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As a trust-enforcing system, blockchains can be implemented across a wide variety of use cases. While it has mainly been adopted by cryptocurrency and Web 3.0 applications, blockchain technology can decentralise important business functions like marketing. Using the blockchain, marketing in the future may become much easier for both entrepreneurs and their customers.
Marketing Online
More than ever, businesses need to rely on internet marketing to stay afloat. While brick-and-mortar businesses use the internet to source their latest customers, other companies’ products and services are hosted online. We see this with on-demand video streamers like Netflix or the iGaming industry where games and game-related live streams are displayed on-site. Instead of a physical product, iGaming sites give visitors access to digital slots or real money roulette streams instead. Those services wouldn’t exist without the internet, so naturally most of their marketing is also done online.live streamsWeb 2.0 advertising has been the norm since the early internet, giving rise to digital marketers and SEO experts across the world. Early internet marketers had an edge over those who hadn’t woken up to the potential of the World Wide Web, though this diminished as more entrepreneurs (and more people in general) found their way online. That’s where Web 3.0 comes in, the purported next generation of online infrastructure.
When working, playing and marketing online is the default, Web 3.0 promises ubiquity of services, decentralisation and blockchain integration that would automate a lot of digital relations. AI is an important piece of this puzzle too, having received a great technological leap with the emergence of generative AI.
Marketing on The Blockchain
Blockchain marketing is where a business’ digital marketing strategy leverages this technology to promote itself. This can be part of a larger Web 2.0 marketing strategy though, if widespread blockchain adoption takes place, entire businesses and marketing platforms will be hosted on-chain in the future.
A decentralised blockchain’s natural benefits – security, transparency and increased anonymity – make them perfect for redefining customer-facing digital roles, to the benefit of both parties. Blockchain marketing is already happening in rudimentary forms, most notably with the Brave browser and its Basic Attention Tokens (BAT). By viewing ads through its browser, Brave users gather BAT. This means users are being automatically compensated via cryptocurrency, for contributing to the online advertising ecosystem.
Besides user compensation, data will also become more secure if it’s hosted on a blockchain. There’s no room for personal data on a blockchain, so users can share their data without it being a security concern. Through the voluntary sharing of data, companies can also hone their marketing strategies by receiving high-quality data from the exact people they want to appeal to, rather than casting a wide net. For lead-generating marketers, blockchain integration would make it much easier to find the ideal customer.
Then there are the decentralisation benefits for marketers, namely the ability to cut out middlemen using the magic of smart contracts. Prices for ads online are set by the largest platforms and ad aggregators, which don’t have many viable competitors for marketers looking for a wider reach. When operating on the blockchain, there should be no time delay or cost to becoming a verified marketer online. From there, marketers can place ads for much cheaper and find them more enthusiastically accepted by audiences, using a reward mechanism like the Brave example cited above. Getting reliable data on how ads perform can be tough in Web 2.0, but it’d be seamless if the ad-serving platform was built on the blockchain.
Those are the main benefits that would come from blockchain marketing. However, the extent of these benefits will rely on future blockchain adoption, plus the demystification of other digital assets like cryptocurrencies. Now that generative AI has made automating processes much easier, there’s no doubt that Web 3.0 is closer to becoming a reality.
