Article author: Damian Article translation: Block unicorn

Recently, a friend and I were in Hungary Have dinner in the town and talk about marketing in the cryptocurrency space. Being in the same industry, it’s hard not to discuss cryptocurrencies with others. After all, my family and old friends don’t understand this field, and I believe many people who read this article will feel the same way.

This friend told me about a painful experience between him and a cryptocurrency native marketing agency (not named here). I was both amused and understood his concerns, because he was not a marketer after all. I regretted that his team wasted time and money. So, I reminded him: "Listen, I told you not to hire a marketing agency, because there is no 'good' marketing agency at all."

I continued Explain to him that it is completely wrong to expect the marketing agency to take the initiative to do the job for you. They won’t brand you, understand the nuances of your project, and make creative breakthroughs because their attention is spread across multiple clients.

As a startup, you may be given a lower priority than a big-name customer, which is a cruel reality; for marketing agencies, big-name Customers may be more valuable, not just because of their existing retention fees. Logo and influence on the website is a universal currency, especially in the cryptocurrency space. Retaining the most “valued” customers is one of the most important things for a marketing agency to keep their business running.

So, is marketing companies really useless? In fact, this is not the case. I know that most people working on a marketing agency team complete 8 to 10 hours of full-time work every day, serving multiple clients. The value their customers get comes from the narrative they already know or realize that the client wants to exploit or the image they want to project. Marketing agencies should only be used when larger short-term outputs are needed to produce content or help run planned activities.

McDonald's Marketing Issues

McDonald's Marketing Organization is a tool and a means to achieve its goal. Instead of miraculously making your marketing great through their own initiative. Don't get me wrong; marketing agencies often promote their expertise in brand and technology concepts, leaving small projects marketing agencies will help them find a footholdImpression. Don't be confused by the cooperation of another logo x logo on the marketing agency's web page, because you know, they may have only been working with that big-name partner for only one month, and then terminate the agreement.

A truly excellent cryptocurrency "marketer" needs to know their company's product stack better than developers. However, employees at these marketing agencies have no motivation to do more work at current salary levels, except for the 8-hour shifts that have been completed.

Imagine if your salary is the same as a McDonald's manager, but you must understand oracle, database, ZK, MEV, AI, lending, pledge, repolition etc. Will you accept this job?

In terms of the structure of a marketing agency, you may have some senior managers who do well or even excellent at work but never matter to customers face-to-face communication. Excellent senior managers are busy delegating work to their team and developing strategies based on customer feedback. Some managers must manage up to 7 or 8 accounts at the same time. The bad manager is doing it all day…Frankly, as far as I know, 8 hours a day call? This is inevitable.

On the other hand, those junior employees who are paid a meager salary but are truly eager to learn more about the domain and contribute value to their clients never have the opportunity to do so. These serious junior employees are ready to do the basic work to learn the details of the project and build the appropriate narrative, but they are hindered by middle-level managers who focus more on quantity than quality. If each client asks for a top-to-down marketing campaign, the marketing agency will be forced to make business decisions and sacrifice company time priorities. This does not mean that the marketing agency model has completely collapsed; it is because managers are not able to manage customer expectations.

It is understandable that senior management does not want to lose business or have disputes with customers, but in the long run, for the interests of the marketing agency and the client themselves, the manager They need to be more honest and say “no” more often. It is also a responsibility for the project party to understand that these institutions will never be competent for the role of a good internal marketer.

Think of the great marketers in this field who have their determination to learn, engage and connect and gain opportunities as a result. You can see them in the project as community manager (@thisisfin_), growth leader (@0xMista), marketing leader (@lou3ee) or narrative leader (@kramnotmark). TheirSo it is more successful than marketing agencies, and the fundamental reason is that they are deeply integrated into this field.

My opinion on marketing is that you either get deeply involved in this field or you don't. Without it, you will have a hard time finding any source of creativity, because after all, you may not understand or even communicate with your audience. This is a big problem because you know, market research and "marketing" are inseparable.

Marketing extracts value

If you are a project considering hiring marketing help, then Just hire a marketer directly. The first time you hire a good marketer is like promoting a new division’s first general in your army. They will be responsible for leading their divisions; whether it is hiring more marketers or marketing agencies, it is entirely up to them.

If you hire a marketing agency, they need to have a strong plan. The marketing leader needs to reach a stage where he can effectively hand over the memorandum to the organization for execution, thus bringing the best benefits to your project.

For example, your marketing manager needs to publish four blog posts per month. If the marketing head provides all the necessary resources, the marketing agency can help them write half or even all of them. If the marketing leaders can implement a good strategy that effectively delegates work to any supporter in the marketing department and achieves results that contribute to business expansion, they are an excellent marketing hiring. If a marketing agency can do the job it needs, they are a good agency. The key is that the utility of marketing agencies and project success complement each other, provided that their customers are "good".

For example, if the project hiring the agency is boring in itself or does not find a product market fit, then no marketing agency can save it. If a project has a lot of interesting things to say but doesn’t know how to express it, marketing agencies can’t solve this problem. But if you’re a project that knows exactly what is needed to succeed and only requires executors, then the marketing agency will be very good at this provided you can manage them like you do in-house teams, i.e., regularly updates, mentors and checks. Therefore, as a rule of thumb, it is best not to use an institution as your first hiring target.

I assure you that marketing agencies that promise to operate at a level of performance four times the internal hiring are talking nonsense, and to be honest, this kind of self-promotion The way itself is badmarketing. Instead, the added value is much simpler (and boring) that is, if you need an extra pair of hands to get the job done and have connections, they might be for you. That's why hiring in-house is better: you have the opportunity to teach or give hires time to actively learn, at which point there is little reason they won't do well in the business they're in.

Mis communication

In general, institutions and projects have a corresponding corresponding relationship Question: They are both terrible in communication, which is fun. Institutions whose duties are responsible for effective communication over-promoting their services lead to an inflated expectation. The project accepted this misleading information and raised their expectations while not actively managing their external team. This is usually a lose-lose situation. There is no winner that is destined to be early in the morning, nor is there a “good” marketing agency. You need to take the initiative to ensure your victory as a project, whether or not you work with the institution. Ultimately, you are the only hero in your journey.