The psychology of Web3 marketing.

Understanding the psychology of Web3 marketing is crucial, as it sheds light on how vulnerabilities in degen mental models can lead to mass transfers of wealth.

This knowledge is particularly important for project founders, traders, and marketers, as it helps them navigate the complex landscape of consumer behavior.

At its core, web3 marketing is a fascinating interplay of psychological factors that can persuade someone to not just buy, but also share and hold your product.

BSH (Buy, Share, Hold) is not just a concept but the cornerstone of any Web3 brand. It's the key that inevitably dictates the success of any Web3 company, making it a crucial element in Web3 branding.

Understanding the psychology behind each BSH factor and how to use it to your advantage is not only beneficial but empowering in the world of Web3 marketing.

Whether you are a project founder trying to persuade and trying to guide users down this path or you are a trader who wants to understand these psychological primers so you don't fall into (sometimes malicious) marketing campaigns.

The more autonomy we have over our a.) decision making b.) content consumption and c.) methods of reciprocation. Not only will our decisions become inherently better, but instead of running the consumer hamster wheel, we can elevate to a third party perspective of understanding rather than psychological bias/dogma.

So going back to the main points BSH, we need to take the end goal of the user which illuminates the indicator of a successful project. Someone who buys in massive amounts relative to their reasonable expenditure, someone who utilizes their efforts and mannerisms to uniquely spread the word, and someone who has reached such irrational optimism that selling would be the antithesis of their conviction.

So this writing will break down how: 1.) the consumer reaches this phase and 2.) companies try to artificially manufacture this process.

1.)

The consumer can enter a state of euphoria, her mentality, and irrational optimism that they enter a state of BSH that is more valuable than any type of paid marketing.

Brands essentially create independent soldiers who are so psychologically intertwined in the company's funnel that they will disregard logic for the sake of the benefit of the company and the lining of the founder's pockets.

Consumers have problems, and those companies that solve those problems appeal to the consumer. It's simple. solve important problems.

But important problem solvers don't necessarily have this euphoric BSH state of the audience. Amazon delivers products exceptionally fast, low priced, and high quality but doesn't have third-party people (consumers) fully committed to seeing that brand thrive.

That is unless they have stock. When the #1 essential resource of human existence is injected into this funnel, you create incentives, which is the easiest way to kickstart the pseudo-persuasion process—money, that is.

When incentives are aligned, you can 100% guarantee that a person's actions will benefit their economic status. It's simple human nature: providing for family and furthering living conditions.

But this isn't the full cycle. You need this person to build an army and lead their fellow troops on this "incentivized-aligned" battle in the name of asset appreciation, lol.

You sell the vision. The higher the ceiling, the bigger the vision, and greater reward for reaching the destination will create people who are incentivized, and inclined to reach that destination.

These consumers develop an irrational conviction to the product after hours of immersion and the dream of complete economic freedom. They begin to sell the vision to others (whether at the detriment of the others or not) to primarily benefit themselves.

You might be thinking to yourself, "This is great. What's wrong with this?" However, two main issues arise when the consumer enters this state of euphoric conviction. 1.) They feel indebted to those they onboarded, whereas selling would be paradoxical to them and is almost treason. 2.) A good founder would realize they have divine-like influencers and ALWAYS move the goal post until the goal post can't exist anymore.

Consumers want a product that solves their problems, a vision that can grow to unrealistic heights, and a model from which they can reap the rewards.

If all those traits are satisfied, then the consumer will probably never stop vouching for the company; and also paradoxically, never make money.

This process at scale is what creates unicorns; the issue with crypto is that 99% of products are intangible and will not emit any benefit to society, so they will likely end up at 0/non existent.

2.)

Brands strive to recreate the consumer flywheel at scale, a strategy that is massively profitable and the very essence of capitalism and PvP markets. Understanding this process is key to comprehending the dynamics of modern marketing.

No decision you have ever made has been independent, someone is always persuading you.

Ask yourself, as Peter Thiel regularly asks job applicants, "What is one truth that no one agreed with you one?"

Sounds contradictory because the only truths we are taught at school are, with consensus, agreed upon!

True opinions and free thinking is hard to come by and is often accidental as a byproduct of curiosity, mistakes, or even stark realizations.

The moral of the story is that realizing your decisions are being influenced by someone/something all the time is the first step of removing yourself from this viral marketing flywheel and being able to see the anterior motives that inevitably wreck this space.

How do brands influence you? A number of ways but we are talking about the companies that have perfected the BSH mentality, and those are the ones who can market a product to you, without you knowing, therefore when you are presented with the opportunity to (buy the product, enter the community, what have you,) you have been psychologically primed to do so.

The good news for brands is that with a society that is induced with FOMO, herd mentality, and 0 attention span they can indoctrinate susceptible audiences by tapping into their methods of content consumption.

If a gaming company wants you to play their game, let's say they are an MMO RPG, the first thing they do is identify a target audience who easily digests this type of content and then they take the USPs (competitive advantages of their game) wether it's fun, realistic, WHATEVER, and start to warm those audiences up to that content.

Let me share with you an example.

Lets take an MMO RPG that's main selling points are that it's fun, realistic, and free.

You would then market to the audience via influencers, ads, email marketing to imagine a world where games could be fun, realistic, and free. You continue this until you sell the VISION, and then you sell the brand. The grand vision is never dictated by the brand.

It's like the moon landing, the end goal is the same, but the rocket is really important therefore when you convert an audience on the vision, you can easily convert them on the product itself at a later date.

Why is this good? Because then consumer will often forego rational decision making, due diligence and automatically cling to a product that carry out the vision.

So, as a consumer, when we digest content, we should always be cognizant of ulterior motives, further actions that could arise, and always think to ourselves "are we being persuaded to take a future action against our will"

The essence of capitalism and Web3 is to democratize this type of knowledge, as a marketing firm, we try to back good founders and good products which allow us to recreate this process and do GOOD for the society.

However, there are bad people and these same tactics will lead to 99% of people losing money this cycle, always stay vigilant and trust your thesis. The farther you zoom out the harder it is to lose, usually, lol.