Async Art is a platform that provides artists with innovative tools to build their own programmable and generative art + music. Our focus is on product usability and delivering the best experience possible to creators using the platform. As a result, we do not directly market every project on our platform.

In response to queries from artists and musicians on how to market their work, we’ve compiled a list of marketing best practices for promoting your NFTs. We appreciate that as an artist, marketing isn’t necessarily something you have experience doing but it’s an indispensable part of building an NFT project.

The good news is that you don’t need to hire an expensive marketing agency. You just need to get talking, reach out to the NFT community, and start building your brand. Don’t be afraid to do this! It’s all part of the process, and — truth be told — it’s impossible to sell your work without telling people you have work for sale!

We’ve tailored the information below to marketing your Async Blueprints but much of the advice can be applied to other collections, so keep these in mind when building hype around your 1/1s and Async Music Blueprints as well.

It is important to keep in mind that once a Blueprint is submitted fully or live, it is not possible to amend the details, such as titles, Edition price, and allowlist addresses. Therefore, it is very important to ensure all of the information is accurate before your Blueprint goes live.

You can base this on how much interest there is currently in your work. As a guide, you ought to have a base of interested collectors that is at least three times the size of your total Edition count. For example, if your collection has 30 Editions, you would want to have at least 90-100 interested collectors. If this is your first generative NFT project, and you're only just starting to build your collector base, we recommend keeping the total Edition count to under 100.

You can figure out how to price your Blueprint Editions before or after you start the project. The value in deciding before is that it will give you a better idea of how many Editions will be in the collection.

The general ruling is to only produce as many Editions that you’re confident will sell out and price the project lower than the highest 1/1 you’ve sold. Collectors understand the value of 1/1s will be higher than a Blueprint collection. This provides a strong story and a better foundation for your next project.

How to calculate the price of your Async Blueprints

Let’s put this into practice.

Say your highest 1/1 sold for 0.5 ETH.

So, the market cap for your collection would be 1.5 ETH (.5 ETH x 3)

Now that you know the market cap, you can reverse-engineer your pricing strategy.

If you’d like to sell each Edition for .05 ETH and hit your market cap of 1.5 ETH, you’d create a collection of 30 Editions (.05 per Edition x 30 Editions = 1.5 ETH, your market cap).

If you’d like to sell each Edition for .1 ETH, you’d create a collection of 15 Editions (.1 ETH x 15 Editions = 1.5 ETH, your market cap).

…and so on :)

Of course, this is only a suggestion. You are free to price your piece as you see fit.

It’s good to have a launch date in mind. Factor in a period of building awareness, finding the people interested in investing in your project, and getting talking about your work anywhere and everywhere.

How long should this take? It depends on how much time you have to devote to it. NFT collections aren’t usually an overnight success (but they can be!). It also depends on your current social media presence and following. If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll need to allow more time to build up a following, whereas if you’re known in the space, you’ll have a shorter lead time. If you are just starting out, give yourself at least a few months to get your social media profiles active and to start connecting with others in the space. It’s good to work a bit at it every day and build it up gradually.

Avoid major holidays or events. Don’t risk your project being lost or missed because it’s a public holiday. Look into major dates in the crypto and NFT space too. We know that the space can be unpredictable but quieter days are your best time to shine. Choose a launch date between Monday and Thursday. The Async team is guaranteed to be around for troubleshooting should any issues arise.

Only have a presale if you believe the public sale would sell out immediately. Start collecting your presale list as soon as you’ve submitted your Blueprint for approval. You can do this by asking people to drop their wallet addresses (no ENS support yet, so no .eth handles!) on a tweet and/or scraping data on which wallet addresses hold your work. Tools like Premint or even Google Forms can help here.

You will need it to publish your Blueprint to the site. Make sure to remove duplicates from the list - tools like DeDupeList can help. Your presale list should be in the format of one wallet address per line separated by commas. Once we approve your Blueprint, you will be able to set a presale and public sale date. For presale length, we recommend a time window of at least 24 hours.

Allocate some Editions for yourself

You can allocate up to 10% of the collection to yourself, and up to 10 to the Async team to potentially use as giveaways. Enter how many Editions you will allocate. Next, request your blueprintID from the Async team and make a note of it, alongside the quantity of allocation as you’ll need these numbers later. You are able to mint your allocated editions either during the Presale or during the Public Sale as allocation mints can happen at any time. These editions can be minted by your address for free (excluding gas fees).

During the presale

Optional: Mint your allocation to use for giveaways and contests. You will need to do this on Etherscan using the following instructions:

Visit https://etherscan.io/address/0xc143bbfcdbdbed6d454803804752a064a622c1f3#writeProxyContract

Click "Connect to Web3" and connect with your wallet

Scroll down to preSaleMint and input your blueprintID and quantity (the number you input during the publishing phase; it can't be changed). You can preSaleMint in multiple transactions if desired (e.g 1, 1, 1, or 3).

Share a link to the collection across your social media channels and website so those signed up for presale can access the collection easily. Make people aware of when the public sale will launch.

Don't forget to post a link to the collection on the Async Discord in #share-your-blueprints and DM the link to your VIP holders telling them your Blueprint collection.

Now it's your time to shine! Share links to the public sale with your social media following, announce and schedule giveaways, and get talking about your awesome Blueprint everywhere.

Below we've detailed how to market your Async Blueprint prior to launch. Keep chipping away at these things post-launch to maximize the visibility of your collection.

The more often your name comes up, the more memorable it becomes and the more trust you build. Don’t just share your work, share the ideas and the processes that go along with it. People love to learn about what inspires your work and your creative process. Express your thoughts on the NFT space as a whole. Passionate about blockchain? Get talking about that too. It’s a great way to keep learning and foster engagement with prospective collectors and collaborators.

A website is a good place to showcase your NFT creations, provide a link to your Async artwork, and talk about your experience in the art and NFT space. Got some offline artwork? Get that uploaded onto your website too. Collectors love to see what you’ve done in the past. Your story can go a long way in helping someone decide whether to invest in your artwork or not.

No time to build a website? Don’t stress it. Every Async account has a profile page where you share some information with collectors. Fill out your bio with some details about who you are as an artist and any information about your work and artistic process. Don’t forget to add links to your Twitter and Instagram, as well as a profile picture, so people can easily find you.

Don’t underestimate the power of working with other NFT artists. Once you’ve set up your social accounts, start talking about other projects you love – not just your own. There are plenty of awesome Async Blueprints artists on our platform who would appreciate you sharing their work. It works both ways too, they’ll be in turn more likely to share your work. Remember, as artists, we’re stronger when we work together.

If you purchase a Blueprint Edition, hit the share button to let your Twitter followers know about your latest NFT purchase. The artist will be tagged in the tweet, so it’s a quick and easy way to cross-promote on your part.

Collaborating with other artists is another way to build your brand as an artist. It can help to spark new creativity, connect with other artists and, of course, open you up to a whole new fan base. Don’t expect this to be a moneymaker (although, it can be!); think of it more as a way to increase awareness of your artwork and gain recognition.

The Async Discord is a great place to connect with artists on a similar journey and get the creative juices flowing into a collaborative project. Will it be a 1/1 or a new Async Blueprints collection? We’ve had some huge collaborations drop on Async, including The Guild’s “Mariupol” with 38 artists and “DAWN OF ETERNAL SPIRITS” that brought together over 50 collaborators.

It might not be something you’re used to doing but social media is how you’re going to make your presence known and your art in front of the right people.

We recommend you initially focus on building a Twitter following and being an active member of Discord communities. Of course, in an ideal world, you’d be across Reddit, Instagram, and Telegram 24 hours a day but then it turns into a full-time job. If Instagram is your go-to, keep plugging away on there too — IG is a good place to get eyeballs and attract new members to the NFT space.

Cut out all the noise and only follow people in the art, NFT, and web3 space. This will keep you focused and help you gain inspiration about what other artists are tweeting about. Twitter is the best way to keep up with the fast-paced NFT space.

It’s easy to find yourself on Twitter with nothing to say but that’s not true at all — especially when you’re got a wicked new collection to talk about. Start with some teasers; everyone loves intrigue when it comes to a new drop. Use video and make GIFs. Get creative with how you introduce your Blueprint collection to the world.

Adding hashtags to your posts on Twitter and Instagram can make all the difference when finding your audience. Start with the most popular hashtags (e.g #nftart, #nftcommunity, #digitalart, and #cryptoart). It’s worth trying out popular hashtags to hit a more general audience but it’s good to go niche too, so your work isn’t swept away with all the other NFT projects people are promoting. Have a particular style or design your artwork around a theme? Don’t forget you can hashtag those too.

Select a couple of your favorite, successful NFT artists. Make some notes about what they do and talk about on social media. What hashtags are they using? What did they tweet about leading up to a launch? Think about your target audience. Who are they? Where do they hang out? Consider what they would be interested in hearing about and when.

Hold and attend virtual events

Async holds regular Town Hall and Office Hours events on Twitter each week. We welcome both artists and collectors to get involved, talking about all things Async, artwork, and the NFT space. It’s an awesome opportunity to connect with the Async community.

Hold an AMA on Twitter or Discord. Giving your followers a chance to ‘ask you anything’ is a great way for people to learn about your artwork and artistic journey. It helps people to build a connection with you as the artist. It’s also beneficial for you to gauge what your audience is looking for, and talk about your plans for future collections.

Run a giveaway

The NFT space loves a giveaway. It’s a common and successful marketing strategy to spread awareness of your work and build your social following. Start with a Twitter giveaway and set tasks for the participants e.g following your page on Instagram or Twitter, retweeting a tweet of your work, or tagging three friends. We know it’s overdone but at the same time, it’s effective.

Sign up to Discord communities

You do not need to create your own Discord community. Getting people to sign up and keeping a Discord maintained and active is a full-time job — one you’ll likely have to hire a community manager to do. Keep things simple by being active in already bustling Discord communities. DYOR and find the communities out there that encourage artists to promote their own work.

Did you know Async has a Share Your Blueprints Discord channel? Make this your first stop for sharing your Blueprints. We also have a general Share Your Art channel and a few other channels where both artists and collectors hang out. Not part of the Async Discord yet? Sign up.

Free Mints

Free Mints are a great way to have some fun, interact with the community, and experiment with the Async platform.

Here are some strategies on how to use Free Mints: