From Wall Street Marketing To ‘All Street’ Marketing
TLDR; Investment and investment marketing used to be the preserve of the world’s financial power players. Now, Web3 technologies are rapidly opening the door for retail investors to not only seize opportunities but publicly assess them too. The balance is shifting in favour of micro influencers and new, decentralised digital communities. Wall Street, watch out. All Street is on the rise.
Imagine if every individual had the information and tools to be a ‘smart’ investor.
What if the average person on the street had access to the latest investment intelligence, the power to conduct reliable due diligence, could act on what they learnt and — even better — could disseminate their valuable new understanding, so others could share in the rewards?
Back in the day, the stock market was mostly dominated by professional investors and financial institutions. These elites used traditional marketing techniques to reach and influence their target audiences.
Your everyday retail investor had little — if any — choice and agency, and little chance to illuminate themselves.
Around a decade ago, discount e-brokers *somewhat* democratised the stock market, ushering in a fresh era defined by markedly less gatekeeping and more opportunity. Think wider access made possible by tech, lower financial bars to entry, no-or-low fees, etc.
Truth be told, that only got us so far. More retail investors got a slice of the action at a fairer price, granted. But hidden fees and hidden power players still loomed large.
Now, Web3 is changing the game.
Web3 technologies — or decentralised technologies — have opened a new chapter in retail investment. Retail investors are being empowered to back initiatives they like. They’re buying into projects via cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies.
The marketing mix has been radically altered too. Once, Wall Street ruled. Now, ‘All Street’ has the power.
Everyday folk coming together through people-powered communities can get to grips with raw information, decide for themselves (individual by individual) whether an investment is good, interesting or valuable and — through the power of engaged dialogue and cumulative mass influence — potentially decide the fate of the latest cryptocurrencies or NFTs.
The 99% are finally being heard.
While conventional ads were all about dictating a message from on high, this decentralised approach to marketing has its own life and potency. The scales are tipping.
When an empowered investor shifts from commentator to advocate, communicating their personal convictions — an investment micro influencer is born. These micro influencers are the key to what’s next.
This new, democratised form of marketing is really a new form of attention marketing, based on the notion that promotion is all about capturing and engaging your audience’s attention.
Conventionally, attention marketing is and was ‘top down’, with key messages strategically disseminated via a brand’s channels, be it social media, email, or targeted ads.
In this newly democratised arena, though, the micro influencer rules.
Here, individuals with relatively small yet highly engaged followings can spark discussions, debunk falsehoods, find positive opportunities, amplify one another’s voices and create movements.
This is 21st century investment’s answer to the agora — the Ancient Greek marketplace or gathering space where citizens came together to speak, listen, learn and advance social, political and commercial dialogue.
So far, this all sounds pretty utopian, right? Well, other agents — and agents of potential power — still have a role to play.
Take startups. Within this new marketing landscape, startups have the potential to activate a highly targeted audience of potential investors and build an influential community of supporters and advocates, competing with giant firm’s giant marketing budgets. This platform, with the right approach, can then be called upon to generate excitement around projects and drive growth for the startup.
So, what are the stats?
How do you measure the growing popularity of influencer marketing — and its impact? Right now, there’s not enough data or research available to determine the effectiveness of this approach compared to the impact of traditional marketing methods.
While defining clearcut KPIs would be near impossible at present, there’s no denying this new community of voices — ‘All Street’ — plays a fundamental role in how Web3 is marketed to the retail public. And it’s set to become even more influential.
It’s forced us all to look differently at how technology products are brought to market. It’s even redefining the essence of marketing itself.
What is marketing, after all?
Part art, part science, should marketing be aimed at convincing an audience of a predetermined message? Or should it be product-led? Why not simply create a valuable product people are likely to love, then share it, and let communities create and voice their own, authentic messages?
Will these new micro influencers be rewarded for their efforts? And, if so, how can independence, authenticity and its associated impact be protected? Time will tell.
One thing’s for sure, highly engaged retail investors have more agency than ever before. The evolution of Web3 technologies has brought about a change in the way retail investors access ‘alpha’ — the potential for outperformance in the market.
In the past, retail investors often relied on risky, random, and unreliable sources of information when making investment decisions. Meanwhile, in-the-know investment players picked up tip offs over lunch and venture capital firms had the resources to perform extensive due diligence to gather high-quality data and minimise risk.
Today, you’ll find the real Robin Hoods on Telegram.
Now, retail investors can leverage decentralised platforms and protocols to access direct knowledge from industry experts and other qualified sources. Think crypto Twitter and Tiktok, and the proliferation of semi-private investment-focused Telegram groups and Discord channels. In all these ‘agoras’ users exchange ‘alpha’, performing due diligence on each other and their projects, powered by decentralised tech, up levelling their individual and collective investment intelligence.
It’s not just views on and the popularity of products that’s up for grabs — products themselves are being democratised. For the most part, Web3 projects are built in the open. This means the actual source code for the protocol and smart contracts are available for scrutiny, including even (sometimes) the independent security audit reports.
All this represents a major shift in the way retail investors access and share information. And — excitingly — it has the potential to greatly reduce the risk of investment.
The times they are a-changin’.
As Web3 technologies continue to evolve, we’ll likely see further evolution in the way retail investors access, process and pass on information.
This shift is all part of a larger sea change. Since its inception, the internet has been shaped — seemingly organically — by human desires and behaviours. Are Web3 technologies reflecting and catering people’s wish for greater agency over their own lives?
Nitin Gaur has said:
“Rethinking the internet, which was primarily designed to move information and morphed into moving value and truth, involves a fundamental shift toward empowering creators and participants and not just the custodians of the infrastructure.
Web 3.0 aims for an internet that takes another step toward self-sufficiency, leading to a whole new set of technologies and protocol developments as the foundation for a creator-controlled economy that enables information and value movement and has discernible channels with built-in trust enabled.”
In the near future, more retail investors could be party to more transparent, more reliable information, at greater speed, strengthening their investment decisions.
Wall Street, get set to share your pie. All Street fancies a slice.
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Attention marketing:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/attention-marketingMicro influencers: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2021/06/02/micro-influencers-when-smaller-is-better/?sh=6cb18481539b
Alpha:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/alpha.aspDecentralised technologies:
https://www.investopedia.com/web-20-web-30-5208698#toc-web-30
