Marketing Advice That Matters
There are numerous companies and brands that are looking to get more visibility within the esports marketplace. These companies can range from those that sell food and drink products, tech products, technology services, or companies that develop games themselves.
Getting visibility to the esports marketplace is important these days, as it’s a multi-billion-dollar industry and only growing bigger every year. However, with the advances of technology and the modern internet, using traditional marketing media just isn’t going to cut it to reach a large enough audience. An esports creative agency is just like any other creative agency, but with one difference – they have a speciality in marketing specifically on digital platforms, where the gamers are.
Marketing at an Esports Creative Agency
While traditional marketing media is often still targeted by the gaming industry for their marketing – as shown in large billboards, wall art, creative art displays, and television spots – an esports creative agency will be able to combine those effectively with a full gamut of digital marketing techniques. In the past, anytime a game developer wanted to get their new game out there and to be discovered by a gamer they had to buy a television spot, an advertisement or article in a gaming magazine, or produce marketing materials for game stores. While these techniques are still partially used today, they have to be combined with digital marketing, which requires a different type of approach, and with the pickiness of gamers when it comes to advertising, an esports creative agency is particularly useful for making the right advertisement.
Modern gamers are far more tech savvy than those in the past and are also far more cynical when it comes to advertisement. Gamers often don’t like seeing advertisements that seem exploitative or break the immersion of the culture. For example, consider the backlash of in-game advertising in games like GTA and Need for Speed. Esports creative agencies have taken these trends and foibles to heart, ensuring they are highly adaptive to changes in the moods of gamers to craft marketing plans that will sit right with their target audience. This gives game developers or other companies the right environment for gamers to take their ads seriously.
Adapting Through Digital Marketing
An esports creative agency, while at its heart is an advertising agency, an essential function of these agencies is centered around data analytics. It is important to understand the data that comes from gamers, the marketplace, game trends, advertising trends, likes, social media sharing, and so on. These are all a part of effective esports marketing. From that data must come agility, being able to change marketing plans on the fly to match the response from the gaming community, which could mean quick removal of negatively met ads, to even redesigns of UX experiences within game developer websites or apps.
Experience and Connections
For esports marketing, digital marketing on streaming is big. Any esports game that is expecting to succeed needs to have connections with streamers and draw them into their game. Alternately, they could have a good connection with streaming platforms. Game developers are always hoping to be the next big thing – like PUBG or Fortnite – but for every dozen games that come out on the marketplace, only one or two are going to make a big enough splash to even compete in the esports scene.
Experienced esports creative agencies that have several years of experience will have built up a solid roster of connections in the gaming community and marketplace. A game developer coming to one of these agencies could see themselves quickly connected to the appropriate influencers and streamers, who will not only be willing to play their game, but also have regularly played similar games and be able to show off the game to a far more willing audience.
Marketing Is Costly
Game developers that are with large studios or publishers often don’t have to worry about marketing themselves, as they have the backing they need. For indie game developers, having their own marketing team is just going to put too much of a burden on their budget and resources. This is where an esports creative agency is absolutely necessary, offloading the need for a full marketing team to an experienced agency. Agencies work within agreed budgets and have the experience and knowledge to make a marketing campaign work.
Any business looking to get into the esports marketplace, whether a game developer for the next big esports game or a company with relevant products or services, should always look towards an esports creative agency to boost their success on their next big marketing campaign.
