Since your marketing tagline is “Financial Marketing For the Modern Age”, how should blockchain and DeFi executives rethink PR and communications in the world of LLMs and zero-click marketing, and what role does earned media play in making their narrative credible to their target audiences?
Earned media powers Large Language Models (LLMs) because it’s seen as a trustworthy source. In fact, 90% of the material that feeds LLMs is news. Therefore, earned media is important in a new and different way.
It used to be that it was valuable for firsthand impressions; someone sees you on TV or reads an article where you’re quoted. Then it was valuable for reference and SEO; someone goes looking for you, and then the article where you were quoted surfaces.
Now, those things are still true, but we’ve added another layer. It’s increasingly true that people aren’t searching past AI summaries. On Google, they read the Gemini summary, or they go straight to their ChatGPT app and only read the results that they’re fed there rather than performing a broader internet search. So, companies want to be included in those summaries, and the way to do that is to get picked up by the LLMs that feed them. Here are two things about earned media and LLMs that are important to remember as they’ve changed the way we think about traditional earned media practices and value.
You have to feed the machine: The LLMs don’t have a set cutoff for how far back they look, but generally it’s about a year, and new content surfaces first. Therefore, it’s really important to have a steady stream of coverage over time. Consistency is key.
Top-tier is still king: but almost every client we’ve ever had wants to be quoted and featured in top-tier print, and be a guest on business news shows, as you know, all of the top names, such as The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Barron’s, CNBC, Fox Business, etc. That is still true for all of the traditional reasons, and for the LLMs because these are high-authority sources. They are trustworthy to humans and machines alike. However, there are many other lesser-known outlets that are considered trusted sources by the LLMs.
What key differences do you see in the approach to PR and communication strategies between traditional finance (TradFi) institutions and crypto-native/DeFi entities?
Number one difference is Trust. TradFi is very conservative, very cautious, very regulated. We work with many ETF providers, even the newer products that use leverage or inversion, or that dip their toe in the DeFi waters. These are usually 1940 Act products that are highly regulated by the SEC.
Likewise, even though they’re thought of as “new”, the first ETF launched in Canada in 1990, and the first US ETF (SPY) was launched by State Street in 1993. They’ve been around for over 30 years now.
DeFi, on the other hand, especially crypto-native firms, is new, not very regulated, and still very much sorting out its own hierarchy of legitimacy. So how do we build trust?
- Earned media is a great place to start; the press is very good at sifting out who is a credible, authoritative source, and who is not.
- Events are also great. Go go speak at an industry conference. This is even truer of events like RedStone’s Tokenize This, where TradFi meets DeFi. There are many industry events like this where the two cross paths, and it’s important to be at that intersection.
- TradFi expertise: If you have staff, specifically executives who come from a traditional finance background, tap into their knowledge and authority. Let them explain how finance is evolving and where their new firm fits. A well-respected executive can lend their credibility to the company.
- Simplify, Simplify, Simplify: If you’re writing, speaking, being interviewed, communicating in a way that can only be understood by the esoteric, you’re losing the majority of your mainstream audience, even financial professionals. This is new territory. Assume your audience doesn’t have the basic DeFi knowledge, let alone a deep understanding of it. Explaining terms, using analogies, pausing to assert “this means…”, are all strong tools. Throwing around jargon will get your message lost and your authority dismissed, even if you are the smartest person in the room.
The arrival of spot crypto ETFs has made digital assets accessible to traditional investors through a familiar investment vehicle. From a marketing and PR standpoint, how have spot crypto ETFs changed the way asset managers communicate these new, sophisticated products to retail investors?
For starters, I will say that the ETF industry as a whole does a really good job of democratizing investment categories that have not traditionally been accessible to the general public. We have seen this with leverage, for example, until they started making leveraged ETFs, this was an institutional play to get more exposure with less allocation. Now my mom can do that today on her phone. Crypto ETFs are similar; they offer investors a chance to be exposed to a new asset class in a way that feels safe because of their liquidity and regulation.
So how do they sell them? Although the vehicle is safe, the underlying currency may not be, even though there are all kinds of digital assets out there. So, it’s the responsibility of asset managers to educate their clients. I would start by talking about what is in your ETF; emphasize the transparency by telling investors how you can see the holdings updated every day on your website. By the way, this is a regulatory requirement, so it’s true for all ETFs. Channels that I think asset managers should focus on to get their message across for their digital asset products:
- Earned Media: We’ve discussed how this helps with authority, credibility, and trust. However, Asset Managers need to remember that very few news outlets are going to cover just their fund unless it’s the first of its kind or has some outlandishly large AUM. They need to join the conversation, answer questions like “What are crypto ETFs?” or “How is Crypto, and Crypto ETF performance correlated to interest rates?” Always aim to be part of the news cycle.
- Owned Content: Q&As are very helpful and great for SEO and greater LLM visibility. Put yourself in your investors’ shoes; imagine what they might ask and answer the question as simply and clearly as possible. Blogs are also great because they’re shorter, often observational or opinion-based, so they don’t require deep research.
- SEO/GEO: I’ve always said ETFs are sold, not bought, and that’s often true. However, for an emerging asset class, I think you’ll see that investors are seeking out access. So again, like the Q&A, you want to put yourself in your investors’ shoes and answer their questions. You can hire a firm to implement any number of strategies, from a simple keyword cleanup to the embedding of schema (coded keyword tags) on your website. Believe it or not, distributing press releases over newswires, a practice long looked down upon by professional PR practitioners, is actually a great way to boost SEO and AI visibility because it guarantees automatic pickup by reputable websites with high domain authority via syndication.
It appears that traditional PR and media placement are making a comeback in the world of digital marketing—this time with a vengeance—driven in part by the growing importance of AI and LLM visibility. So, do you think earned media is entering a new phase?
I do. As I mentioned earlier, earned media still has a place in marketing in all of the traditional senses, but it now plays a part in LLM visibility as well. This changes the approach a bit. It used to be that the media outlet determined the appropriate audience, making top-tier print and broadcasting the ultimate goal of a successful PR campaign. Now, it’s more about consistency and a steady stream of coverage to refresh the algorithms that power AI summaries like Gemini and ChatGPT. Top-tier is still great and is also considered a very trustworthy source by the LLMs, but as I mentioned there are other high domain authority outlets that are also valuable. I’d say this new phase is more about consistency and volume than the brass ring of top-tier coverage.
As traditional financial institutions adopt blockchain-based financial services, how do you expect marketing and communications budgets to shift?
I think as TradFi moves toward blockchain-based services, we’ll see an increasing acceptance of this new technology, a mainstreaming, so to speak. I think there is still a need for education, and that’s where we’ll see communications headed along the lines of what is it, why is it good, what does it mean for investors and other stakeholders? It’s likely that this will mean attending and speaking at industry events (sponsored speaking spots), whitepapers, primers and other owned content, PR campaigns, and likely social media and SEO work.