Web3 Projects and the US Election: Marketing Lessons on Winning User Trust

Author: JiaYi

The 2024 U.S. presidential election has undoubtedly captured global attention, but beyond the political drama lies an insightful lesson in marketing.

Whether you're running a mature Web3 project or just launching a new one, there's much to learn from the marketing strategies of political candidates. This article explores how campaign tactics from the American election can be applied to Web3 marketing—helping projects build stronger community relationships and win user support.

1. Clarify Your Value Proposition and Master Content as a Weapon

U.S. Election

Candidates define their core values and vision through concise slogans and consistent messaging, quickly conveying stances and promises. Effective content strategy builds emotional connections between candidates and voters, boosting support.

For example, Trump’s base consists of traditional Americans, so his slogan “Make America Great Again” emphasizes a return to traditional values. In contrast, Democratic slogans like “We are not going back” and “Build Back Better” better resonate with younger voters. These slogans are simple, memorable, and closely aligned with their target audiences’ values.

Web3 Marketing

Focus on your brand’s core value and use content to clearly communicate your product or service’s uniqueness. Precise messaging enhances user understanding and emotional alignment, helping your brand stand out. Too many projects create taglines that only excite the team, while users couldn’t care less. If your content fails to resonate, users will never truly understand or love your project.

Explaining technical complexities to retail traders will only confuse them. For instance, Binance’s “Exchange the world” and Babylon’s “Unlocking 21M BTC potential” effectively convey their core missions. Side note: Babylon’s updated slogan, “Unlocking 21M BTC to Secure the Decentralised Economy,” feels more niche, complex, and weaker in emotional appeal compared to its predecessor.

Many Web3 projects try to summarize their entire purpose in one sentence, but if you only state facts objectively, Coca-Cola’s slogan should’ve been “a secret-recipe brown sugary drink.”

Pro Tip: Once you clearly understand your target audience, speak humanly—and speak in ways that reflect their values and beliefs.

2. Precisely Define Your Target Audience

U.S. Election

Campaigns segment voters by age, geography, and needs, tailoring messages to address each group’s key concerns, thereby increasing relevance, connection, and support.

Web3 Marketing

Segment users based on different needs and craft tailored marketing strategies. This ensures message relevance and attracts the right audience. Technical deep dives may engage developers, while simplified explanations suit general users.

Pro Tip: Method sharing—List all key user scenarios and personas by importance and frequency, drilling down into exactly where they enter your product and why they use it. Then organize and consolidate this data into comprehensive user profiles. Use mind maps or flowcharts to visualize these insights—this clarity will help you focus your efforts, making content creation, campaign execution, and post-campaign analysis far more effective.

3. Community Management & Consensus Building: Boost User Engagement and Belonging

U.S. Election

Through rallies and volunteer programs, campaigns strengthen voters’ engagement and sense of ownership, making them feel their support genuinely impacts the outcome. This boosts both popularity and long-term loyalty.

Web3 Marketing

Projects can similarly foster belonging through community events, interactive content, and governance participation, transforming users from passive consumers into active co-builders, strengthening community consensus and loyalty.

Pro Tip: This is precisely the pain point for many teams—and also the simplest yet most crucial step. Sadly, too many projects neglect it. Look at Binance Blockchain Week: you can feel He Yi and CZ’s genuine respect for the community. Aside from them, I must mention my former boss before joining the fund, Justin Sun. Despite being a controversial figure in the industry, Justin excels at community engagement. Even when under attack, he remains calm, occasionally self-deprecating. TRX reclaiming a top-10 spot on CMC is a rare achievement born from persistence and resonance. Yet today, many projects—especially blue-chip ones—seem too lazy to engage users. Even an aging Trump dances, drives garbage trucks, and strikes a pose after being shot—all to honor community sentiment. That’s the bridge of trust built through closeness.

Consensus comes from users. Staying closely connected with your community and market is essential for survival. No matter how elite your team or how high your private-market valuation, drifting from your community will inevitably lead to failure in the secondary market.

4. Endorsements from Celebrities and Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs)

U.S. Election

Candidates seek support from celebrities and public figures to boost credibility and influence. These endorsements help sway undecided voters.

Web3 Marketing

Web3 projects can similarly leverage KOL and industry influencer endorsements, using their authority and reach to increase visibility and build user trust. When market share is low, such backing can rapidly accelerate recognition.

Pro Tip: Won’t elaborate further—this is currently where project teams are most aware and active.

If resources are limited? Find a partner who has them and leverage their network. Can’t find one? Try “piggybacking” strategically. If even that’s impossible, success will be extremely difficult.

Why should users trust someone with no proven track record to lead them to success?

5. Multi-Channel Precision Communication

U.S. Election

Candidates reach voters via TV, social media, and offline events, ensuring broad exposure across diverse groups and maximizing visibility and support.

Web3 Marketing

Brands can distribute content across social platforms, short videos, email, and more—using channels aligned with user behavior to hit the touchpoints where target audiences spend time, boosting brand awareness and engagement.

Pro Tip: KOLs are indeed one of the most effective promotional tools today—but if you’re unclear about your project’s strengths and target audience, don’t waste money.

KOLs, media channels—these are just tools for dissemination. If you don’t know who you’re speaking to, what message you’re delivering, or what you want users to remember, simply paying for promotion won’t earn real recognition or trust.

Conclusion

May this article help Web3 project teams learn from the U.S. election “marketing spectacle”—understanding how to grasp user consensus and humble themselves to engage real users. Too many projects sit high above, believing only in technology and concepts. But user consensus and community validation are the true foundations of success.