Klay AndrewsNFTs are everywhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the NFL, Shakira or Burger King, Shakira, or the meme “side-eyed Chloe”, it seems like anyone can swing a CryptoKitty. NFTs don’t only benefit celebrities or billion-dollar corporations. They are also designed to help small businesses.
Before we get into the details of how founders can make use of NFTs, let us first understand what they are.
What exactly is an NFT?
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are digital assets that represent a variety of physical and virtual things. They cannot be replaced or swapped with fakes because they were created on a blockchain that can be traced back to their creator or owner. NFTs may include photos, music, videos, and other items.
NFTs were not much more than a novelty until 2017 saw the introduction of CryptoPunks and CrypoKitties, which are two different collections of digital trading card cards. Nonfugible.com reports that total NFT sales reached $40 million in 2018. Through 2020, NFT sales and adoption continued to rise. NFTs reached $338 million annually in annual sales, thanks in large part, to the NBA’s Top Shot NFT website. Some NFTs have been sold for over $50 million since 2020. The digital assets can be safely stored in digital wallets online and offline once they have been purchased.
NFT growth continues to soar
The website’s Non-Fungible Tokens Quarterly report: Q2 2021 Second Quart 2021 Report shows that this three-month period was a record for the NFT industry.
A new record was set in the second quarter for active wallets, which is a sign of strong interest rate growth. The number of sellers and buyers is also increasing. Particularly, the number of buyers (over 38%) is growing faster than the number of sellers (over 25%), which means NFTs have a higher rate of uptake than attrition.
NFTs can boost your local business.
This all suggests that small businesses have the opportunity to benefit from the NFT craze. These are five ways you can leverage NFT technology to increase your business and keep customers.
1. Counterfeit-proof single-use promotional tools can be issued: coupon codes, discount coupons, event tickets, BOGO offers, etc. The QR codes and blockchain codes can be used to access uncopyable and tamper-proof discounts assets that have a variety of uses.
2. A digital NFT loyalty card is a great way to establish a customer loyalty program. Customers sign up and download the card to their mobile devices. To earn loyalty points, customers scan the loyalty NFT codes every time they visit your store. You can offer rewards, discounts, or tokens of blockchain to customers who reach certain thresholds.
3. NFTs are used to raise funds to support Afghan women after the exodus. To encourage local charity support or geographic-affinity marketing, a similar program could be replicated at the state, town, city, or neighborhood level.
4. Secure fundraising for expansion: An NFT campaign can be an affordable alternative to traditional bank loans if your company is looking to open a new location or expand your current site. It’s a scam-proof Kickstarter. Crowdfunding campaigns where donors track the money and know who it is coming from. Funds are only released if the milestones have been met as defined by smart contracts that were established at the beginning of the campaign.
5. Sweepstakes and gamification promotions can be costly to run. NFTs can be used to engage small businesses in gamification marketing. A Chamber of Commerce might launch a digital NFT Scavenger Hunt that involves dozens of local businesses to increase customer traffic. Only imagination can limit the potential.
