20/04/2019
What are Bounty Programs and Airdrops and why are they so popular with ICOs?
Move over Boba Fett — make room 101st Airborne; as awesome as you are, you probably wouldn’t be any good at these kinds of bounties and airdrops. No, the prowess in this case rests with high tech marketers, especially those dealing in cryptocurrencies. Because that’s all bounty programs and airdrops really are: proven marketing strategies that can take an ICO from complete anonymity to having all the resources, customers and help it needs for a successful launch and rapid expansion.
Let’s examine how these two methods take shape
1. Bounty programs — This increasingly popular method takes advantage of several benefits to young ICOs and can be implemented pre or post-ICO according to the company’s strategy. The step of any bounty program is to outline your needs as an ICO. Do you need greater exposure on crypto forums or social media? Do you need code to be tested and bugs to be fixed? Which is the right method to reach the right audience? Once these questions have led you to some concrete answers, the bounty program can begin, by offering members of the general public cryptocurrency tokens to fulfill these small, basic tasks you need done.
You can often reach the right people by posting on crypto forums and announcing the bounty program. Do you need influential people to plug your upcoming ICO on social media? Many users have built up social media profiles specifically for this purpose, with large followings of people who want to hear about your new company. Posts with larger reach and engagement are worth more and will accordingly need to be rewarded with larger bounties than posts that reach just a few dozen people. The same technique can be used to recruit the help of coders, content writers and translators, who are all ready to put in a little bit of work for a small reward in tokens.
Besides the marketing that gets done for you on social media, participants in bounty programs often talk about the work and help spread the word throughout the crypto community about your ICO — precisely the group you want to target.
2. Airdrops — These have many similarities to bounty programs, but rely more on word of mouth and are, in some ways, more of a gamble for ICOs — albeit a gamble with a huge payoff. Certain airdrops could also be compared to giveaway campaigns. In order to receive tokens in an airdrop, you can stipulate that participants share a post on social media, sign up for a newsletter or help spread the word in some other way. Participants are then given free tokens, generally an even slice of the number of tokens you decided to give away beforehand.
Another method is to ease up the restrictions on who is eligible to receive tokens in the airdrop and give a larger number of people a smaller number of tokens — preferably to reach people who didn’t even realize they would be receiving any. Seeing a random allotment of tokens enter their wallets, participants are understandably curious and might do more research into the mystery token or even better, ask their friends and other crypto-community members where the token is from and what it is. While this method is proven to yield positive results, the downside is giving away tokens to people who decide not to show any interests or help spread the word, and there are always a few of these.
So, what’s right for you?
Should you launch a bounty program pre-ICO or post-ICO? Or maybe an airdrop is a better way to go for you? Marketing experts like the team at Emissary Guild are the best resource to help answer such questions. Their understanding of the crypto market will help guide you through the nitty-gritty detailed decisions and then see you through with the actual implementation of your strategy.
And no matter what that strategy may be, both bounty programs and airdrops are methods to consider, as they provide quality community feedback and input as well as advertising for your brand while offering valuable rewards in return.
