he gaming industry is booming, and according to Newzoo’s 2021 Global Games_Market_Report, is estimated to hit $175.8 billion by the end of 2021. There are many strategies you can implement to get the attention of your target audience, but gaming influencer marketing is one of the most effective. And, whether you’re a video game developer, or a brand looking for an influencer to work with, these steps will help you get off on the right foot.
Just like fashion, fitness, or beauty, influencers in the gaming niche have a big impact on their followers and their purchasing behavior. As gamers live-stream themselves playing popular video games on platforms like Twitch, YouTube Gaming, or Steam, they show off not only the games themselves but also the products they use to make the time they spend gaming more enjoyable.
However, when considering influencer marketing, some facts are sure:
- quality content can make a great positive impact on your brand’s prospects at every stage of the buyer’s journey;
- 82% of marketers report actively using content marketing in 2021, up 70% from last year.
- 59% of brands have a standalone budget for content marketing, and 75% of them intend to spend a part of their budget on influencer marketing in 2021;
- 38.5% of brands analyze influencer marketing success based on conversions and sales.
What does this say? Well, even if content marketing is the central piece of marketing strategy, just compelling content is not enough anymore. To promote your brand, you need some influential backup to support your message. And game influencer marketing is the only form of marketing that can help you achieve these goals and also gets your game in front of the right target audience.
To maximize your efforts, you have to find the best social media platforms for gamers, based on the data you have about your audience and the market research. However, 67% of brands use Instagram for influencer marketing. But when it comes to YouTube, 90 percent of gamers get gaming advice on a weekly basis, and 64 percent will download a game after seeing it on the platform.
Collaborating with a streamer on Twitch is also a guaranteed way to get your game in front of the right audience, thanks to over 100 million unique visitors every month who are on the platform simply because they have a love of gaming.
Want to create a successful marketing campaign that will gain the trust of your audience and bring value to your game? Then follow these steps:
1. Define your target audience and goals
We said it many times and we can’t stress enough: to have a successful (content) marketing campaign, you have to know who you are targeting and what are your goals. Otherwise, you are shooting in the dark.
Answering these questions will help you to define your audience and set up your objectives:
- Who is your target audience? (define their age, gender, location, income, habits, interests, education, etc)
- What social media platforms do they use?
- What do you want to achieve with influencer marketing? Increase your sales? Improve your user acquisition? Get a better game awareness? Grow engagement or user retention? Something else?
- Set up your influencer marketing budget
- Which is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? Simply put what makes your game better than competitors?
- Which are your main Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and how do you measure them?
2. Choose a relevant influencer
This is one of the hardest parts of a successful gaming influencer marketing campaign – choosing the right influencer to work with. And this is a result of a large number of influencers and of their wanting to be “the one”. In fact, according to Influencer MarketingHub, 34% of marketers state that it’s hard to find and work with a relevant influencer.
Because you are targeting a niche in the gaming industry, you should look for gaming influencers. Chances are they address (almost) the same niche as you do. Besides, they are also gamers, so they know what they’re talking about.
Where do you find the right influencers?
Well, there are a few ways to assure you have the best influencer to work with. And when we say the “best influencer”, this doesn’t mean the person with the biggest fan base, but the influencer that fits you the best, from many points of view: audience, niche, games they play, content he creates, platform(s) he uses, and budget.
There are two ways to find the influencers that fit your requirements the best:
- contact an influencer agency
- reach out to them directly.
When searching for gaming influencers, your best options are platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and Mobcrush.
According to Google research, 70% of teenagers use YouTube and the influencers using this social network are more relatable than the traditional celebrities. On the other side, Nearly 90% of marketers say Instagram is the most strategically important channel to find and work with influencers. That’s why, depending on your target audience, you might also include other social media channels for your gaming influencer marketing strategy.
However, we should mention here that you should pay greater attention to the micro-influencers, as they get 41% more engagement than macro and mega influencers.
3. Define your budget and set up your payment system
If you want to avoid later misunderstandings related to your collaboration, you should set up a budget beforehand for your influencer marketing strategy. To have an idea of how much it could cost, you should know that 90% of influencers charge $250 or less for a paid post. You should also know that 53% of the influencers who have never posted a paid post, will not charge you a fee, but they will prefer free products.
Also, you need to be clear about the payment model. Many influencers offer a fixed price, but a better way is to arrange to pay the influencer based on the results they get.
4. Give influencers some creativity and freedom
When working with influencers, trying to control everything might have a fatal effect. Sure, you should set some goals and expectations, and offer the influencer some guidance related to your goal and requirements, but you shouldn’t dictate everything.
The reason is that people want to see authenticity when the influencer shares his opinions about a product, and they will immediately know if the content comes from the brand or the influencer and will be more circumspect related to the posts. Therefore, you should stop being a control freak and have more faith in the influencer’s abilities. In the end, that’s why you hired him, right? In addition, they know their audience, so why don’t let the influencers show their creativity and convincing abilities? This way, the results will be more authentic and their (and your) followers will appreciate that.
5. Track and analyze the results of your influencer marketing campaign
The final step of a successful gaming influencer marketing campaign is to track and analyze the results and adapt your strategy accordingly, to meet the results you desire. If you set your KPIs correctly, it will be easy to measure what worked and what didn’t and to change or improve your strategy.
If you haven’t seen any noticeable results, chances are that you made some mistakes, and your gaming influencer marketing campaign doesn’t work. In this case, you must identify what worked wrong and change it accordingly.
But when you got the desired results, then maybe it’s time to consider spending more on influencer marketing. Whether this means working with the same influencer or hiring more influencers and expanding on more social media networks.
Wrapping up
Game influencer marketing works not because it’s a marketing trend, but because people have confidence in the influencers they follow and are more willing to buy products or services if they are recommended by those they trust.
According to the Influencer MarketingHub report, most marketers agree that influencer marketing attracts high-quality customers, while 72% state that the quality of customers from influencer marketing campaigns is better than other marketing types they use.
Then it’s no wonder that 90% of marketers consider influencer marketing to be effective and prefer to include it in their marketing strategy. Some of them see a return of $20 from $100 spent, which means a huge ROI.
But to have this result, you need to choose the target audience, the right platform, the right influencer and have a great collaboration with him. Then all the gaming influencer marketing campaign puzzle pieces will fall into place. Now more people will know about, download, install, and play your game.
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