Decrypt & Kazm: Case Study

The Power of Memberships + Personalized Content Experiences

Kazm

Decrypt has emerged as a trailblazing media outlet, publishing platform, and creative studio curating a captivating narrative at the crossroads of blockchain, gaming, crypto, and artificial intelligence. As part of its ongoing growth strategy, Decrypt partnered with Kazm to draw in new readers, encourage greater audience engagement, and gain deeper insights into its community segments.

Since its establishment in 2018, Decrypt's mission has been to inform, educate, and empower the next generation of crypto enthusiasts. It accomplishes this through articles, in-depth features, expert interviews, educational resources for both beginners and experienced users, and a regular newsletter. Decrypt's commitment to high-quality journalism and unbiased coverage has earned it a reputation as a trusted resource for industry insiders, experts, and newcomers eager to explore this ever-evolving space.

Shortfalls of Early Web3 Loyalty

As Decrypt grew in popularity and expanded across more content verticals, they aimed for a more ambitious initiative that would position Decrypt as a versatile content curator, offering personalized content experiences. To do so would require showing segments of users more relevant content and providing a personalized, seamless journey for readers. 

In 2019, Decrypt launched a unique loyalty program to reward users for connecting a blockchain wallet. They provided digital tokens for various activities such as reading, sharing, and reacting to articles. These tokens could be used for voting and other exclusive experiences. However, the program fell short of providing actionable learnings for improved user experiences. 

Instead of serving its growing audience more individually relevant content, the program drew in those more interested in accumulating tokens, leading to issues like farming and system exploitation.

Ilan Hazan, Co-Founder at Decrypt Media, noted, "Despite the program's success in boosting growth, it unintentionally attracted the wrong audience. Instead of fostering gamification, it resulted in a hyper-financialized and unsatisfying experience." 

Consequently, Decrypt suspended the program due to misaligned expectations and incentives.

The Reboot: Seizing a New Opportunity

This initial experience with a pure Web3 program led to some critical insights and culminated in a realization:  

"Not everything needs to be decentralized." 

Instead, a hybrid approach would allow Decrypt to navigate the landscape more effectively, leveraging the strengths of both centralized and decentralized systems to create a balanced and engaging ecosystem. Moving part of their system off-chain would allow for better aligned incentives across more touchpoints, adaptable rules, flexible rewards, and deeper consumer insights. Maintaining dynamic membership tiers on-chain would maintain the interoperability of token gating and incentivize users to connect wallets for better segmentation data.

By utilizing a hybrid approach to blockchain technology, Decrypt sought to cater to diverse user interests and create deeper connections. This approach not only sets Decrypt apart from its competitors as the first media company to customize content based on blockchain behaviors, but also showcased its forward-thinking approach to evolving audience needs.

Enter Kazm.

Personalizing the Reader Experience

Kazm brings together the benefits of Web3 and the power of centralized data management. Audience segmentation forms the foundation of this content personalization, ensuring users receive tailored content and ads aligned with their interests. Better data enables more precise ad targeting, allowing brands to reach genuinely interested audiences.

"Partnering with Kazm helps us analyze on-chain data and cross-reference it with the data gathered on Decrypt” Hazan said. “Decoding user segmentation within wallet infrastructure transforms digital wallets into dynamic, on-chain activity-driven sources of personalized content. It helps us visualize all the valuable data in one place. This foundation empowers precise ad targeting, connecting brands with genuinely interested audiences. It’s been incredibly simple, efficient, and easy to use."

Decrypt can now segment, label, and operationalize the user behaviors, experiences, and interests gleaned during the initial wallet connection phase. With a deeper connection to wallets as a dynamic data source and contextual conduit for on-chain activity, Kazm empowers Decrypt with a nuanced understanding of individual preferences, and facilitates the curation and delivery of content tailored precisely to users' interests.

Our partnership enables the alignment of incentives with the RIGHT audience and the expansion of this approach beyond web3 personalization. Together, we're expanding a program that works for Decrypt’s growing, evolving audience.

Powering a Virtuous Cycle

By partnering with Kazm, Decrypt now possesses unified member profiles replete with richer insights, allowing them to harness reader segmentation more effectively in building the next phase of a more meaningful loyalty program. Better experiences means stronger loyalty. Stronger loyalty means more data sharing. More data sharing means better experiences...

This synergy between loyalty and user segmentation creates a long-term positive feedback loop: meaningful rewards encourage data sharing (wallet, socials, demographics, etc.), and this data drives deeper personalization, resulting in stronger, deeper connections, more data sharing, advocacy, growth, and expansion.

“This whole process was crazy simple,” Hazan adds. “The tech side took a few hours to get completely set up. And Kazm brings a user-friendly interface and simplified user experience to the implementation of loyalty programs on Decrypt. The platform streamlines the user journey, making it intuitive and accessible. And the set-up development cost was very low.”

One Platform for Many Communities

Kazm empowers Decrypt to swiftly build and launch memberships tailored to diverse verticals, harnessing this data to offer a personalized experience to all. The newly minted Decrypt Hub Model for content verticals across gaming, luxury, fashion, culture, degen, and emerging tech enhances user engagement and expands the brand’s appeal with a wider audience. Each community is treated as a distinct entity, and Decrypt actively builds dedicated destinations for these communities.

For example, the GG Membership Club will offer enticing benefits for Decrypt readers, including access to an exclusive gaming community and gated GG content, such as live streams and game guides. Members can also look forward to in-person meetups in various cities around the world, the ability to influence the roadmap by voting on future game reviews, and generous discounts on GG merchandise. The membership also includes access to a private Discord chat where gaming enthusiasts can engage in real-time discussions about the latest developments in the gaming world.

Transforming the media experience into a gamified and personalized journey is how Decrypt will  build and sustain long-term reader loyalty.

What’s Next

Decrypt is focused on enhancing user engagement and forging deeper connections, ultimately appealing to brand partners and expanding its business model. Additional objectives also include exploring new revenue streams through sponsorship opportunities. To achieve this, they plan to lean even more heavily into Kazm’s solution and an improved user experience, fostering a sense of community and active participation. By encouraging users to connect their wallets for advanced targeting, Decrypt aims to attract brand partners interested in precisely targeting specific audiences. 

The result is a first-of-its kind media and content platform leveraging a membership program to collect data, which enables personalization, which creates greater loyalty, thus enabling the connection & collection of even more and better data. 

Clink for more information about Decrypt or to join the GG Membership Club.

To further explore Kazm’s platform and services, see a live demo, or get started, visit join.kazm.com.

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