Initial Bounty Offerings are by far the strangest form of fundraising strategy that exists within the crypto community. Due to this, marketing efforts that circulate around IBO PR after often equally as strange, with the normal routes of public relations not being as effective. If you’re trying to launch an IBO PR campaign by yourself, you’ll quickly run into an array of problems if you only follow traditional digital marketing advice.
In this article, we’ll be exploring the latest form of crypto PR, IBO PR, exploring exactly how to create enticing campaigns for investors and participants. We’ll be covering:
- What IBOs are
- What Types of Bounties are There?
- Best Practises for IBO PR
Let’s get right into it.
What are IBOs?
In the history of crypto fundraising, the majority of different techniques essentially boil down – one way or another – to an investor giving a project money to get started with their infrastructural or product building. While IBOs have a similar effect, helping to get the project started, they don’t have the same starting position, with this actually having very little to do with active capital allocation.
Equally, IBOs don’t have the same shady history of ICOs, making them a much more favorable strategy to use.
Instead of investing money in an IBO, users invest their own time. What this means is that users with specific skills will help the project out with that area, whether it be marketing, sales, user-onboarding, or programming, in return for currency at the end of their working period. The more work they do for the platform, the more they receive at the end of the IBO.
Time over money is the IBO way
Essentially IBOs are all about users investing their own time and skills into the project, then getting rewarded with the cryptocurrency that they’ve been working on. If they like the crypto, they can hold it for the long run, hoping it goes up in value. If not, they’re then able to sell it for a profit on any associated DEX (decentralized exchange). Considering that 45% of all crypto owners donated at least $1,000 to a new project in 2021, it’s a very strange occurrence to see IBO projects over more traditional fundraising schemes.
One additional benefit for those that run IBO PR campaigns is that by onboarding what are essentially workers, you increase the possibility for word of mouth marketing, with others telling their friends what a great project they’re working on.
Equally, this allows you to gain ‘investors’ even if they don’t actually have starting capital to give your project, helping you to get started with your project if you’re in the early development phases.
What Types of Bounties are There?
When running an IBO PR campaign, there are several different roles that you will want to target, depending on what resources your project currently needs and the phase of project that it is in
Each of these roles will need different PR campaign advertisements, tailoring your copy directly to the type of person you’re trying to target and bring on board.
Typically, there are a few set roles:
- Users – These are the least effective member of the team, people who will sign up for the IBO PR project but not actually do any work. While these are annoying to encounter, they are good for boosting the relative success to external eyes of your campaigns, which can trigger more interest and further followers.
- Builders – The builder bounty collectors are people that participate in your IBO by directly offering services as a programmer. These people will help your project by creating the infrastructure of your blockchain platform, developing any elements of product points that you will need for future success. These are often the most frequent format of volunteer, as the world of blockchain is full of people in tech fields.
- Promoters – Any individuals that actively promote, whether it be through their own marketing avenues or through traditional methods like social media are known as promoters. Promoters are essentially for-hire marketers, with each being assigned unique sign-up codes or links. This will help a project track how many new customers/bounty hunters join the team, measuring their success.
A lot of the world of IBO is about finding what you need in a particular moment, steering your campaign in that direction. We’ll see even more of this as we come on to the best practices for IBO PR.
An additional part of bounty programs that is slightly more mainstream is Bug Bounty programs, where money is offered for the first person to find an error in the code, helping companies to develop their products over time. Here’s a short history of Bug Bounty programs in the tech space, which served as a direct inspiration for the IBO model.
Best Practises for IBO PR
When attempting to run an effective IBO PR campaign, you need to be continuously changing your approach. As this form of fundraising is based on WHO you can hire, not HOW MUCH you can generate, the typical strategies are not going to work for your campaigns.
We recommend the following approaches when starting your very own IBO PR campaign:
- Clear Project Goals
- Change With Demand
- Hire an Agency
Clear Project Goals
Your main goal as the mastermind behind an IBO PR campaign is to get people on board with your project. Due to that, one of the essential steps that you should take before launching your PR campaign is to ensure that there is a strong foundation for people to find. Creating a website that clearly outlines what your project is, who its for, an what problem you’re attempting to solve is vital.
Be sure to have a central homepage where you store as much information as possible. This will include the goals and targets of your project, as well as how you’re going to be rewarding workers that join you through the IBO project. By having this information in an easily-accessible place, you’ll be able to put people’s mind at ease when they find your page.
Equally, if you present your project strongly and in a good light, you can further inspire people to join your cause, greatly increasing the amount of people that join the team over the IBO period. What’s more, you’re also setting the foundations of your company to be as transparent as possible, which is vital within the crypto community.
In fact, transparency is one of the foundational pillars of blockchain as a whole, with the demonstration of these values helping to win you allies in this competitive space.
Change your IBO PR Campaign with Demand
Creating a successful IBO PR campaign is all about responding to movement throughout the project’s duration. When you first launch the IBO project, you may get an influx of a certain type of helper. While this is useful, this then means that you don’t need any more of that volunteer.
Due to this, you should then begin to actively shape your IBO PR campaign to target the type of worker that you’re looking for. Depending on what role you need, you should alter the types of marketing that you engage in and the marketing streams that you use.
Equally, by using targeted ads, you’re able to directly reach a certain audience. This is more costly than general advertising, but it will help you find the people you’re looking for as your project continues to develop. IDO PR is very much about anticipating supply and demand and changing your strategies accordingly.
Hire an Agency for your IBO PR Campaign
Without a doubt, one of the easiest ways of reducing the workload of a PR campaign while also boosting the effectiveness of that same campaign is turning to experts. IBO PR, being one of the strangest forms of crypto PR, is by far the hardest style to perfect. What’s more, due to the continual need for change within the project, it’s a very hands-on system to deal with.
Especially if this is your first blockchain project, we recommend that you turn to the help of IBO PR professionals. Not only will an agency be able to reduce the workload of the project, but they’ll also be able to create more effective targeted campaigns. PR is 90% more effective than advertising alone, further demonstrating the need for this industry when launching.
When needing different participants at different parts of your project, it helps that blockchain marketing agencies know and understand the market in general. They’ll be able to find the best PR channels for those specific people, helping you to get who you need on board as soon as possible.
Final Thoughts on IBO PR
On your road toward releasing an effective IBO PR campaign, you’ll need to be constantly on your toes, changing strategies, marketing channels, and the campaign target to find the people you need to help your project thrive.
The first step of any successful IBO PR campaign is to help people to understand why your project is so important. A huge part of this is to ensure you have stable foundations, creating a website that draws people in and directly explains your project. With this, you afford your program a level of transparency, as well as helping people to gain a better understanding of what your end goals are.
If you’re not confident in launching your own campaign, then we recommend enlisting the help of a world-leading crypto PR firm. With years of experience, GuerrillaBuzz is only one message away from help your campaign go off without a hitch.
Shoot us a message to see how we can help you refine your IBO PR strategy
About the Author
Yuval is a savvy SEO and marketing expert with over a decade of experience. Specializing in the blockchain industry, he's the go-to guy for crypto companies looking to simplify their digital marketing strategies and achieve explosive growth. As a digital nomad and successful company builder, Yuval brings a fresh, creative perspective to every project he tackles.
