Influencer marketing for crypto is tough. Between confusing regulations (different in every country) and skepticism from both consumers and creators, it can be challenging to develop trust and credibility.

Yet it can be a hugely profitable channel for crypto brands with the right strategy and some hard work. Brands like Bitpanda and Binance have built million-dollar influencer marketing programs.

Here, we’ll dive into:

• Challenges of influencer marketing in a highly regulated industry
• How to find the right influencers to promote a crypto brand
• Building trust and overcoming skepticism to land new collabs
• Examples of successful crypto influencer marketing

Influencer marketing challenges in the crypto space

The cryptocurrency industry is uncertain, and the markets don't always play nice. Valuations dip, and technologies evolve while regulations consistently change.

There’s no shortage of reasons why crypto influencer marketing is hard. But, most of the challenges are due to two main reasons:

• Regulatory challenges
• Trust and audience perception

1. Differing regulations between countries & lack of consistency

Not only do you have to deal with differing regulations in different parts of the world, but they’re constantly changing too. That makes approving creatives, developing processes, and expanding into new geographies tougher than it is in other niches.

To give one recent example of changing regulations, in March 2023, the French National Assembly recently passed Bill No. 790, which recommended banning influencers from promoting crypto products or services to better protect citizens from potential risks associated with cryptocurrency. Debates like this are ongoing, and keeping up with all the legal requirements isn't easy.

If you face challenges specifically with tracking mandatory ad disclosures & tags, try an influencer tracking tool like Modash. It lets you specify which influencers you want to track, and get alerts when disclosures are missing so you can follow-up with creators.

2. Lack of trust and credibility

Creating trust and credibility in the crypto industry is a massive hurdle for marketers. Crypto has perception challenges both with consumers, and with creators. Many consumers think of crypto as a highly speculative and unstable investment. Meanwhile, creators are skeptical of promoting crypto brands after seeing other creators get burned (think FTX - Graham Stephan, Andrei Jikh, etc.).

Despite those challenges, crypto’s perception is getting better through endorsements from public figures like Jack Dorsey, Mark Cuban, and Lil Yachty. One of the best ways to change a person’s perception of crypto is for them to hear directly from a creator whose opinion they trust.

How to find the right crypto influencers for your brand

Before we discuss some scalable methods to find crypto influencers to work with, let's talk about one of the biggest pitfalls in influencer marketing that you need to avoid.

Don't just focus on crypto influencers

As a crypto business, it might seem obvious to you to only work with influencers talking about cryptocurrency or blockchain.

Well, not exactly!

Avery Schrader, CEO of Modash, advises crypto brands to look beyond creators who only post crypto content. There are several downsides to focusing on that type of collab:

• Expensive: There aren’t many well-known and reputable crypto influencers out there. Prominent creators in this space know their value, and charge a premium for their influence.
• Limited audience: Most crypto influencers are men and have the same audience — men in their 20s to early 40s.
• Multiple brand collaborations: Due to limited crypto creators in the market, many influencers are working with several crypto businesses simultaneously. This leads to less credibility among the audience as they might perceive the influencer's content as too promotional and less genuine.

What type of influencers do you look for, then?

Figure out the niches and topics that include your core business but aren't explicitly your core business. For a crypto company, think about who is most likely to invest in crypto, but who might not be following typical crypto influencers. That might be:

• Entrepreneurs and people in business, especially women
• Tech-savvy people like software engineers or gamers
• People with existing disposable income for other investments (e.g. real estate, stocks)

Here’s a real world example.

Maia Pedro leads influencer marketing at Bitpanda, an Austrian crypto unicorn. When building the influencer marketing strategy, he noticed that among the three million users of Bitpanda, 80% were men who were already into crypto.

The company wanted to target users in a completely different demographic to onboard new customers. Maia decided to reach out to influencers outside the crypto world, like gamers, women business owners, and KOLs in the business industry.

Avery and Maia discussed Bitpanda’s influencer strategy in detail on the Creator Partnerships Podcast.

By collaborating with these influencers, you get one step closer to your target audience while sharing a message that's relevant to them.

Now let's have a look at how you can find these influencers.

1. Use an influencer search tool

With an influencer search tool like Modash, you can find the right crypto influencers, analyze their profiles in detail, and shortlist the most relevant creators for your brand.

Let's look at a quick example to find YouTube influencers, as YouTube is a popular platform in the crypto industry.

Modash lists every creator with 1k+ followers/subscribers (250M+ creators!). That means no matter the niche or type of creator you’re looking for, they are in Modash, you just need to figure out the right filters to find them. The available filters include:

• Creator's location
• Subscriber range (e.g. 10k-100k)
• Performance metrics (e.g. engagement rate, growth rate)
• Topics covered (e.g. by hashtags used, things mentioned in videos)

Modash also lets you apply filters for the creator's audience, like their audience demographics, gender, and age. For example, if you're looking to target a male audience in their 20s to 40s (crypto's ideal target audience), you can add filters as shown below:

Now run your search. Using this example, Modash gave us 100+ creators who talk about crypto and have a predominantly male audience based in the US, with a growth rate of more than 30%.

If you like an influencer's profile, click on it and analyze it. In the in-depth profile review, you will find everything you need to determine whether an influencer is a good fit for your brand, like performance metrics (engagement rate, average views), top content, audience demographics (age, gender, locations), and much more.

You can also find their YouTube channel's email in one click for outreach later.

2. Research on social media platforms

Platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube are great places to start. Look for accounts that have a large following and regularly post about cryptocurrency or blockchain technology.

You can search for hashtags like #cryptocurrency, #blockchain, #bitcoin, and #altcoins to find influencers who are a prominent part of the crypto space.

This Tweet by Layah Heilpern, a marketing consultant and author of Undressing Bitcoin, promotes the Bitcoin conference by giving 10% off the tickets.

3. Attend blockchain conferences and events

Attending crypto conferences and events focused on blockchain technology can be a great way to connect with influencers in person and learn about upcoming trends in the industry.

You can also use these events to network with other industry professionals and experts and have them represent your brand.

Look at this speaker list of EDCON, a non-profit annual global Ethereum conference. With multiple key opinion leaders and influencers, it’s a great way for companies to interact with influencers and build long-term relationships with them.

4. Utilize Google searches

Google is a great way to find relevant crypto influencers. The only downfall is that you have to be more diligent when it comes to Google searches, as it can be unreliable.

Type "crypto" and terms like "influencers" or "thought leaders," and you will find bloggers, writers, and other influencers who are active in the crypto space.

If you want to find micro influencers in the crypto space, be sure to make your search as specific as possible. As you can see above ☝, a broad search like 'crypto influencers' is unlikely to help you find people who you're actually likely to collaborate with. For example, you could try adding a platform (e.g. crypto tiktok influencers), or a country (e.g. greek crypto influencers) to start drilling down further.

5. Check out online communities

Online communities such as Reddit or Discord are a great way to find crypto enthusiasts and influencers who are active in the community.

There are multiple subreddits like r/CryptoCurrency, which has 6.4 million members, and r/CryptoMarkets, with 1.4 million members. You can find users who are super active in these subreddits and work with them.

Similarly, on Discord, there are various crypto-related Discord servers that you can join, like Crypto Talk, Crypto Traders, and Crypto Trading Signals. These servers are a great place to find crypto influencers and remain up-to-date on the latest trends in the industry.

Persuading a crypto influencer to work with your brand

The crypto space is a tricky one. Not only because of the uncertainty in regulations, as we discussed above, but also because it's prone to scams and fraud due to a lack of awareness in the general public.

The FTX collapse is one such example. The company crashed due to a lack of liquidity and mismanagement of funds. Now victims who lost their fortunes are suing a handful of influencers famed for their personal finance expertise on YouTube.

Such cases make influencers wary of crypto businesses, and convincing them to work with your brand can require some effort.

So, how do you reach out and persuade influencers? Let's have a look.

1. Personalize your outreach email

Your outreach email is the first thing an influencer will receive from your business, and it needs to be persuasive and personal.

Optimize your subject line and make it compelling. When a receiver reads the subject line, they should immediately become curious wanting to open the email. Also, you don't want to send an email that sounds sales-y, so make the subject line impactful to have it stand out.

Crypto influencer outreach email example

Here's a quick hypothetical example reaching out to John Doe, a crypto YouTuber:

Subject line: Loved your portfolio update. Open to collabs?

Body:

Hey John,

Saw your portfolio update today (it popped up on recommended vids). Love your general approach -- I'm taking a similar route with XRP & LTC myself. Thought your editing was great, too.

I wanted to ask: are you open to sponsored collabs currently?

I work with CryptoGiraffe; we're a growing marketplace with 1,000,000+ daily trades, fully secured, compliant with EU data standards, & audited as required by law.

Can I send you more info about what I have in mind?

The key things to take note of:

• Actual personalization.
• A 'soft' ask. Just get the 'yes' ready to continue the conversation.
• Build trust that you're a reputable service.

2. Incorporate personality in your outreach communication

This is important when reaching out to influencers — especially in the crypto industry.

You want influencers to know about the legitimacy of your business to build trust and credibility. It won't happen if your outreach messages sound like a robot has written them.

Influencers want to know the people behind your business, what type of people they will work with, and who they'll communicate with during the collaboration process. It's essential to show them how open and accessible you are to them and the collaboration process.

3. Empathize with the influencers

When convincing influencers to work with your brand, you need empathy for them and their process.

If an influencer is hesitant to represent your crypto business, take some to understand their concerns, and ask them where they're coming from, whether it's about your offer or content delivery.

Ask a lot of questions and genuinely try to understand their hesitations towards a potential collaboration. It will make the whole negotiation process a lot easier for you, and you might even come up with an offer they'll accept.

And remember the example above. Take a minute to build some credibility with your initial outreach:

I work with CryptoGiraffe; we're a growing marketplace with 1,000,000+ daily trades, fully secured, compliant with EU data standards, & audited as required by law.

Examples of crypto influencer marketing

Let’s have a look at how some of the top crypto companies are doing influencer marketing.

1. Binance

Binance works with a total of 26,000 affiliates and creators, and these influencers attract around 2 million new users a year to its base audience of 120 million.

One of the reasons its influencer program is so successful is that Binance knows its target audience and mostly works with influencers who have followers below the age of 35 living in developing nations.

Binance also recognizes individual influencers with awards, such as the Binance Influencer of the Year Award. For example, in 2021, Victor Diaz, an influencer and founder of the Youtube Channel MarcianoTech, won the Binance Influencer of the Year Award for Latin America.

Overall, Binance's influencer program has been a successful marketing strategy for the exchange, helping to increase awareness and attract more users to its platform.

Look at this video by YouTube influencer Mumo who creates videos based on cryptocurrency, blockchain, and finance. He links an affiliate link to Binance in the video description — encouraging his viewers to click on it.

2. Bitpanda

Bitpanda's influencer marketing program works well because it focuses on building a story that drives home the desired message.

Maia Pedro, influencer marketing lead at Bitpanda, focuses on building a story with influencers that will have the highest impact on the target audience. Instead of just talking about crypto, Bitpanda encourages its influencers to create an emotional hook and show the impact of crypto on their lives.

Look at this Instagram post by Carina Berry, an Austrian food blogger. She talks about learning about crypto and finance through the Bitpanda Academy, a free learning program, and encourages her followers to try it.

3. Coinbase

Nas is an American rapper and an early investor in the crypto company Coinbase.

Nas’ investment in Coinbase has helped boost the company's credibility and mainstream appeal, particularly among younger audiences.

However, it's worth noting that Nas's involvement in Coinbase has been primarily as an investor rather than a collaborator or partner in the traditional sense. Nas has not had an official role at Coinbase or been directly involved in the company's operations or marketing efforts.

But this example goes to show that just an endorsement by an influencer or a celebrity makes a considerable impact in the crypto industry.

Coinbase works with a lot of influencers in gaming, finance, and lifestyle niche called #CoinbasePartners.

Aileen Xu encouraged her Instagram followers to sign up on Coinbase by sharing her story and giving away $10 worth of Bitcoin in this sponsored post.

Start influencer marketing for your crypto business today!

Crypto influencer marketing is a successful strategy to increase awareness and attract more users to your platform.

Just remember that as a crypto business, you should look beyond crypto creators and focus on influencers with followers as your target audience.

And if you're looking for a platform that makes it possible to do it all from one dashboard, sign up for Modash today and grab your 14-day free trial!