How Gary Vaynerchuk Used VeeFriends To Sell 1M Copies Of Twelve And a Half In 24 hours

During a 3 hour live stream, @garyvee announced a special project to his audience.

The offer to his community was simple.

Buy 12 books and get an NFT.

The result?

1 million pre-orders in 24 hours.

First, What Is An NFT?

An NFT is a token that represents a unique digital asset.

Each NFT is assigned a digital code that verifies the authenticity.

The code can't be duplicated.

Think about it like the serial number in a luxury purse.

What Is A Smart Contract?

A smart contract is a digital contract that automatically processes transactions.

The terms of the agreement between buyer and seller are written into code lines.

And you can't tamper with the code.

This Takes Us To Vee Friends

His first project is a real-world use case for NFTs in the future.

In May 2021, Vee Friends was launched.

An NFT collection featuring hand-drawn images of animals.

The characters represent human traits that GaryVee most admires.

All 10,255 tokens offer admission 3 years admission into VeeCon. (Multiday event for NFT holders)

300 tokens offer you access to Gary himself.

For example, The "Mentor Meeting Mongoose" token gives owners access to 3 two-hour mentorship meetings in New York, redeemable yearly.

The owner of the Mentoring Meeting Moose token purchased the original.

But, Gary owns the IP and aims to create video games, cartoons, and streetwear with the rights.

On top of that, every time someone resells a Vee Friends token, Gary keeps a 10% royalty for each transaction.

Vee Friends did $51 million dollars in revenue in one week.

The success of this project acted as a catalyst for the success of the Book Launch.

And The Offer...

Gary hosted a 3-hour live stream to announce the special offer for Twelve and a Half...

Buy 12 copies of the book.

Receive a mystery NFT in your meta mask.

And Why It Took Off...

The framework of the marketing strategy resembles a Viral Growth Loop.

A way of thinking the largest software companies adopt to see explosive growth.

Gary's Viral Growth Loop

Here's how it works:

• So Gary promotes book (buy 12)
• People buy in increments of 12 to win an NFT (gamification)
• People share it everywhere (social)
• The person who shared creates new participants.
• And the growth compounds because of the tangible reward for their actions.

Community-Led Growth

And the virality stemmed from his community Gary launches always prioritize his community.

And they reciprocate.

Discord is the messaging board where Gary hosts his Vee Friends community.

The pre-launch efforts began there.

When the live stream ended, Twitter flooded with posts of receipts thanking Gary.

All of this user-generated content plus the gamification was a brilliant approach to shatter records.

Key Takeaway

Content creates the desire for community and community impacts commerce.

Content (social) → Community (discord) → commerce = sell books