Author: Dov
First, Shift Your Mindset: Abandon Thoughts of Product and Technological Innovation, and Pick Up the Hammer of "Narrative"
From a Crypto marketing perspective, we have a hammer called narrative in our hands. Now, please look at every project as a nail. Set aside all technological innovations and product capabilities; let’s only talk about how to tell a story (narrative).
You can roughly understand the entire crypto industry as a consumer goods industry (especially new consumption), which is entirely driven by sales. New brands like Perfect Diary and Six Female PhDs have no great product innovations (just like most crypto projects lack real technological innovations); they are driven by sales and emerge from innovations in new sales channels.
Korean Exchanges and Retail Investors are the Innovations in Sales Channels for this Crypto Bull Market
Say it three times,
marketing is selling goods, KOLs are live-streaming sales hosts
marketing is selling goods, KOLs are live-streaming sales hosts
marketing is selling goods, KOLs are live-streaming sales hosts
Bro, this coin is only 1 billion USD FDV, how is that expensive?
As a project party, your revenue source is traffic * conversion rate.
Traffic means how many channels (media, KOLs, etc.) you find to write content and how much attention you gain.
Conversion rate means whether people are interested after seeing your content, whether they want to take a look or read it all, and whether they buy into your story and how much they spend.
Today, we will only talk about "how to write a good story." Most project parties have their own products and know what they are doing, but they fail to articulate their grand vision well. When thinking about the story, they often limit their scope or tell some old, boring stories that VCs, exchanges, and retail investors do not buy into.
Let's Take Sign as an Example, This is the Hottest Project Recently
I suggest that project parties who don’t know how to write a narrative start from their products; after all, you should know what you are doing.
Let’s talk plainly about Sign’s several products:
EthSign - On-chain contract signing, 2 million users, a total of 1.5 million contracts signed; hopes to become the protocol for contracts between humans and AI agents in the future.
TokenTable, a token distribution platform, the Goldman Sachs of the crypto industry, simultaneously acting as a brokerage and investment bank. Total revenue of 15 million USD.
Sign Pass, an identity system, a global passport, such as a PR from Sierra Leone or a golden visa from the UAE.
Sign Protocol, the infrastructure for the above three products.
We first fed this content to the GPT that I had trained to help me write narratives, of course, using DeepSeek might be better now. Emphasize to GPT that the target audience is global VCs and old money (so it can write a bigger vision for you).
The above is the first response from GPT; at least we now have a general direction and some initial inspiration. But this is still far from enough; it’s too scattered.
The Best Narrative is: Simple and Grand, Ideally with Some Philosophical Height, So That the Valuation Model Can Shift from Price-to-Earnings Ratio to Price-to-Dream Ratio.
Previous examples like Sonic had two narratives:
Solana Layer2, everyone knows what layer2 is, and everyone knows that layer2's FDV is high; you don’t need to explain further, it’s benchmarked against OP.
TikTok Chain, this is very straightforward, even without explanation. It’s benchmarked against TON.
Sonic's narrative could score 90 points, but it lacks 10 points of philosophical height. To elevate the last 10 points, a sense of narrative aesthetics is needed.
Let’s look at one of my favorite narratives for a case study. This is Notion's pitch deck from 2013.
"We Shape our tools, and thereafter our tools will shape us"
This is top-tier narrative aesthetics: simple, profound, and relevant.
It is almost impossible to translate the beauty of the English phrase into Chinese. Simply put, the translation is:
“We shape our tools, and in turn, these tools shape us.”
Notion has many keywords, but it only captured one; this is the "subtraction" in narrative.
Notion's keywords could include: efficiency, tools, inspiration, collaboration, creativity, etc., but they only chose "tools."
Narratives should practice subtraction; less is more. When the public mentions you, they should only remember one positioning and not long, detailed things.
How to implement this specifically? Let’s return to Sign. We directly asked ChatGPT; at that time, we hadn’t decided which keyword to assign to Sign. It could be contract, trust, signature, collaboration, distribution, or even fairness, among many others.
We let GPT brainstorm.
This time, GPT's output was quite vague and did not identify Sign's true keywords. The content was not grounded and practical enough; it was too one-sided, so we provided some additional context.
This time, the content was much better. Among all of it, we captured this sentence:
“Trust is the invisible currency that powers every transaction, every relationship, and every society.”
——Inspired by Yuval Noah Harari
Interpretation: Sign is redefining the "monetization" of trust, embedding it into contracts, assets, and identity systems, providing new infrastructure for the digital society.
Why choose this sentence?
It highlights the keyword: monetizing trust. This is a narrative at the dimension of human civilization; it is grand enough and sounds impressive.
The subsequent keywords are transaction, relationship, and society, which are precisely what Sign and the blockchain industry are doing—various transactions, relationships, and societies—so it is very relevant.
The source of this sentence is Yuval Noah Harari, the author of bestsellers like Sapiens and Homo Deus, who has enough prestige and reach in the field of technology philosophy, making him a great choice compared to a bestselling author with less depth or an unknown academic professor.
With this philosophical height as a starting point, the next step is to align Sign's business with this grand vision from Yuval Noah Harari. We continue to ask GPT.
The third point it wrote was good, capturing the big theme of "trust." This topic is big, simple, and closely related to what Sign is doing. Since the direction is set, let’s let GPT brainstorm further to see if there are more inspirations in this direction.
This time, GPT provided some clichéd dead ends, like "decentralized revolution" and "empowerment effect," but the term "programmable" laid a foundation for what’s to come.
Let’s ask GPT to emphasize aligning with Yuval Noah Harari's statement and see what it says:
This time, it provided many satisfactory responses. The story and tone were both present. The most suitable one was the first; with slight modifications, it became the following:
In a tokenized world, blockchain provides the trust foundation for human society, transforming trust from an invisible currency into a programmable framework, and Sign sets the standard for this new era of seamless collaboration across humans, nations, and AI.
After crafting these two paragraphs, we finally needed a simple and powerful slogan to emphasize once more.
GPT provided these frameworks, and with the earlier laid foundation, Potter had an Aha Moment and came up with the slogan:
SIGN MAKES TRUST PROGRAMMABLE.
(This moment crystallized the collaboration between humans and AI, and Sign happens to be the first tool for humans to sign agreements with AI.)
This slogan responds to the grand theme and clarifies how Sign executes its mission. Potter and I cheered and high-fived, then ran downstairs to smoke a Yuxi.
The final effect is shown in the image below (of course, this is not the final version):
Let me translate this for everyone:
“Trust is the invisible currency that powers every transaction, every relationship, and every society.”
- Yuval Noah Harari
In a tokenized world, blockchain provides the trust foundation for human society, transforming trust from an invisible currency into a programmable framework, and Sign sets the standard for this new era of seamless collaboration across humans, nations, and AI.
Once trust can be quantified, it becomes currency.
Sign makes trust programmable.
Although it may not be as impactful as Notion's statement, it is sufficient. I would rate it 80-90 points.
This is just the vision part, consisting of only two short paragraphs.
A better Blurb/One Pager should also include:
Why Now
Our Unique Position
Product
Traction
Fundraising & Revenue & Partnership
Team
By the way, I want to add some personal remarks.
The Crypto Marketing 101 series was inspired by the teachings of Sanpan, the crypto master, and I thank him for consistently providing valuable content that has inspired me greatly.
In 2024, I helped dozens of projects, big and small, with marketing planning, starting from the portfolio of projects my company invested in to many friends who proactively introduced projects to me because they thought I was doing well.
Marketing is far more than just finding a few KOLs; most agencies have realized this. I have gone from being unknown to achieving some success (one project listed on Binance, two projects on OKX + Upbit, countless on Tier 2 exchanges, and many memecoins over 100M+), and the books I’ve read, the people I’ve talked to, the conferences I’ve attended, and the late nights I’ve spent have brought me to what I consider a passing level today, but I must continue to strive for excellence.
Crypto Marketing 101 will continue to be updated, always open-source, maintaining the spirit of crypto in a market where the scythe swings.
If anyone has needs, feel free to message me, and you are also welcome to request materials from Mango Labs.
I can help, but freeloading is not acceptable.
Happy New Year, and may your work be prosperous.
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