You heard about NFTs and how they are making digital artists rich and you decided to give it a shot. You went to work, creating some of your most amazing pieces yet. Once done, you minted them as NFTs and waited for the money to start pouring in. Two months later, you’ve still not been able to sell $300 worth of NFTs. You decide that NFTs are not for you and hang it up.

Ku Collection by Code

This describes the sad journey of many digital artists who have unsuccessfully attempted to break into NFTs. It’s sad because these artists came to the wrong conclusion. The truth is that it’s not enough to mint an NFT collection and expect that it’ll make you a millionaire in less than a month. It’s not that easy. To succeed in this space, there are a few things you need to consider.

Now, while we may not have all the answers, we offer 7 tips in this article that have been tried and tested by many of the most successful NFT projects. Without further ado, let’s begin.

1. Focus on marketing

It would be great to just make great art and have people discover it and give you money for it, but rarely does it happen that way. For people to buy your amazing art, they must first know that this art exists. It’s important that you resist the urge to ignore marketing as it’s not in your best interest. Naturally, the next question would be “how do I market?” Well, there are many ways to do this:

1. Social media—with social media (Twitter, Instagram, etc.), there are different strategies available to you. Some will feature as tips in this post.

2. Community outreach—this involves spending time in places where NFT artists and collectors congregate. Of course, you want to be a part of this community and not leach. If you join groups with the intent to only promote your work, no one will pay attention as they don’t know you. Is this hard work? Depending on your personality. That said, if you want to be successful you have to be willing to make sacrifices.

The rest of this post will detail tips that help with focusing on marketing.

2. Expand your reach with NFT drops to non-holders

This is one of the most effective marketing techniques out there. It’s a trick used by many projects in the web3 space outside of NFT artists. The logic of its effectiveness is simple to understand. Usually, a new project will airdrop tokens to users of a competing project. For example, X project airdrops tokens to users of Y project. This encourages Y users to give the X project a try. With NFTs, you can use the same trick to great effect. You simply find an NFT project that’s somewhat similar to yours (or not) and airdrop some NFTs from your collection to holders that project’s NFT. This will cause those collectors who received your NFT to:

• Experience your NFT
• Share your NFT with their connections (social media, groups, friends, etc.)
• Buy your other NFTs as a thank you or because they want to own more than one

Most times, the collectors won’t do all. But consider: if you had a collection of 200 and airdropped 50 to active collectors, don’t you think that will have a considerable impact on your collection’s visibility and sales? It’s always a good marketing strategy to start by airdropping some NFTs from your collection to collectors. If you have some leverage, you can ask the collectors to complete a few actions before they can become eligible for the airdrop. For example, you can ask them to tweet about your collection. But be careful, you want their attention and so it’s important that you don’t ask too much.

Isometric World by Ruben Topia

3. Be community-focused

Every web3 project lives and dies by the energy of its community. There’s no shortcutting your way out of this. There are over thousands of NFT projects that have been launched in the last few years and only less than 30 are being talked about or traded for ridiculous sums. Why? It has nothing to do with the art. That may seem like an overstatement to you, but believe me, it’s not. The art needs to be good, of course, but that’s not the deciding factor. The community is where all the power lies. BAYC (Bored Ape Yacht Club) is going strong because it has a vibrant community dedicated to its growth. ChaosDAO is another example. CryptoPunks are in a similar category.

The projects that will survive in the long term are those that have a strong community. This is why the first tip is to focus on marketing. Marketing helps you draw eyes to your collections. Converting these eyes into a vibrant community is where the rest of the game lies.

Community is so effective because humans are incredibly susceptible to word-of-mouth, such that if many people are talking about something, we imagine that it’s far more valuable. Bitcoin > Ethereum > Polkadot (by market capitalization). Why? It’s got nothing to do with the technology and everything to do with the community. The larger a community grows, the more valuable what they stand for becomes. The next question to ask yourself is “how do I build a community?”

We don’t know the right answers. The best we can do is offer a few tips:

• Decide what the community identity is. Every community organizes around a core set of ideals. What kind of person does your art speak to?
• Reward early members. This could further encourage them to talk about your project/collection and invite their friends. A good idea for rewards is future NFT drops.
• Keep rewarding the community. In this context, community refers to holders of your NFTs. Each time you reward them, they will be inclined to share their new piece, thus driving more demand to your new collections.
• Focus on people and ideals, not profit. That’s the only way to build a long-term community.

Marlua's Emotions by Marlua

4. Engineer FOMO

In marketing, there are few things as powerful as the fear of missing out. For some reason, people are more inclined to take action when there is the possibility that they could miss out on a good opportunity. Thus, the difficulty for you is in engineering the state of FOMO around your collection. Some NFT artists are masters of this art form. Below are a few ideas we’ve gotten from them:

• Release the collection in batches - This is a technique that is expertly employed by Code for the Ku Collection. He releases the collection in batches of 5 every week. His sequence goes like this:

  • Post blurred out pictures of the 5 NFTs for the week
  • Request for bids before the reveal later at the end of the week
  • Post the full pictures of the 5 and the winning bids (this gives his pieces a relatively high valuation on the day they drop on-chain).

• Host the sale in trenches - Rather than have one main public sale, you can draw out your release in such a manner;

  • Early access pre-sale
  • Public pre-sale
  • Public sale

You can try out other combinations. The main idea is to have multiple stages of your sale. There’s a reason why projects have different sales before the main sale. It’s all about creating hype, boosting price, and building a community.

These are just two ideas. I’m sure there are more. Explore different options and see which fits best with your collection, personality, and reach. Always remember that exclusivity breeds greater demand.

5. Be honest with your pricing

If you’re new to the space, it makes sense for your pricing to reflect that, unless you’re already a big name (outside the space). If your prices are low enough, some collectors will be tempted to buy from you. If they are too high, then the chances of your collection selling out are much lower. On Singular, a good price to aim for is 0.1 - 0.5 KSM for JPEGs and 0.5 - 1 KSM for audio-visual NFTs. Of course, if you feel like your art is worth much more, then feel free to do as you wish. Just remember that it’s not about what you value your art at but what the market is willing to pay for it.

6. Treat each new collection as a mini-project

This is helpful because it makes you consider marketing for each project differently—as it should be. Never expect that success from one collection will spill over into the next by default. That’s wishful thinking. It’s far better to take greater control of the situation by viewing the new collection as another project that requires just as much attention as the first.

Kitty Paradise by Yumi Arts

7. Set an on-chain identity

With plagiarism being a big concern for collectors, it’s considered best practice to set an on-chain identity so that every potential buyer of your NFT will be able to verify who you are. By linking your social media pages and email to your on-chain account, you make it easier for the collectors to trust your legitimacy.

Conclusion

There you have it, 7 tips to help you attain your NFT goals. It’s important to note that this is hard work. That said, it’s the kind of hard work that pays off in the end because if you’re able to master the ability to release successful NFT collections, the sky will be your limit in relation to the degree of freedom and revenue you will have. If you are still unclear on how to go about it, reach out to artists that have already released successful collections and ask them how they did it. We have interviewed a few of them in the past:

• Code and his Ku Collection
• Yumi Arts and her Kitty Paradise
• Fr.om and his Music NFTs
• Ruben Topia and his Isometric Worlds

Are you a talented digital artist? Start minting your cool NFTs for free on Singular, a brand new limitless NFT ecosystem. Apply here to get a sponsored trial of Singular worth 500 FREE MINTS! Feel free to refer your friends, we will be happy to sponsor them too.