Author: Weilin, PANews
Emily from Shanghai did not expect that as a user, she could take a photo with the founder of Binance, a company with a market value of over $90 billion. This happened at Binance's Blockchain Week in Dubai, which attracted users, partners, and industry practitioners from around the world. Binance's founder and former CEO CZ unexpectedly appeared on the scene and gave a 30-minute presentation, with applause and laughter from the audience. Afterwards, people lined up to take photos with CZ, and Binance's other co-founder He Yi also became a "human check-in point" at the event, with participants taking photos with her.
This allowed her, who had previously worked in traditional finance, to closely experience the vitality and cohesion of the crypto community. It is hard to imagine in the traditional finance sector, where people are dressed in suits and ties, that ordinary users would have the opportunity to gather together, listen to founders and executives share, and even interact and take photos with them at the event.
At Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai from October 30 to October 31, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance (Binance) presented not only a financial event in the Web3 field, but also a carnival of the cryptocurrency industry. As Binance's Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Rachel Conlan was the overall responsible person for this event.
CMO was He Yi's position when she joined Binance in August 2017, and now Rachel Conlan has taken over the position and has been working in this role for nearly a year and a half. During a period of unprecedented challenges for Binance, she has led the team to help and witness Binance's steady growth. According to the latest data, as of the end of October this year, Binance's global user base has reached nearly 240 million, and this cryptocurrency exchange is leading the global cryptocurrency market with the first market share.
PANews had an exclusive interview with Rachel Conlan in Dubai, trying to uncover Binance's marketing focus, brand promotion strategy and its KPIs. She said that Binance's executives, including CEO Richard Teng and He Yi, have nightly meetings to maintain agile communication, and she frankly admitted that "this is the most exciting and challenging job I have ever had."
From the traditional marketing industry to the crypto field, the emotional connection with users has always been the core
Before joining Binance in June 2023, Rachel had 15 years of marketing experience. Talking about the journey of transitioning from traditional marketing to the crypto industry, she said that she has always been attracted by fast-growing businesses and technology companies. The marketing fundamentals she learned while working at well-known advertising companies like Havas gave her the agile decision-making ability to handle clients' strict requirements. "This experience made me understand the importance of speed and scale, which allows me to make decisions without hesitation in real-time. I am good at digesting a large amount of information and distilling it into the actions we need to take." This ability has allowed her to adapt quickly and effectively in Binance's real-time, data-driven environment.
When talking about the uniqueness of the crypto industry, Rachel pointed out that her work experience in the sports and entertainment industry at Creative Artist Agency helped her realize that marketing is not only about functional display, but also the art of establishing emotional connections. This has also been applied in Binance's marketing, and she emphasized: "This is also what I am proud to consider as the core of Binance, we not only have a functional product, but we have an emotional connection with our users."
The fast pace of the crypto field makes her feel both excitement and challenge. She mentioned that she now spends several hours a day on social platforms, and her husband even complains that she is always on her phone, but she said this is her job, and she is immersed in it. Because this is where she understands the major trends in the market, "helping us seize these trends and know what we should do."
Binance's global market expansion: "Localized marketing" is an important strategy
Over the past seven years, Binance took five years to reach 100 million users, and then another two years to break through the 200 million user mark. Currently, Binance's global registered user base is approaching 240 million. Rachel pointed out that Binance's user growth has been a long process. This growth rate makes it likely that Binance will become the first cryptocurrency trading platform to reach 1 billion users globally. She believes that "Binance is progressing as planned, and we hope to smoothly reach the 1 billion user target that I have set as a marketing professional. That will be a key milestone for the entire industry to move from niche to mainstream."
To achieve this goal, one of Binance's core strategies is localized marketing. Rachel explained: "We operate in more than 100 countries and have a diverse user base, including OGs, newcomers, long-term holders, traditional users, and institutional users. We always maintain a global perspective, while taking localized actions, adjusting our marketing plans to better attract users in different regions, such as the Asian market, Mandarin-speaking regions, Japanese users, and Vietnamese users. This is an important part of our work."
In addition, Binance focuses on collaborations in local sports and entertainment fields related to local users, organizes activities related to local communities, and ensures that different content is set up for different types of individuals at large-scale Binance Blockchain events.
At the Binance Blockchain Week, Binance invited around 350 KOLs. "We strive to ensure that we cover KOLs of various scales, from top-tier KOLs to relatively smaller (audience size) but still important KOLs, in order to connect with different audience groups. We are also constantly looking for emerging KOLs and inviting them to join our community."
At the Binance Blockchain Week, Rachel hosted the Binance Square Creators Awards Ceremony. The platform currently has about 800,000 creators. "We presented awards to 12 of them. Although everyone is a winner, these 12 stood out in the community and received votes from the community. In addition, we will also hold smaller or more intimate events, have a lot of meetings with the leadership team and KOLs, and strive to understand the feedback they receive and where we as an industry and a company can improve."
In-depth analysis of Binance's marketing KPIs: brand growth, user growth, and operational efficiency
As the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, what are the KPIs of Binance's marketing team? Is it the price of BNB, or the number of users?
Rachel introduced that the Binance marketing team has three core KPI metrics: First is brand growth - social exposure and community engagement, similar to media platforms, to ensure that we have a sufficient voice share in the industry to maintain a leading position.
The second is to focus on user growth, trading volume, and cross-product usage, how to help users use the platform more deeply. The data-driven management in this area makes Rachel not only a marketing professional, but also a driver of business growth. She said that the team's decisions are all based on data, although it is not entirely about ROI and KPIs, but more importantly, about getting better.
Finally, Rachel's team focuses on operational efficiency. As the Binance marketing team has expanded from the initial 5 people to 235 people, how to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of operations, especially in a global and multilingual environment, is crucial.
Rachel talked about Binance's recent collaborations with famous figures and brands such as Cristiano Ronaldo, The Weeknd, and the Alpine F1 team, pointing out that these collaborations not only increased brand exposure, but also introduced new user groups to the crypto industry. She mentioned that these marketing activities are very effective in introducing cryptocurrency to more non-crypto native users.
"These marketing activities are very effective in introducing cryptocurrency to new audiences. Therefore, they can increase awareness and change the public's perception of this industry. Because as you know, there are many misconceptions and biases about cryptocurrency, and we have been working hard to refute these views. For Cristiano Ronaldo, when he considers the next step in his career, Web3 technology and blockchain allow him to connect with his audience in a completely new way."
Rachel said that as one of the largest trading platforms in the crypto industry, she and her team do not want to communicate only with the same group of users. "We know the crypto community is a core group, but we need to attract more other users to join without excluding those core users. So, using strategies like sports and entertainment is part of our strategy."
Facing market and market share volatility: Flexible adjustment, ensuring that the information conveyed is balanced
From a global perspective, how is Binance's market share in different markets? Which market is growing the fastest? Rachel said, "I think the most exciting market is Asia, which is very mature. The Asian market has always been an early adopter of technology. Asian consumers are young, tech-savvy, at the forefront of trends, and have already embraced the crypto industry."
Similarly, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region also has great potential, especially the UAE market. The penetration rate of cryptocurrencies is close to 20% to 25%. "They see it as part of a diversified financial strategy. So I'm very optimistic about these two regions. But each region has its own characteristics, for example, LATAM is also showing attractiveness in different ways. Each region requires different education, interaction, and content strategies for promotion."
In the competitive environment of centralized exchanges (CEXs), Binance is the market leader. However, its market share advantage is also subject to certain fluctuations. Rachel said that volatility is an attribute of any financial business, not just cryptocurrencies. Therefore, we have developed a core strategy focused on education, ensuring that we always provide content. During volatile periods, we will provide different types of content to help people cope with volatility, as this may trigger FOMO or fear. "We strive to help traders and users maintain a balanced and focused mindset. This is an important part of our content strategy."
Rachel believes that Binance will avoid the gold rush mentality, "We try to remain neutral in providing information, truly focusing on education as the main focus. Because at the end of the day, Binance is an exchange with many excellent tokens and listed projects, and we must ensure that the information conveyed is balanced."
Addressing global regulatory challenges: Headwinds are the norm, Binance is still a "newborn"
Last year, Binance reached a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which attracted widespread attention in the market. Now, under the new CEO's leadership, Binance has begun a new chapter. Against the backdrop of constantly changing global crypto regulatory policies, Rachel emphasized Binance's rigorous attitude towards compliance.
Rachel, Binance CEO Richard Teng, co-founder He Yi, and other senior executives have a flat organizational structure in their daily collaboration, "always staying active". Rachel said they are standing on the shoulders of the giants who created Binance. "We communicate multiple times a day, have meetings every evening to discuss the day's important issues, so that we can deal with them immediately. This is a very collaborative, always-on way, unlike the cumbersome reporting process of traditional enterprises. Our processes are very simplified and efficient, forming a culture of reporting problems and proposing solutions in real-time to seize opportunities quickly. This agility will help us maintain our industry-leading position."
In her view, headwinds are the norm in this industry. Binance was just founded 7 years ago and is still a "newborn" in the overall industry landscape. "But we always see these bottlenecks as opportunities to improve ourselves. We realize that ensuring a safe and reliable user environment, compliance is crucial. Therefore, as the leadership team and various business departments of Binance, we actively embrace compliance and are committed to ensuring that our marketing approach does not confuse users and conveys clear information. All of this is for the users. Although there have been difficult moments and fluctuations in the past 18 months, we have become stronger and better. This is also the charm of blockchain - bad actors are discovered faster, and scams are exposed faster. Therefore, we have invested a lot of resources in infrastructure and law enforcement support."
As global regulation of cryptocurrencies continues to evolve, from a marketing perspective, Rachel proposed specific methods. She said that all the information she sends to the market is reviewed by the legal department, who will ensure that the information is accurate and will not cause problems or mislead users. "So we are very strict about this, but we will adjust according to the market we are in. This is also why I work closely with our legal and compliance team. I have worked in three regulated industries: banking clients, the pharmaceutical industry, and highly regulated alcohol marketing, so I am well aware of the importance of formulating these standards and governance measures to ensure the safety of our team and users, but we will adjust according to market needs."
Industry Future: Integration of Web 2.0 Brands and Expectations for the Widespread Adoption of Crypto Payments
Regarding the future of the industry and hot trends, Rachel is deeply interested in the re-entry of Web 2.0 brands into the blockchain and crypto industry.
She said, "We saw this trend 24 months, 36 months ago, especially in the last bull market. For example, LVMH has been at the forefront of how to use blockchain to verify product authenticity and use blockchain to achieve seamless payments, which indeed provides opportunities to drive the efficiency I mentioned earlier. Therefore, partnerships and alliances with Web 2.0 partners will become crucial."
In addition, she is also full of expectations for the widespread adoption of crypto payments in daily life, hoping that crypto payments can be as convenient and widespread as Mastercard and Visa cards, thereby realizing the true mass adoption of cryptocurrencies. "The thing I look forward to the most is that cryptocurrencies can become a part of everyday social life and integrate into people's daily lives. Just as we now use Mastercard, Visa cards, or Apple Pay, in the future you can use these payment methods like using cryptocurrencies and Binance Pay. I think until we achieve this, we can truly show the full utility and benefits of cryptocurrencies to ordinary users. For example, for me, my father, my grandmother, they need to be able to quickly access their financial assets. I think this is crucial."
Rachel said she hopes to see some progress announcements by the end of 2025 to help us achieve this goal.
