The dominant marketing strategy in our industry has largely revolved around two key pillars: secrecy and urgency. Understandable. It works.
Applying them correctly creates three things:
- Fomo
- A feeling of exclusivity
- A feeling of being ‘early’
However, keep one thing in mind: holes in your project cannot be patched by implementing these strategies. Lagging KPIs, unfinished or unpolished platforms, roadmap delays, the list goes on. The key rule is this: product first, marketing second.
Secrecy
You have most likely come across most of the following 5 messaging schemes throughout recent years:
- “You’re early”
- “Insiders only”
- “Don’t asky why, but leave your wallet address.”
- “Most people will never see this”
- “A new […] has entered the arena”
These are just a few examples that fit into the ‘secrecy’ shtick. The goal? They create the illusion of exclusivity. “Hey, pay attention! Something interesting is happening! You specifically are special, others have not seen this yet.” The desired goal is to create some curiosity.
This strategy works best when amplified by a network of KOLs and partners. Case study: remember when many of the top protocols in the industry changed the color of their profile picture to support the launch of the Arbitrum network?
Vagueness often gets rewarded with engagement. A second effect is that plants the seed for people wanting to eventually find out what a post they saw was all about. Think of public countdowns. Announcing “big” announcements beforehand.
When you take the secrecy approach to the extreme, you end up utilizing stealth launches or stealth modes. A higher risk strategy, which naturally comes with the potential of larger returns.
Key lesson: dosage is the most important levery. A little mystery goes a long way. It creates intrigue.
Pull the lever too far? You’ll end up looking like a potential rug. Especially for established projects who’ve been on the market for a while, long stretches of secrecy may result in itchy hands and unsteadiness among holders.
Urgency
Urgency is the coffee that perfectly compliments the secrecy cigarette. Think of limited allocations, gated Discords or groupchats with member count cut-offs. Countdown timers. FCFS sales.
No time to think things over. The receiver needs to act quickly.
It’s possible for this strategy to backfire. For example, a public sale which was meant to close in 2 hours being extended because the soft cap hasn’t been reached. Or setting hard caps that aren’t hit within a specifief time window. It signals to the market that you over-estimated demand.
Combine the two, and you get the classic crypto launch playbook: a secretive build-up followed by a narrow, urgent window to participate. It’s effective because it mirrors real dynamics in this market, scarcity and timing genuinely matter onchain. But that’s also what makes it easy to abuse.
Projects lean on aggressive promotion to build community numbers before launch, manufacture urgency around presales, and manufacture the appearance of traction before there’s anything real behind it. None of this is unique to crypto. But it becomes a warning sign the moment the marketing engine looks more mature than the actual business.
Projects that do not survive often have a fatal flaw in common: the lack of a real product. No amount of tactics will save that.
The methos described here are nothing new. It’s an existing playbook called scarcity marketing. Which is a combination of tools and strategies that when combined correctly, create genuine excitement around something real.