it as another fad, like social media and the internet were once, will bite their fingers later.

The new economic model allows companies to interact with customers in new ways. And those customers will be able to benefit from the brands’ success in ways that were previously unavailable.

Now is the best time for your brand to step up and shape the future of NFT marketing. Do it thoughtfully. Join the future.

Layer-E is the leading Collectible Relationship Management product suite in web3 built for creators, companies and fandom to turbocharge revenue and reach. Interested in being part of our exclusive club of launched brand including Coinbase, Flipkart, Mercedes and more? Get in touch with us here to build your Collectible Relationship strategy with us.

However, loyalty programs have been around for hundreds of years now. Let's dive into a detailed history of how collectibles happened and what they mean for brands.

Psychology of Collecting

"Collecting is the process of actively, selectively and passionately acquiring and possessing things removed from ordinary use and perceived as part of a set of non-identical objects or experiences." - Russel W Belk (1995)

Hoarding is a well-known phenomenon among animals. This need to collect comes from a survival-based instinct on the law of scarcity, which dictates that valuable resources are thin and the need to save up for darker times guarantees abundance. Magpies collect shiny objects in their nests, hamsters stuff their cheeks with nuts and grains, and squirrels are avid collectors and burrowers of nuts.

Humans are not any different when it comes to hoarding items and collecting. However, the need to collect has evolved outside the need for ensuring survival and turned into a hobby that provides both personal satisfaction entertainingly and generates value over time. Be it stamp collecting, collecting coins, comic books, happy meal toys, trading cards, or even NFTs – there is always purpose and desire behind people's obsession with collecting objects.

Collectors will always collect as long as objects exist that either arouse individual interest or pose any intrinsic value that can turn them into an investment. Blockchain technology and Non-Fungible tokens that give collectors proof of ownership for their collectibles and a way to make them tradeable have brought about a new wave of interest in collectibles. Digital art, A.I. art, and profile picture NFTs are traded for millions of dollars.

This shifts the power of collecting from a select few to everyone who uses blockchain technology. Anyone can create or buy an NFT today. This redirects value into the applications and use cases of the NFTs that are being traded. People are moving beyond only the collectible value of an NFT and using it for more than just that. This is bringing about a growing trend of brands getting into NFTs to connect further with their customers and reward them for their loyalty through collectibles.

By offering NFTs, businesses have a new way to identify their brands' most loyal and potential customers and reward them for their loyalty. But how do NFTs bring a fresh perspective into the landscape of digital marketing and loyalty programs?

Evolution of Loyalty Programs

"Collecting is not only commonplace in today's society, but it is also believed to be "an intensely involving form of consumption." - Belk (1995)

Loyalty programs have the power to turn brands into household names and turn them into powerhouses. Many brands, such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Campbell's Soup, Hot Wheels, Barbie, Hallmark, and Harley Davidson, are considered collectibles. Even if these collectibles aren't tradeable, they provide customers keep buying from them to keep receiving them and build a recall value for the brand among the customers. Some brands like Mcdonalds, KinderJoy, Taco Bell, and more offer collectibles to their customers to build brand loyalty and ensure customer retention through these tactics.

However, collectibles have been used by brands for a long time. Here's a short timeline of the evolution of brand loyalty programs using collectibles:

• Beer and Bread Tokens (Ancient Egypt)

In Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of A Civilisation, Professor Barry Kemp argues that ancient Egyptians practiced a reward program that was very similar to modern frequent flyer programs, which included status tiers and the ability to redeem rewards for completing certain tasks.

For the longest time in Egypt, fiat cash did not exist. Instead, citizens, workers, and enslaved people were all awarded commodity 'tokens' for their work and time spent serving at the temple. The tokens were physical objects made of wood with images of a jug of beer or a loaf of bread plastered over them.

Seniors in the society were awarded bonus tokens for the same amount of work as they were higher in the hierarchy compared to the others. This can be seen as a form of tiered membership where those higher up received more tokens for their continued loyalty.

These tokens could also be exchanged for things such as goods and services as well, just like airline frequent flyer programs where members with more points can redeem them on flights and non-flight rewards such as iPads, vacations, and Gucci handbags.

Some of these characteristics are very similar to modern loyalty programs, which are essentially a non-fiat exchange system utilizing tokenized currencies.

• Coupons and Certificates (the 1800s)

This period may have been an excellent time for the boom of loyalty marketing, with many companies adopting this approach. One good example is The United Cigars Store Co which had over 3,000 retail outlets in 1926. They ran a 'certificates and coupons' rewards program (where five coupons equaled one certificate). The company built collaborated with several partners, such as Wrigleys, Swifts, Danish Pride, National, Barkers, Votan, and Tootsie, who put United coupons in their product packaging. Certificates and coupons could be redeemed by mail or at 250 widely spread-out redemption centers. The United Cigars Store Co Catalog featured a selection of over one thousand reward items which included clothes, umbrellas, cutlery, smoking accessories, razors, leather goods, toiletries, jewelry, clocks, kitchenware, electronics, sporting goods, toys, games, and silverware.

• Betty Crocker (1921)

Betty Crocker coupons were the first brand loyalty program to introduce the concept of the emotional engagement generated by a loyalty program through the use of a brand mascot. In 1921, The Washburn Crosby Company invented the fictional character Betty Crocker to personalize responses to consumer inquiries. The company also started a coupon program that allowed customers to redeem a complete set of dinnerware.

Mark Bergen, marketing department chair at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, said: "The Betty Crocker program was remarkable for its longevity and the depth of emotion it inspired among its devotees. It became more than a coupon redemption program by working its way into the fabric of family life."

• Physical Collectibles

Physical collectibles are items handed out at the end of the customer's journey. These were items like physical toys, collectibles like tazos and trading cards, watches, or jewelry found in the packaging boxes or at the grocery store during checkout. Some examples would be Happy Meal Toys given at Mcdonalds, toys found inside a pack of Kinder Joy, Pokemon Tazos that were found inside a bag of Cheetos, or gifts given to you during checkout at a store for purchasing a certain quantity of an item. This helped brands create a recall value among customers, strengthen brand-customer relationships, and somewhat gamify the purchase experience. Some of these collectibles went on to become high-priced items later.

• Miles and Points

In 1981, American Airlines launched the world's first currency-based frequent flyer program using new miles, which was based on how many miles a member had flown on the airline. Members could earn miles at a and redeem them for free flights, service upgrades, and gifts from other brands. This model was copied by United Airlines, TWA, and Delta Airlines and has become a norm today.

After the launch of these large programs, hotel and car rental companies began partnering with airline companies and started offering miles and points as a strategy to grow their customer base by targeting a group of rich airline travelers.

Banks and retailers soon replicated their approach with the rapid expansion of the frequent flyer and hotel coalition models and their new currencies. Points and miles loyalty programs quickly became the dominant loyalty program currency globally, ending the ninety-year reign of stamps.

• NFTs and Tokenised Assets

NFTs gave brands the ability to supercharge membership and loyalty programs. It is the first kind of membership that grows in value with spend. With NFTs, customers can own their membership and loyalty status, meaning the more they interact with a brand, the more perks and benefits they accumulate over time which makes their NFT more valuable.

In a way, NFTs turn your customers into stakeholders, making them far more accountable and invested in your brand, thus building long-term loyalty.

Brands today can elevate the experience of customer loyalty programs using NFTs. Here are some ways to do so:

Building long-term relationships with your customers using NFT collectibles

If Web 1 was about "read" and Web 2 was about "read and write," then Web 3 is about "read, write, and own. We always think of technology as enhancing the human interaction between curators, creators, and levels of fashion, as opposed to replacing that human connection." - José Neves, Founder and CEO - FarFetch.

NFT loyalty programs transcend borders and provide perks, rewards, and experiences across both the physical and digital worlds. A brand can make the most of using NFTs for brand loyalty programs in several ways. Here are some ways to do so:

• Reward Loyalty with Exclusive Rewards

Physical collectible campaigns are a big part of today's traditional loyalty programs. McDonald's, KinderJoy, and several brands have used this method for decades to drive sales. Brands could take this concept to another level by implementing similar promotional collectibles but digitalized through NFTs. NFTs are programmable, secure, and stored permanently on the blockchain, which gives brands a much larger playground to experiment with gamification, long-term strategies, and adding a social aspect to collectibles. From making customers a part of historical moments through collectibles to rewarding customers for their loyalty, the use cases for collectibles are infinite.

NFTs can be used to replace traditional Airline Miles Programs. Instead of offering points, using NFTs will give customers access to more unique flight experiences and rewards such as premium upgrades, free flights, and premium in-flight services. Airlines could also partner with other brands to give customers access to brand collectibles or gifts from other brands, such as access to new designer perfumes, the latest sneakers, the latest gadgets, or the latest in-flight movies. As passengers level up on their NFT tiers, they can unlock more exclusive NFTs, giving them further incentives to stay loyal.

Starbucks recently unveiled Starbucks Odyssey, their NFT loyalty program. Starbucks Odyssey is an extension of the Starbucks Rewards program that members can access using their Starbucks Rewards login credentials. Once logged in, members can engage in Starbucks Odyssey' journeys,' a series of activities, such as playing interactive games or taking on fun challenges to deepen their knowledge of coffee and Starbucks. The company will reward members for completing journeys with a digital collectible 'journey stamp.' Users could join a waitlist using their email I.D.s for a chance to be among the first to receive access to the Starbucks Odyssey experience.

Through ownership of exclusive NFTs, collectors can feel a more profound connection with their favorite brands, which will translate into increased customer loyalty. And since brand NFT collectibles could be sold on secondary markets for profits in the future, purchasing a brand's NFT could be a new way for consumers to invest in their favorite companies.

• Collectibles to boost engagement and sales

NFTs represent digital scarcity. Brands can use NFTs to drive subscriptions and engagement by creating engaging experiences around collectibles. Gamifying the venture of claiming an NFT can drive subscription and social media engagement for brands.

Flipkart partnered with Layer-E for a digital treasure hunt on their NFT platform Firedrops earlier this year. It was a ten-day treasure hunt leading up to The Big Billion Days. Flipkart also announced its interactive and Metaverse-themed virtual shopping platform, Flipverse, during the ongoing 'Big Billion Days Sale. Flipverse is a metaverse that allows users to walk through virtual shopping centers and interact with digital storefronts.

https://twitter.com/0xFireDrops/status/1575357161412374529?s=20&t=pZfQPdehZzcfVXqN1MJBGA

This campaign not only onboarded many web 2.0 users into web 3.0, but it also drove much engagement on their platforms before the launch of their metaverse.

AMC also released 86,000 NFTs to celebrate the release of the movie "Spider-man: No Way Home. "Only members of its loyalty program— AMC Stubs Premiere, AMC Stubs A-List, and AMC Investor Connect who order advance tickets for the December 16 release of the movie was gifted with these NFTs. This campaign drove the second-biggest one-day move ticket sales in AMC's history. The record still belongs to "Avengers: Endgame" in 2019, surpassing "Spider-Man: No Way Home" by only 1.5%.

• Study User Behavior and Gather Collectible - First Data

Brands can use collectibles to incentivize and automatically recognize people's actions across Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 systems and reward them immediately. We can link in-real-life behavior with digital rewards using Proof of Behavior. Brands can ultimately use NFT token rewards and digital experiences to drive long-term engagement and loyalty and grow their brand equity.

As you scale your business and look for new ways to communicate and engage with customers, you should view collectibles as a must-have to ensure that you are targeting and segmenting your messaging. Provide your community only with what they ask for with utility-driven NFTs.

Collectibles give users ownership of your consumer data and interactions, which makes them more involved in the building of your brand and its growth. Collectibles allow brands to ask communities for inputs on how their growth trajectory should be as opposed to brands creating products that a community doesn't want.

But how do you personalize user experiences using collectibles to build long-term relationships with your users?

• Build Communities driven by Utility

To make the most of blockchain technology, brands need to understand what makes a successful NFT project. Execution is just one part of this. Community building and engagement are equally important.

Brands can ultimately use NFT token rewards and digital experiences to drive long-term engagement and loyalty and grow their brand equity. From making customers a part of historical moments through collectibles to rewarding fans for their loyalty and engagement, a brand has several ways of providing value and being memorable to its community.

NFTs are the catalysts for culture, and many people buy NFTs for the historical significance of the token. Rewarding loyal diamond-handed holders with unique perks, recording historical moments for brands with NFTs and giving the community the benefits they want is a great way to engage with your community and build a loyal community.

Most brands are in an exciting position to be early adopters of this trend and shift their market dynamics. They can take their already existing Rewards programs completely onto web 3. This allows space for immense value capture in terms of customer engagement, brand recognition, and revenue.

How can brands today use NFTs to supercharge loyalty programs

Soul Bound Membership Tokens

Customers can be rewarded with membership tokens that are Soul-bound in nature. A user's loyalty and interactions with the brand can be cited using an NFT-based loyalty system where a user's actions are recorded and reflected via these dynamic Soul-bound NFTs.

A Dynamic SBT (Soul-bound token) can be sent to every user who creates an account with the brand. The parameters in which this dynamic NFT changes can be based on a user's brand choices, time spent, the amount spent, and other interactions to upgrade this NFT. Furthermore, any external collaborations can also be matched with the NFT user's purchase history. This can later be utilized for Tracking and providing Further offers with directed marketing.

Activity/Reputation Tokens

These are a collection of NFTs representing a history of the user's interactions with the brand. These include POAPs, loyalty points, badges, and collectibles collected from the brand. This history can be used as an NFT Based Stamp redemption system that enables a transparent and authentic trace of offers, gift cards, products, and services. Users who have a certain number of badges, POAPs, loyalty points, or collectibles can be offered coupons and gift cards based on their on-chain activity.

Every time users avail of any one-time coupon, the card or token can be generated, which will be an NFT. The generation of these tokens and consumption can be tracked on chain and exchanged between peers. Users can gift these to friends and family to receive a special discount.

Utility/Exchange Tokens

These tokens enable users who are eligible to receive cashback from the brands for various offers or offers to reward loyalty in the form of NFTs or tradeable cryptocurrencies (Ex: ApeCoin). These can later be used for multiple other purchases or redemption within the platform. The idea is to design and develop an on-chain mechanism where users who are eligible to receive cashback from the brand for various offers and schemes for any reason can be rewarded in this said token which can be used to stake and earn passive income.

How does web 3 elevate loyalty programs for brands?

The campaigns by AMC and Starbucks show how web 3 tools can reach far beyond web 3-native projects and provide a meaningful growth lever even for companies far removed from the tech industry. Seeing web 2 companies revving up their customer loyalty programs with NFTs proves that web 3 adoption isn't coming. It's already here. And it's unfolding simultaneously across dramatically different operational scales.

Digital Ownership Can Breathe New Life Into Traditional Customer Loyalty Programs in the following ways:

Boosting customer buy-in: Ownership can cultivate a sense of belonging, generating a stronger sense of customer connection and buy-in.

Reinforcing brand image: Whether artwork, music, or other media, NFTs can be creatively designed to emphasize essential elements of a brand's identity. While stickers and magnets may still have their place, a permanent, branded digital asset that belongs to the customer will stand out above traditional marketing swag.

Fostering relationships between customers: Web 3 tools can cultivate customer interactions, creating community around a brand and spurring a positive feedback loop for brand loyalty.

Providing added value to customers: NFTs have the potential to deliver more meaningful financial rewards to customers. Utility NFTs can unlock discounts or experiences, and they gain even more value when they are transferable. In these ways, NFT ownership can deliver value that encourages positive sentiments toward a brand and ongoing participation in its community.

Interoperability: On-chain ownership facilitates interoperability that can supercharge rewards programs. Traditional rewards programs depend on custom internal databases. On-chain rewards provide an entirely new paradigm through instant and permissionless data integration. For example, on-chain data makes it easy to partner with various third-party perks providers who can offer customer rewards to certain tiers of customers. Because data is visible on-chain, rewards holders could even receive airdrops, IRL event invitations, or other benefits independent of the company as NFTs.

With the mainstream implementation of NFTs, brands can improve user experiences and customer relationships. The dynamic yet immutable nature of NFTs makes them very useful as membership tokens for a loyalty program or even an NFT badge to reward user loyalty. We can use the knowledge from traditional loyalty programs and elevate it on a digital level by integrating it with NFTs.

This is just the tip of the iceberg regarding loyalty programs with NFTs. Although NFTs are still new and the use cases are still in an experimental phase, many of the ideas discussed have real potential for brands to build long-lasting relationships with their customers. The possibilities are truly endless with NFTs and blockchain. It is an excellent time for brands to dip their toes into this, explore the possibilities of NFTs, and redefine customer relationships with their brand.

Layer-E is the leading Collectible Relationship Management product suite in web3 built for creators, companies and fandom to turbocharge revenue and reach. Interested in being part of our exclusive club of launched brand including Coinbase, Flipkart, Mercedes and more? Get in touch with us here to build your Collectible Relationship strategy with us.