Written by
Benjamin Daniels
7 mins read
Top 7 tools to engage gamers in 2022 (and supercharge your gaming marketing)
Building and managing an esports & gaming community can be a challenge. But it doesn’t have to be! With the right gaming tournament platform & tools, you can connect, engage & monetize users from one centralized place. Owning your own platform makes gaming marketing easier with behavioral insights & endless engagement opportunities.
In this article, we’ll discuss the strategies and tools you need to succeed in gaming marketing.
- The challenge of engaging gamers today.
- How do you engage gamers? The secret of gaming marketing.
- Level up your gaming marketing with a central gaming tournament platform.
- 12 strategies to thrive with gaming marketing.
- 7 tools designed to engage the gamer audience.
- Gamification: The ultimate tactic to engage gamers.
- FAQ
The challenge of engaging gamers today
By now we already know the gaming audience is a valuable target group for brands. However, with more brands adopting gaming marketing as a strategy, it’s hard to stand out and get people to become part of your community.
And even if you do manage to create an active gaming community, retaining your users is still a challenge. In fact, after just 1 day only 25% of gamers remain.
We live in an attention economy. Essentially, engagement is shattered around various social media and online platforms. And while you can build a great following on ‘rented platforms’, you have limited control over the experience or data.
You need a way to reach this audience with an experience that stands out and connects them on a single, owned platform. That’s where a gaming tournament platform can help you!
How do you engage gamers? The secret of gaming marketing.
The gaming audience is surrounded by many myths and stereotypes. In fact, the audience is strongly growing in diversity. With the average age being 35 years old, and 45% of the audience being made up of women, you need a tailored approach to reach your audience.
Furthermore, Acer states that gamers are looking for an immersive experience, not in-your-face advertising. That means that besides playing games, they also love to do game-related activities like watching content or engaging in communities. In other words, social interaction and entertainment are now a part of gaming.
When it comes to sponsorship or advertising, gamers expect brands to contribute to their experience, not disrupt it. Gaming marketing is all about building a relationship with your audience by being a part of the community. In fact, fans welcome sponsorship as a way for their favorite influencers and esports teams to grow.
Both endemic and non-endemic sponsors can come up with creative ideas that everyone benefits from. Dc Comics for instance partnered with FaZeClan to create it’s very own limited-edition comic, and, obviously, related merch.
Level up your gaming marketing with a central gaming tournament platform
Capturing the attention of gamers, and above all, keeping them engaged is hard. Especially when their attention is divided across a range of different platforms. Instead, connect gamers, organize fully automated tournaments & promote brand content all in 1 place!
With StriveCloud’s gaming tournament platform you can easily set up brand pages and branded tournaments. In other words, you can fully make it your own. You also get to interact with gamers through the social feed, polls and targeted messages. Moreover, gamers get to connect with each other, compete in tournaments & contribute to the community.
Additionally, our platform has a built-in gamified loyalty system. Reward users based on behavior to ensure long-term engagement and retention! To top it all off, you get insights into all the data, since you own the platform. Altogether, it’s the ultimate flywheel to engage your gaming community!
With that said, let’s explore some of the top strategies and tools that you can use to improve your gaming marketing in 2022.
12 strategies to thrive with gaming marketing
1. Build your own community with StriveCloud’s gaming tournament platform
StriveCloud’s gaming tournament platform centralizes community, competition, and content into 1 platform. Here, gamers can be part of a community where they can connect with each other and relevant brands. Organize tournaments without the need for moderators, and drive participation with gamified features such as challenges, raffles, and hotzones.
Additionally, you can reward engagement with virtual currencies, shop items, leveling systems, and more. Simply target the community with content from your brand page and set up branded tournaments and landing pages without any code.
Best of all? You can use it for any game, and it only takes two weeks to get onboarded and fully set up! Are you ready?
2. Share behind-the-scenes content & real stories
A blog/vlog is perfect for storytelling. Gamers love to see behind the scenes, from game creation to interviews with developers and insights into the lives of top players. A familiar face builds trust and sharing your journey creates community involvement.
3. Launch or sponsor an esports team to get in front of gamers
A great way to get in front of the growing gaming audience is by creating or sponsoring your own esports team. Besides visibility and creating awareness, you get to leverage sponsored players for behind-the-scenes content, brand activations, and campaigns.
4. Live streaming draws in extra eyeballs
In esports, Twitch boasts the highest usage intensity of any streaming platform and its creators are powerful members of the gaming community. Other platforms like YouTube gaming are also gaining popularity. In fact, Youtube attributes the gaming segment as the forefront of Youtube’s growth!
5. Broadcast gaming tournaments
What matters is that next to gaming in itself, watching other people play has become normal. So, broadcast your tournaments for the world to see! Besides being great entertainment and a way to attract the gaming audience, it can also increase sponsor visibility.
6. Partner with influencers to reach a bigger audience
The gaming market is filled with fun and creative influencers that already reach your target audience. Partnerships allow these influencers to keep creating content to satisfy their fans. There are many ways to engage gamers through partnerships.
You could use a familiar face to promote the product through unboxing videos, affiliate promotions or sponsored content. However, you can also go beyond content. For instance, by having influencers host your online event. In fact, with the right gaming tournament platform, you can even let influencers compete against each other or fans.
7. Mobile game ads are more successful
If your focus is on mobile gaming marketing, then there is no better place to advertise on mobile games themselves. According to Tapjoy, mobile gamers are far more likely to notice in-game ads (41%) than web ads (17%).
8. Prioritize your gaming marketing with the “33-33-33 rule”
Firaxis, the studio behind the Civilization games, follow the clever “33-33-33 rule.” Essentially, 33% of each new iteration should be things that are proven to work, 33% should be improvements, and 33% should be totally new. To be sure, this strategy can help inspire new ideas from your team, as well as double down on what already works great!
9. Host live events to strengthen the gamer experience
While the gaming industry is mostly seen as digital-first, gamers have been seeking more opportunities to come together and connect in person. This could be through LAN parties, local meetups, esports events, and more. When asked about the main reasons to attend these events gamers responded as followed:
- 81% To be part of the gaming community
- 80% To watch their favorite players & teams
- 61% To connect with the friends they’ve met online
Besides being a great way to build community and create unique sponsorship experiences, live events drive engagement and loyalty. In fact, gamers that do attend live events tend to spend and play more than other gamers.
10. Create or sponsor a podcast
Podcasting is the fastest-growing media segment. The personal and authentic style of conversations appeals to gamers. There are many gaming podcasts like IGN Gamescoop, Let’s Talk PlayStation, Digital Foundry Weekly,… that cover different topics. These might vary from gaming news to tactical aspects like how to become a better gamer, what hardware to get, and more.
Besides, gamers also love listening to interviews with their favorite streamers, influencers, and esports players.
11. Social media as a connection space
Research says that 55% of gamers check gaming social media platforms regularly. So reach your gamers there! Use platforms like Youtube gaming, Twitch, Discord, and Reddit to respond to user feedback, share trailers and collect user-generated content!
12. User-generated content is more trustworthy
Gamers trust user-generated content more than traditional ads. Not only is it more authentic, but it is also effective at building a sense of community! Incentivize users to share by featuring the best content on your official pages. Gamification can also help. Reddit for instance works with Karma points. These are based on your contributions which determine your status in the community.
7 tools designed to engage the gamer audience
1. Use a tournament maker like BracketHQ to host online tournaments
Online tournaments are a great, if not the best way to engage gamers. Especially, when there is something to gain! Besides the sense of competition, gamers are also motivated by a prospective prize. This doesn’t have to be monetarily and can also be a shop item, a sponsor experience, or simply community recognition.
2. Create gamified reward programs with Social & Loyal
After you get gamers on your platform, it’s important to keep them there! So, how can you do that? Start off by incentivizing engagement through rewards. You can use experience points to reward desired actions such as interacting with the community. These points also serve as the metric for growth. They indicate progress, leaderboard ranking, levels, and more.
3. Data tools like Segment help to personalize the experience
You can segment gamers based on their location, preferred games, and many more things. At least, if you have the right tools to do so! Data tools such as Heap or Segment can help you gain insight into the behavior of different user types, and adapt accordingly.
4. Build a forum with Discourse to drive interaction
The gaming community has a voice, so listen to it! In fact, a community platform like Discord or Reddit can boost engagement and retention tremendously! With Discourse you get to own and customize your own community. What’s great about communities is how they promote user-generated content and feedback.
5. User feedback tools like GetFeedback to maximize engagement
As mentioned before, gamers have valuable feedback to give! Allow them to express it through surveys! You can also regularly ask for their input through polls. For instance: what collaboration do you want to see next? What would you improve about our community?
6. Find memorable collaborations through influencer platforms like Grin
Collaborating with popular influencers is a great way to keep your community engaged with fresh content. Platforms like Grin, Adshot, or Connus help you match up with the right influencers, set campaign goals, and track the results.
What works even better are interactive campaigns. For example, hosting a live Q&A, or letting gamers compete against their favorite streamers or esports players in an online tournament!
7. Combine everything into one centralized gaming tournament platform with StriveCloud
As you can see gaming marketing is complex, but it doesn’t have to be! StriveCloud’s gaming tournament platform is a complete solution for engaging the gaming audience. Besides setting up fully automated tournaments, you can build your own community & connect with users on a deeper level.
Here’s what it entails:
- Automated tournament & league systems compatible with all popular games.
- Bespoke page builder to communicate & promote all events from 1 place.
- Social feed & live messaging so users can connect easier than ever.
- Gamification features that foster engagement & loyalty on a behavioral level.
- Actionable 1st party data to empower your monetization strategy.
- Fully white-labeled to help you connect brands with the gaming audience.
- Available on web & mobile for maximum engagement.
What’s more, our customer support team will be on hand to make implementation as easy as possible. In fact, our lightning-fast setup can get you up and running in just 2 weeks!
Gamification: The ultimate tactic to engage gamers
Without a doubt, nobody is better suited to respond positively to gamification than the gaming community. Gamification is essentially the use of game-like dynamics and psychology to drive motivation and inspire action. This gaming marketing tactic not only increases conversion but also drives engagement and revenue.
In practice, gamification inspires action. Features like challenges, raffles, and leaderboards trigger people to partake in your marketing campaign, community, or gaming tournament platform. Gamers like the sense of competition and challenge.
Additionally, gamification incentivizes engagement and loyalty. For instance, by rewarding gamers with badges or leveling systems when they contribute content to the community. The possibilities are endless. You could let gamers compete for sponsored prizes and shop items or even create a charity raffle like football club KAA Gent!