Built and deployed a newsletter repurposed as a digital press kit for targeted cold outreach, achieving a 48.1% open rate and securing earned media placements to expand brand visibility and organic acquisition channels.
Company: Evoke Marketplace
Industry: Luxury Blockchain E-Commerce
Campaign Duration: 30 days
At EVOKE Phygital Marketplace, we believe in giving back and making a positive impact in the world. Through our platform, we are dedicated to supporting charitable organizations and causes that help create lasting change with every purchase.
EVOKE Phygital Marketplace is a luxury e-commerce brand with a humanitarian twist; every purchase will allocate a percentage to a charity of the buyer's choice. This is only possible with EVOKE’s blockchain technology, which is the same technology that enables transactions for decentralized currencies, known as cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc). The significance of this game-changing form of “phygital” commerce also posed a challenge, as EVOKE prioritized luxury products. The Campaign’s goal was to promote the Oceanic 333, a men’s luxury watch priced at $4,999.99.
Upon further research, I found a drastic disproportion in how much more men in America understand Blockchain and cryptocurrency technology than women do. Not to mention the learning curve for the consumer to understand the significance of EVOKE’s blockchain. Because of this, I decided to avoid promoting Blockchain as the center of the story, but instead focus on the clean water the watch will bring to underserved nations. However, I promoted this story to high-authority publications that were blockchain-literate, which opened up opportunities.
After researching the socioeconomic status of the average luxury shopper, I decided to use Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Development Theory for my messaging and approach. Erikson’s theory focuses on the challenges every human must overcome at different stages of life to lead a fulfilling life. For this, I decided to focus on his stage 7: generativity vs. stagnation (middle adulthood ages 40-65), which is about giving back to society to avoid stagnation. This fits perfectly with the Oceanic 333 timepiece's charitable efforts and EVOKE’s purposeful purchasing. Lastly, due to the nature of luxury products, there must be a story attached to them to justify their price, which was the next challenge to overcome.
The first step was to create a promotional video for the Oceanic 333 that displays its sophistication, significance, and purpose. This would make it easier to send to publications while effectively conveying the powerful story of this timepiece and its role in supporting clean water in underserved countries. This video was made using Adobe After Effects, ArtGrid.io stock video footage, Creatify AI for the underwater mockup of the watch variations, and EVOKE token animation. I also used footage from previously rendered promotional videos for the Oceanic, which I re-edited into a modern composition.
Given EVOKE’s Blockchain business model, I knew crypto and finance publications would be interested in this product. Not only was the watch beautiful and had charitable significance, but it also moved blockchain technology forward in practical ways. With that said, I compiled a list of editors and decision-makers at institutions that would empathize with EVOKE’s efforts and products. Once compiled, the contacts were put into a cold email outreach sequence that would automatically reply to the thread if I didn’t hear back or if they didn't respond to the first attempt. Erik Erikson’s stage 7 language was implemented here to support the tonality of attracting luxury timepiece buyers. The blockchain technology aspect of the product was also prominent here, and this was my selling point for these particular editors to be featured on their site.
I knew the cold email sequence would not suffice for telling the Oceanic story to editors, so a second literature piece would need to be written to really drive home the significance of the luxury timepiece. So I created a newsletter-style email, which I linked to the cold outreach. This told the full story of the timepiece charity efforts upon purchase, glamorous product videos, and how blockchain technology weaves it all together. This proved very effective upon promotion; it could also serve as a blog post on the company’s website, as it was keyword-rich.
; it could additionally act as a blog post for the company’s website,
You can view the newsletter article here.
The total time for this campaign was roughly 30 days. From creating promotional material to composing the repurposed newsletter article and conducting the cold email outreach sequence to publications.
The cold outreach publication campaign was a success, with multiple editors clicking and replying with interest to my cold email sequence with the Oceanic Press Kit linked. Publications such as Techbullion, The Blockopedia, Medium, and TechRound were willing to cover the story of the Oceanic. Many editors also called it a powerful story, highlighting the blockchain innovation factor. Not only was the outreach a success but the email metrics were also much higher than industry standard benchmarks.
