Video game influencer marketing? In this creator economy?
While we prefer the term creator over influencer, influencer marketing can elevate a gaming brand, build hype for a new title or DLC, grow and support a community around a game and so much more. From AAA titles to indie efforts, PC, console, or mobile games, getting your game in front of the right audiences makes all the difference, and content creators are one key.
Gaming is probably the toughest content niche for creators to compete in. The result is a fragmented landscape, with thousands of smaller creators building communities around specific genres, specific interest subsets, and even around specific games.
Video game influencer marketing success doesn’t necessarily mean getting the biggest names in gaming content to give your title a shout out. Influencer marketing has evolved.
Identifying the ideal influencers for your brand means looking at how their values align with yours, and diving deep into audience psychographics to understand what moves them.
If that sounds hard, well, it is. But BENlabs AI-powered creator matching, audience cluster analysis, and predictive analytics help gaming brands stand out with authentic video game creator engagements, and deep brand activations that drive to your campaign goals.
1. Finding the Perfect Gaming Influencers for Your Brand
In the world of video game influencer marketing, choosing the right influencers is key to your campaign’s success. Not all gamers are alike. Not all influencers are equal. It’s important to find the content creators that match not just your demo but your brand values and ideals too.
The first step in finding suitable influencers is understanding the different types of gamers out there.
Mobile, console, and PC, casual, and hardcore are obvious top-line delineations but it goes much deeper than that. Communities coalesce around genres — FPS, strategy, survival, horror, card, sports, management, platformer — and around subtopics — esports, speed running, easter eggs, walkthroughs, gaming history and more.
Success starts by recognizing each audience as a community, and understanding that each community has its influential voices.
Don’t take a myopic view though; you’re looking for receptive audiences, not exact look-alike audiences. BENlabs AI tools help marketers uncover the most receptive audiences… and those audiences may be different than you expect.
With a target audience in mind, it’s a matter of finding the content creators that audience loves. Consider engagement rate, content quality, and how connected the creator is within their community.
2. Creator Trust Breeds Authenticity
With the right content creators selected to meet your brand goals, the next step is to trust those creators to deliver your message in their content.
Authenticity is key in influencer marketing. You want your message to appear authentically in the creator’s content. Sponsored content has to be identified as sponsored content, but that doesn’t mean it has to feel like sponsored content. Give gaming content creators some guidelines (i.e. a good influencer brief) but don’t box them in with exact language, or super-specific talking points. You have to be comfortable with your brand showing up in their content in the style the audience is familiar with.
Give influencers creative freedom. Their unique voice and perspective are what their followers love, so let them do their thing.
3. Build Long Term Influencer Relationships
Build relationships with content creators beyond simply paying them. Get creative. Look for ways to collaborate. Bring them into the fold. Think long term.
Partner with key influencers in the gaming community for consistent exposure and real-time feedback.
For example, Overwolf and BENlabs built out a successful, scalable content ambassador program. By clearly outlining the pay structure and giving creators freedom to create the content their audiences love, the ongoing program sees tremendous success to this day.
4. Give Creators Something to Work With
Work closely with influencers to develop unique content that aligns with their style and your brand message. Exclusive gameplay footage or early access releases can generate buzz among gaming communities. Offering trusted content creators interviews with key members of your team can be mutually beneficial.
Get creative. Give content creators something new and interesting to talk about. Bring them into the fold. Give them access.
5. Look Beyond the Obvious
If you’re promoting a horror title, it makes sense to tap into horror gaming content creators. But that doesn’t mean you should confine yourself to only horror content creators. For example, when Capcom was building hype around Resident Evil Village, BENlabs AI-driven audience cluster analysis identified receptive new audiences beyond the obvious. By tapping into cosplay and other elements of “geek culture,” Resident Evil Village was introduced to a whole new group of potential gamers. The game’s release became a cultural event in more than just the horror gaming community and sold over 7M copies by the end of 2022.
6. Be Consistent
Don’t only consider content creators when you have some big news to share. A milestone like a launch or a DLC drop are obvious opportunities to tap creators, but consistency is key. Consider other ways to engage creators to keep their community’s attention even when you don’t have a new title to hype.
7. Measuring Success with Video Game Influencer Marketing
It’s not just about achieving reach or views. To be called a success, a content influencer campaign needs to tie back to bottom-line results. i.e. a clear return on investment (ROI).
The right influencer success metric depends on your campaign and your goals. Whatever KPI you’re targeting, BENlabs AI tools and simple, powerful performance dashboards give you all the information you need to unlock the insights and story your campaign data holds.
BENlabs’ AI tools can help identify potential areas of improvement in real-time during campaigns, enabling marketers to make data-driven decisions quickly. BENlabs uses advanced algorithms to analyze various metrics such as viewer sentiment analysis, click-through rates (CTR), and conversion rates, providing actionable insights that can significantly improve ROI from video game influencer marketing campaigns.
It's Dangerous to go Alone... Take This 🗡️
Don’t go it alone. Tap the BENlabs team and AI tools make your next influencer campaign smart, scalable, and successful. From finding the perfect content creators, automating A/B testing, and surfacing clear, predictive analytic insights early, when they can make the most difference, BENlabs helps smart marketers make every influence campaign a success.
