Unleashing the Power of Web3 Marketing with Galxe's Chief Marketing Officer, Anne Oullet: From NFT Advancements to Visible Credentialing and the Future of Organic Growth | S3 E21

Anne: 0:00

So I found friends of friends who were artists and I said, hey, have you ever thought of selling your art as an NFT? And they said, no, I never thought of doing that.

Joeri: 0:09

Hello everyone and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories podcast, season three, episode 21. My name is Joeri Billast and I'm your podcast host, and today I'm really honored to be joined by Anne. Anne, how are you?

Anne: 0:26

I'm doing great. How are you?

Joeri: 0:28

I'm doing great too. Like I say every podcast episode, get to know new people on my podcast, and here, Anne, I get to know you, but our listeners maybe they don't know you yet. So, guys, if you don't know Anne, or Anne in English, if you would pronounce your name in English.

Joeri: 0:44

Anne Oullet is a chief marketing officer at the Galxe. She's a seasoned marketing strategist and passionate NFT advocate. Anne leads the marketing initiatives at Galxe and under her direction, Galxe, a pioneer in Web3 community building, has attracted over 11 million users across 16 blockchains, amplifying growth for platforms like Optimism, Polygon, Arbitrum, and before joining Galxe, Anne crafted cross-cultural strategies at the French shop and vibrant marketing, collaborating with industry giants like Tim Hortons and Coca-Cola. And she's a distinguished graduate at the HEC Montreal, holding a specialized diploma in communication and marketing, and that's already an impressive introduction. Yeah, if there's something I forgot to mention, be sure to edit. And yeah, to start a podcast. Normally I do this at the end, but now I do it in the beginning. I am curious to know a bit, with all the experience with building a Web3 community, how that you envision the evolution of Web3 over the next years, and then in terms of community management, of course.

Anne: 2:07

Yeah, that's a great question because I feel like we're still kind of learning Web3 marketing and I'm just so excited to be here on a podcast that's specialized in marketing because I feel us marketers in Web3 is very, very niche, very small, so it's nice to talk to someone who understands and who wants to build and grow in the Web3 space, especially marketing. So that's a really good question and I think something for me that's interesting is we started off two, three years ago with airdrops and you know, NFT summer and DeFi summer and there was just like very a lot of trends, like everything was always a trend and what I'm looking forward to, which might sound counterintuitive to what Galxe is doing, is a little bit more stability and a little bit more of like organic growth and finding niche audiences right, because I kind of feel like, as Web3 was new and crypto was new, everyone was kind of just jumping on the new bandwagon of whatever was cool that summer or cool in the moment and when it's the bear market, people are kind of like checked out.

Anne: 3:15

only the few D gens and the really the people who are super passionate stay on. So what I'm looking forward is more how are we going to integrate, you know, blockchain technology in traditional maybe Web2 brands or more niche approaches where people, brands, are finding the right audience and sticking with them, regardless of market cycles, regardless of if NFTs are cool or not, and just people using the blockchain in different facilities because it maybe it answers a need in their day to day lives, or the brands that they're following are doing blockchain innovations. So I know that sounds vague, but I don't know. Joeri, if you, if you understand what I'm trying to say but, having more of a yes.

Joeri: 3:59

I understand, of course, like for a lot of people, Web3 is new and actually, it should not really make a difference, you know, for consumers or for businesses, Web2 or Web3. It should be a great experience and Web3 offers, of course, some benefits. But as you say, you know, now we are a bit like in the winter. I hope we come out soon and that we can, you know, build further in the space. Now, the future. Of course, it's not so easy to see what will happen. You know, in a few months already a lot of things can change. But let's now go back a bit and look at where you come from, and obviously, we are both in marketing. But the transitioning from Web2 to Web3, that's also a challenge, of course, for yourself. So can you talk a bit about that?

Anne: 4:49

Yeah, maybe I can explain a little bit of how I jumped into the Web3 space and I always been in more of a traditional advertising brand work. So I did experiential marketing, which is, you know, marketing that's on- site, so seeing people interacting with the brand that could be, you know, at a festival or whatnot and then more traditional advertising on TV Web. So I did that for about six to seven years and I loved it. You know, I really really loved it. I had a lot of friends, you know, 2017, 2018, 2019, doing you know, DeFi stuff, exchanging, you know, really into crypto. I, quite frankly, did not understand any of it and I didn't really care, to be honest, and my whole ethos was oh, I don't really understand traditional finance.

Anne: 5:38

I'm okay with my finances. I do my taxes, but I don't personally do them. I don't understand traditional finance. So I was like I don't understand how this decentralized finance changes up. You know, that's this thing that I barely understand in traditional. But in 2021, I went to a conference, a crypto conference, with a friend of mine and then they were all when they were talking about NFTs and the power of engagement through NFTs and that, as a marketer, really kind of snapped a cord in me. And it's when I understood that, like, crypto is one use case of the blockchain and the blockchain is a technology which we can build upon and it's not just about finance and yielding and staking and we can do so much more with it. So I really saw an opportunity there.

Anne: 6:24

When I came back, I quit my job, I think on the Monday, which was kind of out of the blue, I mean. I told them you know, it's not you, it's NFTs. And then I was like I need to understand how this works. So I found friends of friends who were artists and I said, hey, have you ever thought of selling your art as an NFT? And they said, no, I never thought of doing that. And I said let me do it with you.

Anne: 6:48

So we sat down and we created strategies and I just kind of, you know, played around with it and understood it and got lucky enough that I helped a protocol with an NFT project that was pulled together. They're a great protocol that allows you to deposit some funds and the interests of those funds are drawn, so you can win the savings and you can't lose any of your money. So I helped them out with an NFT strategy to have people be more engaged, and that's how I actually found Galxe. At that time they were called Project Galxe and then they hired me as their first marketing manager and that was, you know, almost two years ago. I was alone. I got there and now we have a team of five in the marketing department. We've built a brand We've actually rebranded. So that's how I got into it.

Joeri: 7:34

Great, it's an exciting. Everyone has his story, so just tell us a bit more for our listeners. What does Galxe exactly offer? And also, yeah, you mentioned the growth. What are the things that made this growth happen? What are the strategies or decisions that you make to have this growth?

Anne: 7:54

For sure. So Galxe is a community-building platform and that might sound a bit large, but basically what projects can do is they can come on the Galxe platform and they can create Quest space or loyalty programs directly on the Galxe platform. And the beauty of Galxe is it's super modular. So whatever you need to do or create, you can do it. So if you're just hosting an in-person event and want to give away an NFT for someone coming, you can do that. Or you could do a much longer- term loyalty program where people can get rewarded for either doing off-chain stuff so anything from liking or retweeting a tweet, participating to a Discord AMA, doing a quiz, watching a YouTube video anything you really could imagine you can reward these people. Or it could be anything on-chain, which is even easier to check. But let's say you're a dex and you want to reward people for swapping or trading, you could do that as well. And then we have multiple types of rewards where it could be tokens. It could be an NFT, which could be your own contract. It could be our OAT token, which is basically an on-chain achievement token. It's like a little badge of honor that you've done something. It could be points.

Anne: 9:06

We're just constantly innovating and adding more and more features because the goal of it is that anyone can come in and just tailor, make whatever you have in mind. We have a mystery box option where you could do a Pokemon deck card, where people do different things and get to open a mystery box every day and they don't know what they're going to get. So really, the great thing about Galxe is there's so much you could do with it. So I really invite community managers or other web-thru marketers to come in and build and bring some creativity to it, because the more creativity you bring to it, you can really do some fun campaigns.

Joeri: 9:42

Right, yeah, you know you have already convinced me, and also you mentioned the growth of the business. So then I'm curious how did that go? Natural because of what you're offering Word of Mouth or other specific campaigns or decisions that you made to make that growth possible?

Anne: 10:02

Yeah, obviously, I think it's a mix of a lot of things. I'll start by saying Galxe is available on multiple blockchains. So let's say you are building on Arbitrum. You can come and create your own thing and create an NFT on Arbitrum. So when people are interacting with you, you're staying on the chain that you're native on Right. So, and the reason I'm saying that is every time we integrate a new chain, usually what we like to do is what we call an ecosystem campaign.

Anne: 10:29

So, ok, we've, we're integrating Arbitrum. So we've hosted Arbitrum Odyssey, which then we had. We worked directly with them to get multiple projects or DApps building on the Arbitrum blockchain to come in and kind of host one big campaign right Over the course of a few weeks. There was bridging, swapping, you know anything, and then they would get different partners. So we've done that for Arbitrum Odyssey. We did an optimism quest. We just hosted the linear voyage, which is linear, is a new test net for consensus. We did Polygon. We did Solana's so cool campaign.

Anne: 11:05

So every time we're integrating one, we're bringing in all these new projects and and hosting this big thing, and I think that that was a big part of our success, because what happens is that people come in and maybe they're, maybe they are using a D5 protocol or DAP protocol on Solana and they don't know about Galxe.

Anne: 11:22

And then they come to Galxe to do the quest and then they're like, oh we, there's so much to do here, and then they kind of stick on. So what happened is that the more we do those things, we're actually building our own community as well as people who stick around to Galxe to learn about new projects and learn about new protocols, and that's a big part of our growth. And then, of course, we're constantly just like pulling in new, new innovations, new solutions, new ways to reward, new ways to rewards in terms of, like the reward that you can give, and then also new types of credentials that you can use. So YouTube is a new one, quizzes a new one, integrating directly on our platform. So I think that's what makes it so interesting, and we have about I think it's between two to 300 campaigns weekly. So there's just so much going on on the platform that I think for someone in Web 3 who likes to be busy, there's a lot to do on Galxe, you know great, yeah, people that are listening.

Joeri: 12:20

I think at the end of our episode you will be able to give all the links. I think they will be interested to check it out, but for now, okay, this is growth. It's amazing. You know that we see this also, you know, to get more and more people involved in Web 3. Also, I know that you have a background as a cultural strategist if you can call it like that. How do you think that cultural insights and cross- cultural strategies shaped the Web3 marketing strategy at Galxe?

Anne: 12:49

For sure. Maybe I can explain a little bit what a cultural strategist is Exactly yeah.

Anne: 12:55

In my previous job. I used to work for an agency here in Quebec, some Quebec- based. I'm French and I'm sure you're from Belgium, right? So you would understand how a national campaign, maybe that's made in France, won't resonate in the Belgium region, right, there's different cultures there, so our celebrities aren't the same and I'm not too familiar with the Belgium ecosystem. But I'm sure you have your own talk show host, you have your own music, right, which is different, and maybe France or Quebec or Canada doesn't know them so well.

Anne: 13:30

My job was when we had national brands like Tim Hortons or Coca-Cola. Tim Hortons is a coffee brand here in Canada. I'm not sure if everyone knows that it's our Dunkin' Donuts. I guess when they would have campaigns for all of Canada, they would come to us and say does this idea work in Quebec? Right? So if we translate this word for word, does it work in Quebec? And sometimes the answer is no, because maybe what you're referring to is just not something that the Quebec culture resonates with. For example, we don't get married. For example we have our own stars, we have our own language, we have our own puns and play on the words.

Anne: 14:10

So that was my job and it's kind of funny because I find that Web3 directly relates to that experience, for two reasons. Reason one is that Web3 and Web2 are normies and people in crypto. There's a culture clash, right? So often I like to joke that my job is not CMO, but it's more of a translator, and it's to translate what the dev team and what the product team is working on in very technical terms into something that anyone will understand, and even within ourselves. It's kind of interesting because you there's like up this parallel where sometimes we're creating something very technical and we want to show devs and we want to show people bailing in the space that we know what we're talking about and we understand, which is great, but then everyone else maybe people just onboarding or new have no freaking idea what we're talking about. So that's one way that my cultural strategy has helped me adapt.

Anne: 15:12

Okay, I know I understand what you're saying. How do we adapt this to devs? How do we adapt this to whales? How do we adapt this to normies, newbies or people just learning? So that's one part of it. And then the second part is very much within the Web3 community. It is not.

Anne: 15:30

There's no specific demographic right? We're not talking to people in Belgium. We're not talking to men in Belgium between 25 and 35 years old. We're talking to a worldwide audience who comes from different languages, different backgrounds, and different ages. I know. In general, I think we can say that crypto is mainly there's more men than women, but apart from but that there is a lot of women and I'm one of them. But that also is another way of how do you make sure that we have a global culture around this that's inclusive, that speaks to everyone, and, as a marketer, usually you say who's your audience. You cannot talk to everyone. But in Web3, it's kind of flipped around. You're talking to wallets, you're talking to numbers and you're talking to behaviors and not just specific person, so that, as a cultural strategist, is like flipping it, flipping the way we're talking to people.

Joeri: 16:23

Yeah, interesting, right, you know I'm from a small country, as you mentioned, Belgium. We already speak three languages in Belgium, and then it's Dutch, French, and German, and then on top of that, you know it's English. So we adapt and we have all these different cultures. If you go to the north or the south, even in a small country, it's different. When you know my podcast, actually, this is a good example because I try to have like a lot of women doing the show I think it's almost 50 with men, if not more people from everywhere around the world. So that's what I love. That's what advantage of being from a small country. Of course, you know there are a lot of people from everywhere. You mentioned, yeah, talking to wallets. Of course, digital identity is also a thing in Web3. I also know that you are using Galxe Web3 credentials from your Web3 credential data network to drive growth and community engagement and so on. Can you talk a bit about that?

Anne: 17:21

Yeah, actually. So Galxe started as wanting to create a credential data network, which is, basically, we wanted to log all of the stuff on a chain into one big, you know, data network, which is, basically, public information. Right, because that's the beauty of the blockchain is that everything is there and everyone can see what's going on, right? But saying that everyone can see is actually, I'm going to say, false, because if you're non-technical or someone like me, I'm not going to pass my day on either scanning right and looking at wallets that are doing different actions. Of course, I could take the time and try to figure it out, but I'm very lazy, Joeri, so I'm not, I'm not going to do that. So, you know, what Galxe is working on is just like reportoring. Okay, these wallets are, you know, have traded on Aave and these wallets have, you know, blue chip, NFT holders, like all that stuff which is already there, but just making it visible to all and, honestly, like leveling out the playing field for people like me who just are not either scan sleuths who can go and understand all of that.

Anne: 18:30

So we started to build this credential data network and what happened is that we were like, okay, what are the use cases for this, and the first use case was very much so the quest-based stuff, because that was easier to understand and to do. All right, trade swap on this thing. Okay, that's logged in as a credential and then, as you're doing that, get rewarded. But we actually did announce a Galxe protocol a few weeks back, which is basically the finality of this credential data network that we're building, which people are going to be able to come in and use this data for different things right, so it could be eventually credit scoring right In the future. It could be for the quest is one of them, it could be for rewarding users or anything, right? So that's where the credential data network came from.

Joeri: 19:21

Oh yeah, indeed, everything is visible. The blockchain is there, but you need to know how to find it, of course. That's very interesting, maybe because we are marketers actually, I have a bit of a technical background too, but still I'm a marketer, you know. What advice would you give to now marketers or entrepreneurs that are listening and then they want to enter the Web3 space but they are hesitating? But is the best advice that you could give them?

Anne: 19:54

Ask questions. Really, do not be scared to ask questions. The space evolves and changes so much that it's not a space where you can come in and pretend that you know everything. Like that's just ask questions. Number two I would recommend reading this book. Let me just grab it and I think you've had her on. But Amanda Cassatt's book from Web3 Marketing yeah, not a show, they are agency and full transparency. But I've been following Serotonin before they started as our agency. But, yeah, rate this book as well.

Anne: 20:27

Also, get into it and try things out. Right. So get a wallet, learn about it, trade swap, just understanding the basics, maybe finding an NFT project, purchasing your first NFT, getting on Discord you don't have to live on chain. I did that for about a year and a half Now, the summer. You know, I took a little bit of a break, so I'm not up to speed with all the latest projects and stuff. I'm going to do it once it gets cold here, it gets cold in Canada, I'll have time to just, you know, spend some more time online.

Anne: 20:57

But definitely, and then also I would say probably go to an in-person event if possible. I know that sometimes financially that's not always possible, but if there's something in your hometown or close, do go, because what got me into it is the energy I felt from people. I truly felt like this is very poetic, but like a run itself where you have developers and artists and creators and founders and geeks and normies and all in one place and everyone's talking and excited about the same thing and it's really interesting to see and you can definitely feel the excitement. So I would go to an in-person event if you can, just to learn and talk to people and just ask them what they're working on and even if you don't understand, again goes back to tip number one ask questions. So that would be a few of my advice for a marketer Right Morning Wednesday.

Joeri: 21:48

You know, what I did was, of course, all of those things too. You know, go to events also, listening to podcasts, for instance, but also taking initiatives. Like I said, let's organize events in the metaverse, I said to people and we were just trying out and doing stuff and discussing so and, by the way, Amanda was also a guest on my podcast, like in the beginning of season two, and the people that are now listening. So Amanda's book is a good one to buy. Also, I have written a chapter around Web3 in this book, which is the most amazing marketing book ever, which has tips around AI, Web3, Metaverse, Linkedin, and so on.

Joeri: 22:30

Nice, and yeah, this book also helps me because I like to do some public speaking. I think you like that too, so that's one of the things I also would like to, but then maybe for me and other people that I like to, you know, to some public speaking. Do you have some insights about that or some experiences around public speaking? And maybe, yeah, in the Web3 space.

Anne: 22:56

Yeah, I've done a few. I do like it, but I get very nervous before. I don't know if you're like me. Once you're on stage it's fine Before.

Anne: 23:06

I personally think that there's just been so many in person events that I find that what's been the most interesting is actually doing workshops and showcasing, if you can sometimes, your product right. I know that not all conferences like that because they don't want you to shill right what you're working on, but I think that sometimes it's quite interesting to show visually what you're working on, unless you have a new take on a subject or something you know. Now we're talking about web three marketing, but I think a lot of time we talk about engagement and community and this and that, but actually showing people is quite interesting and I know for me I'm a very visual person. So if you can do workshops, actually have people test out your product, your DAP test it out, work with it, play with it, have you know on site feedback I think that's really great.

Anne: 23:58

Another thing that I would really recommend for marketers or if you're going to these events, is hackathons. Even though you're not technical, I'm not technical and I've been to a few hackathons and they've been where I've learned the most, especially in the recent year. I feel like seeing people dive into projects, talk about new things, new ideas, is what inspires me the most. Yeah, I think that that's where you're going to learn a little bit more about the new things that are coming, especially now that things are slowing down. This wasn't the fact two or three years ago. Two or three years ago, it was more niche. There was less conferences. So when you did go to a conference, you learned about a lot of things coming up, but then lately I feel like we've kind of been turning around the same subjects. So hackathons are definitely a good place for new innovations and new topics and new innovations in the blockchain.

Joeri: 24:46

Right, well, that's a great tip on to anti-spotcast rates. But people that really enjoyed your other tips and all the advice. Where would you like to send them? Where can they know more about you? Where? How can they connect with you?

Anne: 25:02

For sure. You can check me out on Twitter. I'll link my Twitter after this. I would invite them to go check galaxy. com. A great thing to start with Galxe is we just launched Galaxy Mission Web 3. So it's a new way to learn about Web 3. We've partnered with our biggest partners, so we've got consensus well, Metamask, sorry and we have a base on there. So basically we're having a module each and every other two, three weeks to learn about the Web 3 space. We're going to have bonus modules. So every time there is a new trend that pops up maybe sold out tokens or another form of NFTs or a new chain that everyone's talking about we'll make sure to be first to create a bonus module there so you can learn about that. So that's a great way to start and when you come on the website, it's right there. It's up there called Mission Web 3. That's by us. It's safe to try and, yeah, just have fun and ask questions.

Joeri: 26:06

Yeah, great, I asked you lots of questions today, but maybe you will get more. So, and of course, people know that they are listening to the show, there are show notes, there is an article. All your links will be mentioned over there. So, and I mix two, both pronunciations of your name up actually. So thank you so much for being on the show today.

Anne: 26:30

Thank you have a great day.

Joeri: 26:33

So, guys, again an amazing episode, and if you think that all everything that ends up can be useful for people around you, be sure to share the episode with them. If you're not yet subscribed, that's a good moment to do it. Yeah, you know, because then you will not miss any of the future episodes and, of course, I would like to see you back for the next one. Take care, bye. Web3 can take your biz to new heights and you're ready to harness its power, but feeling lost and overwhelmed. Therefore, join my W3X Web3 mastermind. Send me a personal message for more info. You can find me everywhere on social media. There's only one person with my name, Joeri Billast. Talk soon.