Short Introduction to Content Marketing in Esports

If you didn’t know already, content marketing is deemed the king of marketing. Even in other industries, brands are using content to grow their businesses and capture consumers. So what is this content marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

This type of marketing’s purpose is to attract and retain consumers by creating and sharing relevant and valuable content with the intention of developing or changing consumer behavior. It is a constant process that focuses on using your own media! An example of content marketing in esports can be related to the video’s that Team SoloMid releases about roster changes or important news in the organization.

Most firms in the industry, organizations and sponsors included, realize that esports can be leveraged for its ability as a marketing platform. You have to understand from the perspective of the brand, that esports is still being utilized as an exposure tactic. What I mean by this is that brands rather spend the extra money to have their logo on a top tier team that gets millions of impression in streamed content through tournaments, merchandise, and other channels.

When looking at what your organization, esports business, or sponsor could utilize in esports, look at content marketing as a route to be utilized. Looking at sponsors specifically and thinking about the different concept of what makes up a sponsorship , we see that how the sponsor utilizes the agreement is essential. By using content marketing strategies, you are able to offer a different channel of impressions and advertising for your sponsor.

These channels can range from video, blog posts, guest blogs, viral content and much more. Utilizing and preparing this content is a whole another topic. If you can understand the basic principles to be utilized in your esports business, you can potentially set your company up for great success and rapid growth at a certain point. Before looking at these channels, please be aware content marketing can be a long process and is not a shoe in growth.

I’ve decided to highlight 5 of these channels, for a full list of channels, all of which are utilized for organizations or companies in the industry, check out this for more types of content marketing — 105 types of content marketing

1) How-To Guides

With esports being a start-up industry, people are all about how to do this and that inside a video game. How can I do that one cool play that the pro players do. For organizations and sponsors, creating videos, blogs, or a series of photos showing how to do something in a game is a great way to captives your organization's fan base. To tie in a sponsor, possiblly create a series of these How-To’s sponsored by them. You then are able to share it through channel and theirs creating multiple of channels to bring in views and impressions.

2) Video

Esports consumers love organizations being transparent and sharing the inside works, but capitalizing on it for your organization brand value and sponsor can be difficult. If you look at some of the top organizations in the industry like Cloud 9, TSM, Fnatic you will see that they all use videos to announce new players, changes, and background information about them. This creates a sense of authentic to the organization allows the consumer to become even more loyal. It also offers a location for sponsors to have product placement and even sponsor more content from the organization. Videos can even be highlights from recent tournaments, streams, and more. There are several avenues that can be utilized in esports as we are a digital industry.

3) Reddit AMA

When a player retires, joins an organization, or just has time, they seem to be jumping on the reddit AMA train. This is a huge source of publicity not just for the player, but for the organization. Making sure you post it on the subreddit that is going to be the most engaged with that influential person. This insight and level of engagement is a unique way to highlight recent achievements, milestones, and other breaking news. Although it is a very long, time consuming process, it is content to be utilized when the community wants it!

4) Infographics

Consumers in the Esports Industry love data! They love seeing the visualization of how it's grown from almost nothing to something just in a few years. Infographics are a great way to show how well your organization has done, the timeline of roster changes, and other unique opportunities. Debated to be one of the best content marketing channels.

5) Images

Obtaining authentic images of a huge victory, putting a quote on an image, or just sharing some behind the scene shots is a great way to provide shareable content. By sharing the place the organization trains, plays, and workout is unique opportunity to engage consumers in your brand. If you will be using images that are not yours, make sure you follow Robert Paul’s Quick and Dirty Guide to Esports Image Sourcing

As you can see the, these are just a few of 100’s of different channels of content marketing. You probably already have been creating content, but not utilizing it to its full potential. As larger corporations jump into sponsorship, only expect higher quality and quantity of content to be produced by organizations and sponsors. If your organization doesn’t have a content marketing strategy, it is time to start one!

Originally published at www.esportsentrepreneur.com on December 4, 2015.