5 Ways Brands Have Benefited From Utility in NFTs

Humans have always valued utility. From developing stone tools to perfecting animal husbandry, our ancestors crafted technology that creates value by making life easier — or, sometimes, simply more interesting. Look around, and you’ll find that we’ve never lost that mindset, it’s just evolved. Nowhere is that clearer than NFT projects with utility, which show how the Web3 internet is helping people and businesses connect.

Businesses want to better serve customers, and customers want to engage with exciting new products. Utility NFTs facilitate both, but it’s important to understand how they create value before adding one to your business plans. To shed light on how utility NFTs are helping brands today, here’s how prominent NFT projects with utility have made an impact.

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IMPT - Add Brand Value

G-Star Raw - Increase Conversion Rates

Silks - Build Customer Loyalty

Uptop - Encourage Repeat Business

Sardine - Mitigate Risks

Creating NFT Projects with Utility

IMPT - Add Brand Value

Today, consumers are more likely to purchase something if they perceive a brand as having values closely aligned with their own. As the population grows more climate-conscious and aware of social issues, brand values are helping create brand value. While marketing campaigns and donations have historically been the best way for businesses to highlight their beliefs, NFT projects with utility can directly impact social good campaigns while helping brands connect with consumers.

IMPT is a perfect example of how utility NFTs can be used for change. IMPT mints carbon credits as tokens, which buyers can save, sell, or burn to help regulate carbon emissions. Any business can add a similar function to its utility NFT offering, making the world a better place while capturing more business. For example, a company could reward loyal customers with NFTs representing a real-world tree. So long as they control the NFT, they control the tree.

G-Star Raw - Increase Conversion Rates

Everybody loves a discount. In fact, coupon codes demonstrably impact close rates, increasing the odds that a customer will make a purchase rather than abandon their cart. But as the metaverse enters the mainstream, traditional coupon codes are becoming antiquated. However, brands can preserve the positive effects of coupons through NFT projects with utility, which can grant discounts to holders.

G-Star Raw demonstrated how such a perk works with its 3301 Community Token, which it distributed to NFT holders in May 2021. The utility NFT provided access to exclusive merch waitlists and live events but, most importantly, granted holders discounts on G-Star Raw clothing. In one fell swoop, G-Star Raw rewarded customers for their loyalty and improved their odds of making another purchase.

Silks - Build Customer Loyalty

Brand engagement is more important now than ever before, so why not make your brand as engaging as a hobby? It may sound odd on a surface level, but you can build a loyal customer base by creating utility NFTs that encourage customers to engage with them frequently.

The horse racing NFT project Silks has masterfully demonstrated how to build customer loyalty through utility NFTs. The NFTs are (primarily) based on real horses; when a real horse wins a race, the NFT one earns a token. Those tokens translate to real-world monetary gains, but Silks owners have to work hard to maximize their earnings. It’s crucial to pay close attention to training and breeding better horses to win virtual races. Silks has gamified horse breeding.

Virtually any industry can use utility NFTs to a similar effect. For example, a clothing manufacturer could create NFTs based on real-world garments that earn tokens for red carpet appearances, sales, and movie appearances. Customers would have to continuously update their NFT wardrobes to earn from the system, swapping out old clothes for the latest virtual threads.

Uptop - Encourage Repeat Business

Loyalty programs have been shown to improve retention and profitability if they’re leveraged correctly, making them an essential part of a sound business strategy. NFT projects with utility can make a loyalty program more interesting, granting customers various rewards rather than earning a single kickback, like points.

Uptop, a blockchain-based rewards platform, takes the concept to the next level. Customers can earn memberships, discounts, sweepstakes entries, and more as they shop even without being NFT enthusiasts. Because Uptop is based on the blockchain, it’s capable of being a more robust reward system than its contemporary retail counterparts. For example, it can give individualized customer insights thanks to publicly recorded blockchain purchase data.

Sardine - Mitigate Risks

“Risk” isn’t a problem that can be solved. Instead, businesses must dedicate time and resources to ensuring that they minimize risks everywhere they can. In the realm of NFTs, that means monitoring for possible fraudulent activity, which can seriously impact a business if not handled properly.

Sardine, a payment processing platform geared towards Utility NFT transactions, has emerged as a way for brands to mitigate risks and authorize more crypto transactions. The best demonstration of Sardine’s capabilities comes from the launch of Tom Brady’s Autograph NFT collaboration. As Sardine explains, while NFT merchants sometimes turn away 2 out of 10 transactions when a card is used to pay, Sardine identified 98% of transactions as non-fraudulent.

Creating NFT Projects with Utility

Utility NFTs are one of the best ways for companies to interact with their target audience, and they’re likely going to remain so in the Web3 era of the internet. Businesses looking to create new revenue streams via utility NFTs will want to start sooner than later, but they’ll want an experienced partner to bring their NFT plans to fruition.

At Dibbs, we specialize in helping businesses create physical-backed NFTs that can help increase their brand value and penetrate new markets. We’ll give your physical goods a new digital life, which will help you establish tight-knit groups of collectors invested in your brand. Each time they buy or sell your utility NFTs, you’ll earn a royalty payment on the trade. Schedule a demo today to see how you can get started.