NFT Project Launch Strategies - Part 2 of 2
Updated: Sep 10, 2022
This article is part 2 of a 2 part series, where we break down the different launch strategies, new projects in the NFT space use to garner interest from the NFT community.
#2 HAPE - Horror Story Launch Strategy
#3 GoblinTown.wtf - Successful Launch Strategy
#1 - Layered Launch Strategy
These are often combined with the standard launch strategies, as discussed in part one.
Pre-mint Hype – A launch strategy, with a marketing plan executed prior to mint to drive awareness and FOMO; activities will include promoting the project through sponsored ads, influencers and celebrities. They are often associated with rug pulls, as the hype is often short term, which struggles to transfer into a strong long term community behind the project - Which is essential for those successful NFT projects [Think Bored Ape Yacht Club] .
Post-mint Reveal – A launch strategy, whereby you mint only a silhouette or symbol as a teaser. This can build excessive hype and drive prices up only for the floor to drop significantly once the revealed happens. Upcoming NFT projects use this as a way of using the money made at mint to develop their project before releasing the final version [Think Full Send, who raised $25MM in 45 mins with this strategy].
Allow List or "whitelist" – This will allow certain wallet addresses have pre-sale access or a reserved quantity for a new project mint; very popular technique to reward those that were interested in the project from the beginning or those that hold NFTs that are partnered with the upcoming NFT project. Recently allow list wallets have also been rewarded with small discount on the mint price. E.g. Allow list price is 0.05 Eth and public sale is 0.07 Eth.
Stealth Launch – This is where you make a project quietly without telling the public, then only start driving awareness once the mint is actually live. This works well as interest is gained organically and will reduce the chance of inflated prices followed by a sell off. A hidden tactic here, might be to leak alpha that there is a stealth launch going on next week, this would then be a pre-mint hype strategy disguised as a stealth launch, so watch out if you see in the discord a stealth launch happening as it might not be all it seems.
#2 - Horror Story Launch Strategy - HAPE PRIME
An example of a badly executed launch strategy is HAPE PRIME. They used traditional mint, with pre-mint hype and post-reveal layered in. There was so much hype around the upcoming NFT project with teasers by the founders and NFT influencers talking about it - coupled with an extremely long post-mint reveal which brought gamification and FOMO to the project. Floor prices shot up after mint reaching prices up to 9 eth ($27K) in early February. Then, as soon as the revealed happened, those with a non-rare NFT asset, listed their assets for below the floor price with owners undercutting each other and the price crashed. From our experience pre-mint hype with post-mint reveal only leads to the price crashing we would not recommend this strategy.
#3 - Successful Launch Strategy
An example of a well-executed launch strategy is Goblintown.wtf, whereby they used the base launch strategy of a free mint, layered in with a stealth launch - to read in detail how they executed this see out other post here
If you are building an upcoming NFT launch which strategies will you use? If you need advice on which is best for your project we can help. Get in contact with us here.