You can achieve marketing success by tapping into the growing popularity of eSports.
Marketers are making a lot of noise about this potential new revenue well. Gaming is a growing industry that embraces non-traditional concepts. Brands that know how to engage with the eSports audience and leverage opportunities in the vertical are reaping phenomenal benefits, and you can do it too.
The following are seven strategies to market to gamers successfully.
1. Leverage Influencers for Maximum Reach
Before you start any marketing initiative to engage gamers, you must have a clear understanding of how your service or good fits into the eSports experience. In other words, you must find a way to solve a real pain point for competitive gamers and their fans. Furthermore, it’s wise to divide your efforts across several channels, such as:
- Different eSports leagues
- Different players
- Diverse teams
- Various videogame genres
Also, you can make the most of your eSports marketing initiative by teaming up with micro-influencers who will present your solution to competitive gamers and gaming fanatics around the world.
2. Put Some Coin in the Game – Digital Coin That Is
You can use technology to tap into the lucrative market of 2.2 billion eSports enthusiasts around the world. By partnering with a company such as DreamTeam that leverages blockchain technology to unify the resources needed to sponsor an eSports team, you can help up-and-coming competitive eSports athletes and promote your brand at the same time.
For instance, you can use the platform to distribute tournament prizes as well as manage eSports related media rights and advertisements. So far, 250,000 users have signed up for the platform, and membership is expanding by approximately 36% per week, giving you ample opportunities to promote your brand.
3. Get Into the Game – Figuratively
If you’re going to go after the brand loyalty of gamers, build a specialized team that’s directly responsible for eSports marketing. With experience, your team will become experts in working with the gaming audience.
Furthermore, your team can use their expertise to build a strong rapport with gamers via social media. You can avoid costly mass media expenses with a crack team of eSports experts who can find creative alternatives to traditional advertising.
4. Get Into the Game – Literally
You can also task your eSports marketing team with finding ways to organically integrate your brand into gaming products. For example, you can partner with a gaming company to have a 3D representation of your physical storefront included in a game. The team can also manage local eSports competitions.
Your eSports marketing division can help you find imaginative ways to build a strong relationship with gamers. When executed properly, your team could make your brand synonymous with gaming.
5. Know Thy Gamer
You can find real ways to solve pain points for gamers by merely asking them what hurts. Whenever possible, ask gamers what products or services they want.
For example, the Immortals Gaming Club, headed by CEO Noah Whinston, recently partnered with K-Swiss to introduce a line of athletic wear geared primarily towards gamers. As time goes on, Whinston plans to release more footwear in partnership with the shoe company that features designs influenced by the feedback of competitive gamers.
6. Activate at the Local Level
Even though you can access gamers around the world, it’s essential not to forget the power of local sponsorship. Not all eSports competitions are one-off events with a single big payday. Many gaming competitions start with local rounds across the country, eliminating players via tournament system, much like the NCAA’s March Madness Tournament.
These local events (called activations) give you access to live marketing opportunities (called experiential marketing) throughout the United States. You can break into eSports sponsorship at the local level, and then move on to national and even global sponsorship once your organization learns more about the industry.
7. Mitigate Bias
Women make up 30% of the eSports universe, and 40% of competitive gamers that entered a recent New York Excelsior pop-up gaming competition were female. Furthermore, Brazil hosts the largest eSports audience in the world.
What does this mean? It means that you need to cater to female gamers as well as people from diverse backgrounds. Diverse gamers are an indispensable segment of the eSports community and your key to solidifying future relations with participants in the industry.
The fierce competition to sponsor professional gamers is a reliable indicator that you should pay attention to what’s going on in eSports. There’s a wealth of marketing opportunities waiting for you to claim them. By finding out what gamers want, you can learn how to tap into this lucrative market.
However, be warned. Reaching out to and communicating with gamers is easy enough, but remember to always practice honesty and sincerity when dealing with participants in the sport. Gamers – like most consumers – can spot fakes from a mile away.
computer gaming – DepositPhotos
