How NFT-Based Marketing Helps Brands Improve Customer Loyalty and Increase Revenue

Recent research by HubSpot revealed that 39 percent of media planners who use NFTs say they have the best return on investment of any channel in their media mix. Yet, for many marketers, NFTs are still an undiscovered territory, with 16 percent surveyed saying they plan to use NFTs for the first time this year. Let’s explore how NFT-based marketing helps brands improve customer loyalty and increase revenue, and how companies implement these digital assets into their marketing strategies.

How Brands Improve Customer Loyalty With NFTs

Unlike other digital assets, NFTs are unique and exclusive. They're not intended to be mass-produced, and their limited nature drives their value. Their uniqueness enables brands to use NFTs to drive customer interaction and loyalty by building exclusive communities of NFT owners. Furthermore, brands can attach any kind of reward or experience to a NFT, which allows them to engage with loyal customers in many different ways.

A great example of leveraging NFTs for this purpose is Dolce & Gabbana’s exclusive community membership NFT collection launched in partnership with UNXD. The collection offers DGFamily Boxes that serve as a pass to a wide variety of D&G events and additional content. DGFamily Boxes are crafted in three increasingly rarer tiers: Black, Gold, and Platinum. Black Box NFTs grant access to exclusive digital and physical drops of the brand’s apparel and provide a membership to a series of metaverse events. Gold Box NFT holders are promised even more exclusive drops and events. The Platinum Box is the rarest and the most exclusive one: it grants access to all of the Gold Box privileges as well as access to the rarest of D&G drops.

Brands can add extra value to new physical products by linking them to NFTs with exclusive benefits and perks. For example, it’s possible to launch a fashion piece with its NFT, providing access to private events, discounts or VIP privileges. This makes the piece more desirable and sought after. This is exactly what Prada has done with its Timecapsule fashion pieces. Now each shirt from the limited collection comes with a free NFT, giving access to exclusive benefits and experiences. The latest collection grants access to a Prada experience in Milan and an invitation to its September fashion show. In addition, anyone who previously bought Prada’s physical Timecapsule pieces were also gifted corresponding NFTs, which marks an absolutely new way to reward brand fans for their loyalty.

With growing interest in NFT-based marketing, new tech solutions are emerging to help brands launch valuable NFT collections. For instance, Cappasity is launching a solution that will allow brands to create NFT-based loyalty programs and add extra value to their products. A Cappasity NFT can contain not only photos and videos, but also text like a brand’s history; immersive content, including 3D/3D View visualization, augmented reality holograms, and virtual try-on; and VIP perks and benefits, like personalized discounts, invitations to events, priority access to new product launches, and more. Brands can add new content to Cappasity NFTs even after the customer gets the token. This allows them to use NFTs as a new channel to communicate with customers and increase brand loyalty.

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How NFTs Help Brands Increase Revenue

Beyond building customer loyalty and adding extra value to products, NFTs can offer something very tangible for retailers — new revenue streams. Brands like Nike, Dolce & Gabbana, Tiffany, Gucci, and Adidas are already reaping millions from NFTs. To give you an idea, alongside their massive marketing value, Nike's NFT-related projects have generated over $185 million in revenue, positioning it as the brand with the biggest earnings from NFTs.

Dolce & Gabbana is also a great example of how a luxury brand can use NFTs to generate revenue. Its first NFT, Collezione Genesi, fetched approximately $5.65 million in a sale. The collection was personally designed by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana and featured nine one-of-a-kind pieces. Buyers of each item received not only the NFT, but physical versions of the items and exclusive access to Dolce & Gabbana events.

NFTs are disrupting the current marketing landscape and open a world of opportunity for brands. Using NFTs, retailers can connect directly with their customers, build exclusive communities, and make new products more valuable, as well as drive new revenue streams. Investing in this space today will give you a competitive advantage in the future.

Kosta Popov is the CEO and founder of Cappasity, the company providing an easy and scalable platform for creation, embedding and analysis of 3D and AR/VR content.