Globally, the eSports market is forecast to reach revenues of $1.6 billion by 2024. Most of this revenue is currently generated by sponsorships.
With revenues like these eSports have started piquing the interest of many major brands. For example, Budweiser held its own “Battle of the Best” tournament on Twitch. Many of the platform's most popular players attended and it was a huge success.
Is your brand thinking about hosting a tournament or other eSports event of your own? If so, you are probably wondering what is the best way to market it.
In this blog, we are going to cover the top ways to market an eSports event. We talk about everything from ads to influencers.
There are 1.5 billion concurrent eSports viewers on YouTube worldwide.
This is the platform where gamers spend their time. If you were thinking about running Instagram or Facebook ads to promote your tournament, think again. YouTube ads are a much better use of your budget.
YouTube ads are set up through Google Ads. You don’t need a channel to run YouTube ads (though it's advisable for your long-term marketing to make one).
If you're looking for some inspiration for your esports tournament marketing, take a look at the League of Legends ad for the LEC below.
Another popular social media platform with gamers is Twitch.
Twitch is a popular online streaming platform with concurrent viewers forecast to reach more than 3.2 million by 2023.
There are millions of viewers streaming tournaments on Twitch. The audience on this platform is exactly who you want to target. They are already highly engaged in the eSports realm and stream events and tournaments.
Twitter is the most popular “mainstream” social media platform among gamers.
There are excellent advertising opportunities available on Twitter.
Twitter offers a wide variety of ad formats from Moment ads and Text ads to Video ads and Carousels.
A lot of the organising for popular eSports tournaments is done through Twitter. You can get pretty specific with your targeting and often start a snowball effect with your tweets. As one eSports fan sees your tournament and retweets it, this creates a snowball and more and more fans start to see your Tweet.
While having a good paid ad budget is necessary for marketing an eSports tournament, it is not the only marketing strategy you should use.
You will also want to partner with gaming influencers.
Those in the eSports community are very loyal to their favourite Twitch streamers and YouTubers. Use this sense of community to your advantage.
Make partnerships with players and have them promote your tournament to their audience. This is a great way to enter your brand into the gaming community and build trust with eSports fans.
When marketing your eSports tournament, your primary goal is attendance at your event.
However, you should also add a secondary goal – long-term relationships with eSports fans.
Gaming audiences often exhibit a lot of loyalty – to their favourite games, developers, eSports teams, games etc.
By including a long-term plan to establish relationships with this audience in your tournament marketing you could see excellent long-term returns.
Gamer is a broad term. It's like an athlete or art enthusiast. There is a wide range of subcategories in these definitions. And simply because a person fits into one sub-category does not mean they will have any interest in another.
When it comes to your tournament marketing, you need to take the time to understand your audience. You need something much more defined than “gamer” or “esports fan”
A marketing campaign that may work for experienced Dota 2 players may not have the same effect on Overwatch players.
You need to take the time to fully understand the interests of your ideal audience and how you can create campaigns that will appeal to them.
eSports tournament marketing is likely a little different from anything your brand has done before. Gamers typically operate on different social platforms than you may be used to promoting your events on. Twitch and YouTube are kings. You need to make sure you advertise on these platforms but also form influencer partnerships to give your brand legitimacy.
See inspirations here:
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