Gaming sponsorships are a huge opportunity for any streaming gamer. Sponsorships are important because they help you pay for better equipment and raise your profile. Essentially, sponsorships are one of the most steady ways for you to make money off of your game streams. However, you have to land a sponsorship first before you can use their resources.
So, how do you land gaming sponsorships? While it’s important to have a professional-looking stream while producing quality content, there’s more to getting a gaming sponsorship than that. Let’s first go over which streaming platforms you should consider and then we’ll get into how you can land gaming sponsorships.
What platform should you stream on?
Twitch
Twitch is the go-to platform for a lot of gaming streamers, which is both a good and bad thing. Twitch is a clear frontrunner when it comes to streaming. It has the largest audience and it takes up most of the market’s watch time. However, the competition is high and it can be extremely hard to break out on the platform. Also, its discoverability features are abysmal compared to what YouTube and Facebook Gaming have to offer. Still, there’s a reason Twitch is the top dog in the streaming world. They offer a lot of ways to monetize your streams and make it easy for you to save your streams after going live. There’s also a lot of gaming sponsorships available to streamers on the platform.
YouTube
Next, we have YouTube. YouTube has a sizable chunk of the streaming market in regards to watch time. It’s nowhere near Twitch, but it’s catching up. One thing that YouTube does better than Twitch is allowing viewers to discover new streamers. YouTube’s algorithm is better at suggesting a variety of streams—as long as they can rank well. While it’s nowhere perfect, it’s better than Twitch’s system. Also, YouTube offers much more analytics to streamers, something that Twitch sorely lacks. However, gaming streamers tend to make less on YouTube than on Twitch. Since Twitch’s entire culture is surrounded by subscribing and donating during live streams, YouTube only offers Super Chats and a few ads. YouTube isn’t solely a live streaming service, so there’s going to be a varying amount of people willing to donate for the content you’re providing.
Facebook Gaming
Similar to YouTube, Facebook users are going to be there for a variety of reasons. This means that everyone’s going to have different commitments of time to watch your stream. Some will be diehard fans or yours and some will just stumble upon your stream in their feed. However, Facebook has a massive user audience. While streams aren’t as easy to discover, Facebook is working to make that easier. Facebook comes in third in total watched hours, being bested by Twitch and YouTube. However, right now there’s an opening for new creators to grow an audience on Facebook Gaming, since it’s not as popular for streamers as the other options. There could be opportunities there as the service matures.
What does it take to get noticed by sponsors
There are multiple factors to consider if you want to get noticed by a sponsor. Here are some of the key factors they’re looking for:
Engagement
You don’t need to have a huge amount of followers to get the attention of brands. The amount of engagement you can inspire your audience to have is a huge factor when it comes to gaming sponsorships. While the number of subscribers a channel has can impress a sponsor, they’re also looking for how many of those subscribers actually listen to you. It won’t do the company much good if you have 500K, but have a low engagement rate. Sponsors want to see that your audience will do something if you ask them to, like check out a product. Make sure your engagement levels are in check and if they are, be sure to showcase them when looking for sponsorships.
You need to show that your viewers and followers are really engaged with you and your content. It’s important that they want to connect with you personally and pay attention to your opinions. If you have a smaller sub count and are looking for a sponsor, maximize your engagement.
How to increase your audience engagement?
- Talk to your audience during streams
- Use features like a chatbot or widgets that enhance interactions
- Give viewers and followers more incentives to stay with you
- Engage with your audience outside of your stream on social media
Subscribers/followers
While engagement is very important, that doesn’t mean that follower counts aren’t just as important. Brands want to ensure that their resources will be used to ensure a large audience will see the message about their product. They want to see that a large group of people want to follow and watch your content. Essentially, they want to advertise to a large crowd, not just a small group of people. Remind people to subscribe to your channel to keep up to date with all your content and to support the channel.
Put out the best quality content you can
What do we mean by this? We mean that the content you end up showing to potential sponsors needs to look, sound and feel the part. Brands offering gaming sponsorships want to be ensured that they are working with someone that knows what they’re doing and can effectively present their products. They also want their products to be advertised on the content they feel is presentable on their social media accounts. Ensure that you have the best gear you realistically can get so your streams will look professional. Also, update any photos or graphics that might need touch-ups so your brand will appear even more professional.
What kind of active outreach should you do to get potential sponsors?
Look for brands what you would actually endorse
Likely, if you sincerely would use a product, your audience likely will like it too. Brands can see if you are enthusiastic to work with them. Your relationship with a brand should be as genuine as possible. You should have little to no reservations when promoting a product. Otherwise, the sponsorships your considering might not be the right match for you and your audience.
When looking for potential brands, look for brands of products you’re already using. For instance, if you’re playing a particular game or using certain cameras, the companies might be interested in sponsoring your stream. Think about other aspects of your life as well. What do you like to eat, do for fun outside of the stream? You can find a lot of brands willing to promote even if they’re not directly tied to gaming. For instance, G Fuel has been advertising with a lot of gaming streamers, though it’s an energy drink.
Also, be sure to check out smaller brands as well
There are a lot of brands out there that are more than willing to work with up and coming gamers. When searching for gaming sponsorships, don’t just try to bigger brands. Look for opportunities that look like a good fit for you and your channel. However, be sure that you can trust the brand. Do some research on the brand, regardless if it’s a household name. For it to be a positive experience for you, you need to know the company you’re advertising for. Otherwise, you’ll have to deal with reservations you might not have known about before making a deal.
What kinds of companies/businesses sponsor streaming gamers?
There’s a lot of companies and businesses that will sponsor gamers. It’s important to know that not only gaming-centric companies are wanting to advertise with gaming channels. Gaming is a huge market and brands know this. You can see anything from energy drinks, to computer hardware, to men’s shavers brands wanting to advertise with gamers. Here’s a list of some of the top brands right now advertising with gaming streamers:
- 5-hour Energy
- Console Gaming League
- Elgato
- G FUEL
- MSI Gaming
- Razer
- Streamlabs
- XSplit
Reach out!
When you feel you found a brand you would like to work with, connect with someone within the brand. Once you have found a connection within the brand, send in an introduction to the company, introducing yourself as a streamer looking to promote their products or services. Be sure that the connection you made has the ability to accept or decline your proposal email. If your connection can’t, ask them for the email of someone who can. When speaking with the brand, find out what marketing objectives they have and detail how your stream will provide value to them. Also, have a portfolio of clips from your stream ready. They likely will want to see what kind of content you make.
Gaming sponsorships are great opportunities that should be a positive experience for you. Work with brands that you would like to work with and have a long-term partnership with. Rejection might just mean that that partnership isn’t the right one for you. Keep your head high and keep at it. You will land a great sponsorship if you focus on your own brand, engaging your audience, and putting your best self forward.