You don’t really own your Discord community. You’re just renting it.

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It’s difficult to hear, but someone has to say it.

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We talk to more web3 marketers and NFT projects who see less and less engagement in their Discord communities by the day. Why?

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The answer is clear — they don’t really own their audience. If you want to deepen your connection with your holders and community, you need to take a broader approach to audience-building. And Discord may not actually be a sustainable platform for your project.‍

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Here are three reasons you should take an omnichannel marketing approach and move your audience off of Discord to owned channels.

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1. Own your list instead of living on the edge

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Today, Discord owns your audience.

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Until you add an owned channel like email or SMS to your marketing stack, you’re simply renting your list from another platform. A sure way to live life on the edge.

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Why is running your community on Discord or another community platform so risky?

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• Any abuse (accidental or not) against Discord terms of service can result in suspension and loss of access to your audience.
• You can’t export community or member info. Meaning you have no way of corroborating data across your marketing channels or transferring that community to another platform in the future. We talk about composability in web3 all the time, yet we build our businesses in a walled-garden environment.
• Discord owns the onboarding process, reducing your influence and ability to craft meaningful member experiences with your community. (Especially important at a moment when you have the chance to create a loyal first impression)

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2. Reduce competition for your holders’ attention

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In the new attention economy, you need to spend time where your audience spends time. You have to win their attention to then win their money and loyalty.

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On Discord, you’re in constant competition with your members’ other communities. And if they own a handful of NFTs, belong to several Discord chats, and care deeply about each project, your share of their attention is low.

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In comparison, email gives you a direct line to your holders. You’re not at the whim of an algorithm or change in email. It’s simply you and them – one-on-one.

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• Conversion — Get higher impressions and conversion rates in email and SMS,  platforms that don’t penalize you for selling products or sending members off the app.
• Workflows — Control the member experience with a custom welcome sequence and other powerful email workflows – designed to engage them even more in your project.
• Segmentation — Customize content for different groups of your holders. What’s irrelevant to one holder may be relevant to another. Have another level of your project? Perfect.

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A more personal, engaging relationship means more loyalty to your mission. And that’s why you’re here, right?

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3. Personalize & improve your holders’ experience

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Email or text messages are highly personal. It’s an intimate, one-to-one conversation instead of one-to-many like on Discord.

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Your NFT holders invited you into their lives. The more personal you get with them, the more loyalty (and less churn) you’ll benefit from.

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Apart from obvious personalization fields in email marketing, customer relationship management (CRM) platforms allow you to segment your audience and send custom messages to those interested in different things.

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In the analog world, you wouldn’t recommend things to me if you knew I weren’t interested in them. Why do we treat digital interactions differently?

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Personalize your NFT members’ experience with one-to-one communications – instead of mass, blanket messages intended for a group.

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Discord is a fine tool for chatting and an incredible place to build a community.

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But to build a sustainable NFT community that will increase your bottom line, you need more personal, customizable messaging.

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Building an owned audience is the only surefire way to own your list and fully control your member experience. So you can continue building the project you’re so passionate about.

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Holder is a CRM for NFT projects and web3 companies committed to doing well by their members. Interested in learning more?