This year, we’ve launched the Bowled.io token, but make no mistake: this wasn’t just about launching another crypto token. Rather, we sought to answer a question: could a sport-specific Web3 platform close the gap between the fan worlds of traditional sports and cryptocurrency? We’ve managed to answer this question with overwhelming success.
As the CMO for Bowled.io, I led this ambitious launch by charting a multi-phased strategy that marries traditional sports marketing with cutting-edge Web3 community building. It was not about luck; it was about engineering virality through precision planning, data-driven decisions, and community-centric initiatives.
The Challenge: Creating a Perfect Storm
Luck plays a role in virality, but most of it must be strategically engineered. The challenge ahead was clear: how does one get traditional cricket fans to accept Web3? And perhaps even more difficult, how does one make a cricket-focused platform interesting to the worldwide crypto community?
Our solution lay in the Stage-Gate Methodology, breaking our launch into carefully orchestrated phases. These included:
- Conceptualization: Creating a sports-focused Web3 platform that catered to traditional sports fans and crypto enthusiasts in one fell swoop.
- Market Analysis: Performing market analysis by drawing from data insights provided by Chainalysis’ 2023 Global Crypto Adoption Index.
- Framework Development: Building out an “Integrated Web3 Marketing Framework” that effectively combined traditional sports marketing with Web3 community-building.
- Platform Creation: Implementing data-driven tools such as WebEngage and Google Analytics to predict and optimise user behaviour on the platform.
- Validation: Expanding from regional ambassadors in 20 countries to active communities in 82 countries on X/Twitter, Telegram, and Discord.
Finding Our Sweet Spot: Where Cricket Meets Global Markets
Our hypothesis was that in cricket-loving countries, we needed to augment our cricket-related services. Thus, we placed community managers in key markets like India and Pakistan, each a mini-CEO with a war chest of local content and cultural cues to cue in the fanbase.
We simultaneously pivoted our messaging for markets that had low cricket engagement. Taking into account insights from Chainalysis’ Global Crypto Adoption Index, we took countries with the highest crypto adoption and matched those with emerging interest in sports.
Table 1: The 2023 Global Crypto Adoption Index Top 20
| Country | Region | Overall index ranking | Centralized service value received ranking | Retail centralized service value received ranking | P2P exchange trade volume ranking | DeFi value received ranking | Retail DeFi value received ranking |
| India | Central & Southern Asia and Oceania | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 |
| Nigeria | Sub-Saharan Africa | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 4 |
| Vietnam | Central & Southern Asia and Oceania | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| United States | North America | 4 | 2 | 8 | 12 | 2 | 2 |
| Ukraine | Eastern Europe | 5 | 5 | 3 | 11 | 10 | 10 |
| Philippines | Central & Southern Asia and Oceania | 6 | 6 | 6 | 19 | 7 | 7 |
| Indonesia | Central & Southern Asia and Oceania | 7 | 13 | 13 | 14 | 5 | 5 |
| Pakistan | Central & Southern Asia and Oceania | 8 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 20 | 20 |
| Brazil | Latin America | 9 | 9 | 11 | 15 | 11 | 11 |
| Thailand | Central & Southern Asia and Oceania | 10 | 8 | 15 | 44 | 6 | 6 |
| China | Eastern Asia | 11 | 10 | 5 | 13 | 23 | 23 |
| Turkey | Middle East & North Africa | 12 | 11 | 9 | 35 | 12 | 12 |
| Russia | Eastern Europe | 13 | 12 | 10 | 36 | 9 | 9 |
| United Kingdom | Central, Northern, & Western Europe | 14 | 15 | 20 | 38 | 8 | 8 |
| Argentina | Latin America | 15 | 14 | 12 | 29 | 19 | 19 |
| Mexico | Latin America | 16 | 17 | 18 | 30 | 16 | 16 |
| Bangladesh | Central & Southern Asia and Oceania | 17 | 18 | 19 | 33 | 22 | 22 |
| Japan | Eastern Asia | 18 | 22 | 21 | 49 | 18 | 18 |
| Canada | North America | 19 | 25 | 23 | 62 | 14 | 14 |
| Morocco | Middle East & North Africa | 20 | 27 | 25 | 21 | 26 | 26 |
Source: Chainalysis https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2023-global-crypto-adoption-index/
This allowed us to reposition Bowled.io as a multi-sport IP platform, with cricket as our proof of concept for user acquisition in those regions.
This dual approach enabled us to:
- Leverage cricket’s passionate following in the traditional markets.
- Target the sports-minded and crypto early adopters in non-cricket nations.
- Position for further scaling into other sports.
By striking a balance between a cricket-focused approach and a wider platform storyline around sports, we successfully scaled up from a first 20-country stronghold to 82 countries.
The Science Behind Our Surge: The Integrated Web3 Marketing Framework
Success came from a really well-constructed strategy, combining classic sports marketing with Web3 community-building. The core components of this data-driven mechanism included four pillars:
1. Data-Driven Decision Making
We set up an ecosystem that combined first-party data on both WebEngage and Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Core strategies were:
- Predictive Analytics: Anticipating user acquisition trends to optimise campaign timing.
- Cohort Analysis: Personalising marketing strategies for user segments.
- Sentiment Analysis: Messaging in real-time, based on community feedback.
- Funnel Optimization: Reducing drop-offs in the user journey.
For instance, we realised engagement spikes for cricket matches and had our marketing aligned to that, thus increasing app engagement during major games by as much as 35%.
2. Multi-Channel Engagement
From X/ Twitter to Telegram and Discord, we made use of all platforms that put us in proximity with cricket lovers and crypto enthusiasts alike. Collaboration with local agencies and KOLs helped increase our reach:
- X/ Twitter followers increased from 38,000 to 75,000.
- Telegram users grew from 5,000 to 10,000.
- Discord subscribers went up threefold from 8,000 to 25,000.
3. Strategic Timing and Event Leverage
We aligned activities with key cricket events such as the IPL and the T20 World Cup. Narrowcasting techniques ensured relevant messages at optimal moments of consumption, driving a 25% increase in in-app purchases.
4. Community-Centric Approach
Community building was at the heart of our strategy. The Zealy quests rewarded this participation, resulting in a 40% boost in user participation and a 30% increase in new sign-ups. Regular AMAs built trust and informed our approach.
The Launch Timeline: A Carefully Orchestrated Symphony
Key Milestones:
- Early March 2024: DAOMaker IDO oversubscribed by an astonishing 86X
- March 15: GameFi launchpad sold out in 26 seconds [https://gamefi.org/ido/bowled]
- March 27: Token Generation Event TGE had an X/Twitter Space with Mario Nawfal [https://x.com/i/spaces/1vAGRvbaXdgGl] with 142,000 concurrent listeners tuning in. The $BWLD token went live on Gate.io and had an 11X price appreciation.
- Mid-April: NFT collection sold out in just 25 minutes, which is a testament to sustained momentum almost a month from our initial token launch. [https://dew.gg/launchpad/bowleds-mystery-boxes]
During peak cricket season, our Monthly Active Users topped 500,000, a true testament to the potency of fusing traditional sports passion with Web3 ingenuity.
This well-planned strategy made not only BOWLED.io the platform for cricket but also set the stage for a broader sports IP play across international markets in its wake.
Looking Beyond Cricket: A Blueprint for Web3 Success
The success of Bowled.io shows that the future of Web3 lies in building bridges between existing passions and new possibilities. Starting with cricket, building for scalability-we crafted a blueprint for how sports-focused Web3 platforms can thrive.
This isn’t just a winning strategy for cricket and sports; this is a template as to how Web3 can find mainstream adoption-understanding your audience, using data effectively, and fostering genuine communities.
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