Lessons - How To Market Emerging Technologies | Aubrey Strobel - Head of Communications at Lolli

In this lessons episode you'll learn how to market a new crypto project by embracing a unique brand voice using mean marketing and creating engaging educational content discover how to build personal and brand credibility while making crypto accessible and fun. You did have a journalism background. You were working in PR to some extent, but you have this founder who wants to take a product to market that realistically has never been done before. What I'm curious what the pitch was and what the strategy was to make this successful because you've done it well. So you know what's the marketing play for brand new crypto blockchain project to take it to market. Well, I would say everyone sort of try to do what we're doing now. When we launched in 2018, I think that the crypto companies were trying to take themselves very seriously because they didn't have that validity and no one really tried it. It was sort of like a joke still you know crypto was what silly internet people were doing and even now I mean there's there's people still probably feel the same way for a large part. So a lot of these crypto companies really trying to dress themselves up act like banks and that's exactly what we were trying to wait for. We're not trying to be banks anymore. We're trying to have this idea of freedom. And so I think really lean into what makes you unique no matter what that may be is that your personal brand is that your company brand. And lolly just never took a self seriously. I mean it's name is lolly. It's it's funny. It should be comfortable. It should feel like approachable you know and that we want to be the approachable bank not the bank that shuts down on you for Columbus Day for any reason that you can access your funds that you know tells you you have a withdrawal amendment who you know is a tell you at the teller of the bank that says you know. So I would close your account for some reason that you don't know all those reason that bank make banks not fun is like the exact opposite of what we're trying to do. We're trying to be the fun bank. You want to keep your money with lolly. Keep it growing. We want to add different incentives like interest accounts and things like that. So I mean the idea that I pitched was that I can you know this is a product that can get on good morning America that can be. You know your your mom like we're saying could understand this you know my aunt she buys my cousins vitamins offs of vitamin world and gets Bitcoin back for my autistic cousin and that that's like the impactful thing is the humanity which I think sort of stem from my journalism degrees stems from some of the PR stuff that I've done it. Any way that you can humanize a brand is impactful no matter what that may be and just realize you know really just pitch the idea that all all companies are media companies and they've been trying to be but they didn't realize that they were doing that for quite some time. So the content they produce whatever it is people people want to talk to the people and I want to talk to brands they don't they want to see all comfortable they want to engage they want us. You should how do your users want to spend money with you and make them feel that way when they're shopping. So that that's sort of you know I think not the exact playbook of how we did it but no but it's good the framework the frame like I think it's smart I think the framework smart and you do it like you go go to go to Aubrey's Twitter like go to go to lolly's Twitter like it's just fun and we were speaking before this we're saying like you know how this is not even a blockchain thing this is just like a marketing in 2021 you mentioned it every company is a media company. My opinion every person should be a media company too and building their own brand. So walk me through like the framework for people like this is just a great marketing lesson. How you market lolly how you market it on different social channels well I don't know everything you do because I just see some of it but walk me through that. Well I like to say for people who are watching this and they may not know how to guide their company or it maybe it's just your personal brand I would say. You know just start today because there's so you might feel like it's too late some people feel kind of intimidated by these platforms that maybe that they couldn't have a voice there I think just start today and be consistent with your content number one. Lolly on Twitter really we've made a huge meme play and I think people under value that in in a way and people companies for a while would say that interns were running social media channels and it's they have no idea what they're talking about would you put your entire brand voice in the hands of a. I'm not saying a twenty twenty one twenty two year old kid couldn't run a great brand for you know someone but I'm just saying that there are no other brand voice somebody who doesn't know the brand voice so that's what you don't want. Exactly exactly it's not just and it's not just a summer job or someone we give someone to do because it's not important it's so important and it needs to be treated that way and people you know make jokes about memes but there is meme advertising like hidden messages. Within meme like activations that happen it's like a new strategy is going on and so even people even argue will be chief meme officers in the future because that kind of content is important for companies to relate and it's easy engagement. So we we've made our Instagram sort of a meme account for Twitter account puts out memes but it's sort of just trends with topics that are happening so it's just be really really in tune with the internet's voice but we also have other channels where we offer you know the best Bitcoin back deals. But that's more of a a deals focus social media account you can go there for that but if you're going to the law account you're going there to be entertained to hopefully learn something about Bitcoin because I do feel like another part of our strategy that I thought was really imperative that we had to had to get right was educating people we can't just bring them in and then not educate them. Like once you get Bitcoin we want to hopefully explain to you why it's a better money than people have already and and how to take care of that money because Bitcoin while it is in some ways very simple it can be very complicated and we want to lower those barriers to entry for people who you know maybe they want to take their Bitcoin off of wall and put it onto a cold storage wallet or wallet that's not connected to any devices just name where that sort of wallet so. We want to be a resource for people we're trying to help them in every way possible so I think the educational aspect of that green educational content we've been doing that on YouTube we've been doing that on tiktok YouTube shorts has just come out sort of been trying to utilize that little kwonki right now but the platform but we're trying to utilize those channels and then you know obviously Instagram reels and really anyway we can just meet our user. We've been doing so much education and just sort of a Bitcoin 101 60 second guide tell you how tell you what blockchain and tell you what Bitcoin is tell you you know tips things that you can learn about in the crypto space and yeah it's been successful so far but I think it's just really had you on the content side. Yeah so so that I think this is a just so I think content marketing you're nailing if people are listening watching this go check out go check out lolly's social channels for some practical advice and some and just some some best practice like we you know I look at the companies that do it well meme accounts do well wife that shareable is funny it's things that people want you know this there's how do you win at content you make stuff that people want to share educational funny things like that that's people want to share with their friends family whatever. So you just apply that to visit and also you know but you you've also put yourself out so that's another thing that you do that's a little bit different than not not everybody does that I'm a big fan of putting yourself out there and building your own brand you said even I don't know if it's a video of I think you put out videos of yourself as well you said you put it a video once a week so you've assumed this personality that that's now associated with the brand that's also something so walk me through why you decided to do that as well because not everybody does that other people. Morning brew for example they do a lot of Twitter stuff and now you have the guy that runs the morning brew account to be a phenomenal he has a lot more of a profile but still it's a it's very heavy on the you know the faceless funny content on Twitter but you're doing a little bit more so walk me through that. Yeah I mean it some of that stuff people may not want to do a traditional head of comms is not usually making product speeches at conferences and walking through those things I feel like at a startup you kind of make yourself accessible and any way you can and I you know I had that background broadcast journalism and there's just skills that you can find and parts of your career that you can apply later on and so being on camera is something I feel very comfortable familiar with doing so we create quality we created a lot of TV which is this weekly Friday show where we run through the Bitcoin news of the week we do like a meme review we give you the best Bitcoin back deals and then we do it give away at the end so there's a little something in there for everyone and then we keep it about a three minute show so hopefully people are being educated on what's going on the market and in a fun way that's not intimidating that is also being told in the right way because being sure media can obviously change the narrative and and you know we all know how the news cycle can be it's not always like the most accurate portrayal of what's actually happening and so that strategy you know YouTube is the largest search the second largest search engine and people kind of forget about that you know Google everyone's trying to rank for SEO Google why not YouTube why not become this source that people want to go to to learn about Bitcoin on YouTube there's a lot of people that are already doing that but hopefully we do it in a more digestible way people think about SEO strictly as you know Google but YouTube has one of the largest search engines and so if you can get early into it's not all industries obviously the crypto space a little bit more nascent so getting in there and while people haven't totally taken over YouTube is a good opportunity so that's sort of what we're trying to do over at lolly get back on time out there try to educate people's best as we can and hopefully that will keep them into the space for the long term and we're really just trying to convert people not just it's I know people here about these tokens that are like these short term get quick get bridge quick scams that's not what we're trying to do we're really trying to promote a revolution or a financial shift for people so hopefully that's that's the you know the goal hopefully and then you know lolly rings high when that's all said and done as a resource people looking to learn and earn Bitcoin you