People often talk about the need for healthy gaming habits for kids and the importance of setting boundaries with screen time, and online gaming addiction, blah blah blah. However, as both a father and a gamer, I wanted to talk a bit about the importance of healthy gaming habits for parents.

“Whoa, what do you mean? We’re parents! We don’t need healthy gaming habits because games are for kids!”

Well, um. You’re wrong on so many levels, but let me explain a bit about what I’m saying.

You don’t have to be a gamer to have healthy gaming habits. Gaming is a part of all of our lives, whether you know it or not, and chances are it’s a large part of your child’s life both online and off. Gaming is more than sitting on the couch in front of your Nintendo, playing Super Mario Bros with a friend.

Nowadays, gaming plays a huge role in popular culture; From Fortnite and Ninja to Mythic Quest and Twitch.tv, gaming is all around us. We’re playing games on our desktops, consoles, laptops, and smartphones. We’re spending hours watching others playing games on countless platforms including Youtube, Twitch, Mixer, and Facebook. We’re wearing gaming clothes, cheering for competitive gaming teams, and watching movies about popular games. We’re building lifelong friendships on Minecraft servers, and meeting our future partners within World of Warcraft.

And gaming is only going to get bigger. It’s never too late for parents to begin placing a focus on understanding this space, and how their children are engaging within it.

“Pause your game and get out here now!”

First things first, there probably is no pause. Let that sink in for a second. Crazy huh? Well, no not really, but if you haven’t played games in 20 years, this might be a mindblowing revelation. Repeat after me, “Online games have no pause.” “Online games have no pause.”

So, when you tell your kid to pause their game, what you may actually be asking them to do is:

• Leave your friends to fend for themselves.
• Drop a rank because my time is more important than yours.
• Ruin the night for countless others.
• Lose something you spent time creating.
• Make the decision to stand up for yourself…

Whoa, that last one hits a little close to home, huh?

That’s because every time your child has to leave a match at your request, it means you are forcing them to make a choice to either lose something they have worked hard for or to tell the person they love and respect, no. That’s a pretty tough choice for an adult, let alone a child. Rude.

Now, that’s not to say that kids should be free to game 24/7, and you better let them do what they want to do or suffer their wrath. It means, as, with most other areas of parenting, it’s important to set realistic boundaries, respect the agreements you make, and understand how they are spending their time. There will always be exceptions, but now that you are beginning to understand what you are asking, hopefully, you can find smarter ways to develop breaks within your child's gaming time.

Participate in your child's gaming experience.

Before I talk about defining realistic playtimes, it’s very important to understand what games your kids are playing. For instance, a Fortnite match may last 20 minutes, whereas a World of Warcraft raid may take 3–4 hours to prepare and execute. How you define your child's screen time may be dictated by what an average session might look like for them.

“I mean they are just playing games, how am I supposed to know what they are doing?”

Ask them? Ask if you can watch, and then ask questions. Research the game on your own, and bring it up at dinner. Engage with their interests? Find a common ground between what they love and why YOU love them.

It’s actually weird to write that because it feels pretty obvious, and yet when I talk to parents, I get the feeling this is still a foreign concept. Maybe this is because you believe these are just games they are playing. And yet, if they were playing baseball(which is just a game), you’d be at all their games, and you’d know their teammates and their coach. You’d know how many games they had won, and you may even have taken them out for ice cream after a tough loss. You’re engaged and supportive…of a game they play.

When it comes to the digital world and videogames, lots of parents tend to be hands-off. I’ve met the parents of pro players who tell me before they were flown across the world, they didn’t even know their kid played the game or was remotely good at it. Some still didn’t even believe their kids were good and figured it to all be an elaborate con to play games with their friends.

I’m literally livid typing this; Stop being hands-off with your kids and videogames. You can still be a parent while having an interest in what they do. Take the opportunity to get to know them, and then benefit from the new world of conversations you are about to have. Cherish that first time you talk to your kid about League of legends, and you get to see them light up.

Defining playtime, and respecting it.

Ok, now that you have a vague(smh) understanding of what your kids are playing, and what those games entail, let’s talk about defining playtime.

Playtime is up to you and your child to agree upon. I can’t provide you with the magic number here. I would typically lean towards providing at least a few quality hours of gaming a night if their other responsibilities are taken care of. A few hours gives them time to connect with friends, chat a bit, figure out what they are doing, jump into some warmup matches, play a bit, chat some more, grind some ranked, make some content, etc. Whatever. For each parent (and child), this is going to be different. And it should be.

However, the important part here is that once this playtime is defined. Respect it.

If you and your child have agreed to allow 2 hours a night of Fortnite, then give them 2 hours of uninterrupted playtime. Not 45 minutes and then you need to check their pant size…real quick. 120 minutes of time for them to play their game. The time that you yourself have agreed to. This is important to them, and if they are important to you, then you respect it.

You ever have someone call you at work? You’re like, “Yeah, no... I’ve don’t have time to talk. Please don’t call me at work.”

Now imagine that TPS report you‘re trying to focus on is actually a 100' tall hell demon, which requires both you and 40 of your co-workers to skillfully coordinate to defeat, and you only have 120 minutes to make it happen before a real-life monster barges into your office, screaming and unplugs your computer? Pretty high-pressure work environment, right? Don’t be that real-life monster. Give your kids the space to work.

My kid just came up to me and told me about the raid she just finished in Tarkov, without me having to nag her to talk.

Yeah, get used to it. Defining and then respecting playtime, coupled with your new-found interest in what your children are doing, and the games they are playing will begin to create new opportunities for you to talk and bond. When you can recognize their accomplishments and setbacks, through what they are telling you, they will want to share more and more. As you sit with them and watch Dr. Lupo, and they have to awkwardly explain what he means by “dividing cheeks,” prepare to share moments of laughter and surprise together.

These are the moments that make being a parent wonderful. Hopefully, you will find them in other ways as well, through art, or music, or sports or movies. But none of these opportunities manifest themselves unless you make the move to find a common bond with your child.

Get over yourself and the fact that it is gaming. These are moments to strengthen your relationship and express your love.

The catalyst doesn’t matter.

Today, I own my own business and am doing the work I want, when and how I want. I operate in an industry I love (esports), and continue to find ways to evolve my work and integrate my passions into what I do. I continue to learn every day and look for ways to share what I know with others. I have never believed I had it all figured out, and that keeps me hungry and excited to work harder.

But the fact that I can even say that is the real accomplishment.

It wasn’t always like this.

Growing up I was not a great student. Matter of fact, I wasn’t even a mediocre student. I barely made it out of 6th grade, and then only passed junior high because of summer school and probably some C-’s that should have been D’s. After leaving high school (I literally just stopped going), and having found zero interest in college courses, I was making a little cash hustling side projects on the street (airbrushing clothes, photocopied zines, designing hip-hop show flyers and spraypainting peoples bedrooms and houses). My dad eventually got a computer for work, so I began dabbling in Flash, HTML, and Photoshop, taking my creativity to the computer. I didn’t believe you could actually make a living from art or design, but the concepts of composition, color, and balance came naturally to me.

Design was definitely something I enjoyed, and it allowed me to explore other areas of interest to me (coding, photography, collage, illustration). People also seemed to enjoy the work I created, which was probably the first time I really felt validated for what I was doing. I began building websites for the gaming clans I was playing with, combining my art with insane 1996, nested table-based HTML layouts. I didn’t have the worldview that I do now, or I might have been looking for way to make living off this web design. I didn’t realize that was possible, or that a single guy in his bedroom could actually do something like that.

Over the course of a couple of years, I grew my design portfolio, creating websites almost weekly for whatever I thought was cool ( can you say, Top Ramen Fan Parody Site?). I loved the freedom to create, and the availability to learn how I wanted to and at a pace that worked for me.

Eventually, I took this website portfolio and got a job at a small copy shop in Solvang, CA. My role was print design (which I had only done when designing show flyers, which were never digital), but the owner felt I was creative enough to figure it out. I loved everything about it. From business cards to letterhead, to pizza coupons and door hangers, there was so much opportunity to learn for a reason, try different things and grow my skill set. They also had me upselling customers on websites, that I would then develop between business card designs. Best of both worlds that I could grow both in print and digital design.

While school had never been able to do it for me, I found myself hungry for knowledge. I was studying graphic design, web design and animation in my free time, consuming everything I could find. I was creating concepts from games and brands I admired. I was studying typography and geeking out on leading and kerning, memorizing the smallest details to fonts so I could easily identify the differences between Helvetica and Arial at a glance.

I found a passion for learning.

I began to realize that maybe I wasn’t a lost cause. Just because school hadn’t worked out for me, didn’t mean I was stupid and uneducable. I was just different. I learned differently and approached problem-solving from a different angle. I cared about what interested me and my inability to care for rote memorization of historical dates wasn’t a reflection of my mental capacities. This wasn’t something anyone had ever suggested to me, so it was difficult to really believe.

“The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.” — Walt Disney

I wish this realization has come to fruition as quickly as I have written it. It took years, and in some instances is still manifesting itself. My wife Victoria, has played a huge role in helping me understand how my differences were actually a strength and that I should be proud of who I am.

So with this realization, I began to aggressively consume content that appealed to me. I began to embrace the rabbit hole, and explore the subjects that skirted my design studies. I leaned heavily into Lynda.com during this time to quickly learn software and then transition my creative work into it. Animation lead to video editing, Flash and motion graphics. HTML lead to CSS, Javascript, PERL, Actionscript, PHP and more. Graphic Design lead to Direct Mail, PPC, SEO, Marketing, Social Media, Sales, and fundamentals of Business. I learned to do my job better and to understand the jobs of those around me. I believed the best way to lead was to understand the challenges my co-workers and direct reports faced, and help provide solutions to help overcome them.

Along with this self-education, my career rapidly advanced from Copy Shop Production Artist to Graphic Designer, Art Director, Marketing Director, Creative Director, Founder, Chief Creative Officer, and Chief Marketing Officer. I moved quickly between jobs, beginning to search for my next position the moment complacency creeped in. Complacency is the cancer of career advancement.

This confidence and hunger for learning drove me up the corporate ladder until I realized the only way to grow even more was to move forward with my own business, surviving on my own merit. Learning to fail, correct course and move forward is now my top agenda. Understanding product and price, partnerships and sales are all very real lessons that I grapple with daily.

Today, I find myself an entrepreneur in a growing industry, discussing projects that I never would have imagined possible. I have sit-down meetings with companies that I fanboy over when they are out of the room, and I struggle to not get emotional when I speak about the impact our work can do for the communities we are a part of. I spend my nights thinking of ways to help others find their voice and understand that their career dreams are totally possible.

I still don’t have everything figured out, but I can’t wait to learn everything I can.

…And just like that, after a long wait, a day like any else,

I decided to triumph, to look for the opportunities, not to wait.

I decided to see every problem as the opportunity to find a solution.

I decided to see every desert as the opportunity to find an oasis.

I decided to see every night as a mystery to solve.

I decided to see every day as a new opportunity to be happy.

That day I found that my only enemies were my own weaknesses,

That day I lost the fear of losing and I started to fear not winning,

I discovered that I was not the best and maybe never have been.

I stopped caring about who was the winner and who was the loser.

Now I care only about knowing more than yesterday.

I learned that the hard thing is to stop climbing to the top, instead of not reaching it.

I learned that the best triumph that I can have is to have the right of calling someone “my friend”.

I discovered that love is more than a feeling of being in love, “love is a philosophy of life”.

That day I stopped being a reflection of the few triumphs in my past and I started to be my own tenuous light of the present;

I learned that it does not matter if you are alight… if you are not going to illuminate another’s road.

That day I decided to change so many things…

That day I learned that dreams only exist to be made to come true

Since that day I don’t sleep to rest…

Now, I dream just for dreams.

-Walt Disney

This week is the massive week-long, all-consuming, Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. #CES2020. With the growing interest in the #Esports Industry, competitive gaming will have a prominent role throughout the convention.

As a professional in the space for the last 5 years, and a lifelong gamer for well, life; I have an undying passion for gaming, esports and the people that play these games. I am always aiming to learn more about where the gaming industry is headed, and how those changes affect esports on a global scale.

If you plan to be at CES, and are either working on games, an esports focused product/platform, or are curious about the space and want to learn more about it, let’s connect. I love to share what I know about esports from my unique perspective (both as a Founder of Number29, an Esports Creative Agency, and as the CMO of Esports Camps, a player development platform for gamers).

Please feel free to reach me in the following ways:

Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/jvanhorsen/

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/vainshame

DM’s are open or drop a comment below. I hope we can connect!

Josh

I left the security of full-time employment in 2015. Opting to chase my passion for gaming & esports, instead of grinding for someone else profits was a difficult decision. I struggled with the thought of putting my family at risk and the unknown that accompanies freelance and contract work. I cried with both joy and fear as I discussed the opportunity with my wife, and the support she provided to chase my dreams. I left my comfortable marketing role with tears in my eyes, as I stepped forward in my journey as a self-employed professional.

You’re going to fail, and let down your children.

That was 5 years ago, and while I’d be lying if I said it’s been easy ever since, I would make the same decision again if I had to. It’s difficult to put into words the feeling of waking up each morning, driven by your own need to succeed, with zero clients and a conceptual understanding of how to run, let alone build, a business. Each morning I look in the mirror, and have to both love and trust the face looking back at me. That may be the most difficult part.

And yet, I continue to survive. Year after year, the business grows, clients come and go, and I find more and more confidence in what I am doing. The concepts that were learned in school, are now just real parts of running a business (PROTIP: Failing, pivoting and iterating are the things they don’t teach you in school).

2019 was our best year yet.

I spent the last three months of 2018 focused on building our client list for 2019. This included tons of outreach, cold calls, speaking engagements, pitches, and proposals. I felt very optimistic heading into the new year, which you can see in this tweet from December 2018

Joshua Van Horsen on Twitter

Nothing is going to contain me. Every opportunity you guys give me drives me forward even harder. RIP 2019 cause we already killin' it.

I’ll be honest, I was hyped. Number29 was firing on all cylinders. We were doing projects for EA, ESP Gaming (Estars Studios), had visited Singapore to discuss upcoming projects, spoke at XLIVE about esports, met Justin Hoeveler of US Sports Camps, and tons of other conversations were happening.

Little did I realize the extent of opportunities we would be presented with. It’s been fantastic and honestly, life changing. I figured as such I would share some of the highlights and takeaways/goals as we head into 2020. We have some exciting momentum building, and I can’t wait to see where it takes us.

Highlights

Quite a few milestones and highlights throughout the year that are standouts when I think back. However, the biggest ones (that I can actually talk about), would have to be:

Twitch.tv — Invited to Affiliate

Estars Studios — WSOE broadcast creative across Rocket League, Hearthstone & DotA2

EA — NHL 19 GWC Infographic Creative

Mobile Matt — @theMobileMatt Logo / Wordmark design

Girls in Gaming Camp — Through Esports Camps, we helped bring this exciting opportunity to fruition with Riot Games, UC Irvine and Cloud 9.

E3 Roundtable — Last minute opportunity to bring members of the collegiate esports community together to speak on the state of esports player development.

Esports Camps 2019 — Marketing and creative support for the launch of camps on a national level.

Estars Studios — 3d Staging concepts & studio renders. Lots of great work happened here that really pushed the limitations of what we could do. Immensely proud of this work that I hope I can share eventually.

Toronto Girls in Gaming Camp — The second camp of this type in 2019. This time made possible by support from EA Sports, Logitech, and Adamas Esports.

Hawaii Esports — Last-minute visit to the Hawaiian islands resulted in some amazing opportunities to meet with amazing esports advocates on Oahu.

Takeaways & Goals

I learned so much last year, it's difficult to truly put into words how important this year has been to me professionally and for my business as a whole. However, some of the most pertinent points would have to be:

Fail / Pivot / Iterate — This was a lesson that I realized at the very end of 2018, but really put into effect in 2019. A key aspect of building a business is trying things, failing, pivoting and trying again until you find what you are looking for. For me, it was understanding who my customer actually was, and how I intended to connect with them.

Time Management — This is a critical one for me, and something I am going to focus on improving in 2020. I have always taken pride in my time management when it comes to creative work and execution. However, as a business owner there are a lot of other things to do then just creative work, and I need to be more deliberate about how I am managing that time.

Youth & Gaming — A passion of mine that had always been there, but I have only recently found myself in a position to speak to. I feel so strongly about the importance of gaming in youth development, especially for our more introverted, quiet, or disenfranchised gamers, that I am willing to put everything on the table to help grow awareness about the benefits of gaming, communication, and critical thinking.

Grassroots Communities — Whether is was Quake 2/3 or Vainglory, grassroots communities are in my blood. I am making a commitment to spend a portion of my time in 2020 in helping add value to communities however I can. This includes a particular emphasis on mobile gaming & esports.

Special Thanks

None of this would be possible without my friends, family, and clients that continue to support the work we do and believe in my vision for Number29 and Esports. There are way too many people to mention, but a few at the top of the list:

Victoria Van Horsen — The love of my life, and best friend. Vicky drives me to be the best version of myself every day, and honestly, I wouldn’t be anything I am today without her unwavering belief in me. ❤

Justin Hoeveler — The founder of Esports Camps, my business partner, and friend. This chance meeting has turned into a business opportunity I am incredibly passionate about and believe in. Thanks, brother.

David Lee — VP at Estars Studios. David continues to believe in the work I do and pushes me to level up my creative work. David plays a great villain, but this dude is down for the homies and just wants to create great esports content.

Natasha Woodson — Weepy Sheepy believed in what we were building with Number29, and stood by us as we tried to find our way. Being distracted with growing a business, I was a terrible manager for her, and yet day in and day out she did what she could to keep us moving forward. I’ll never forget this. Thank you.

Joshua Van Horsen

Number29

314–714–5431

business@num29.com

Number29 Drops Into The Esports Agency Arena

Mobile esports veteran Number29 is geared up for the future of entertainment.

St. Louis, MO — May 16, 2018: Branding and marketing agency, Number29 relaunches today with a renewed focus on esports and the gaming community. This repositioning by Number29 places them squarely in the center of the burgeoning esports industry, as one of the few grassroots agencies built by gamers for gamers. With over 20 years brand & marketing experience with clients such as Super Evil Mega Corp, Disney, and National Geographic, plus a lifetime of gaming, Number29 aims to be the premier esports brand and marketing agency.

“We’re very excited about shifting our focus too exclusively esports related projects and partnerships,” said Joshua Van Horsen, Chief Creative Officer of Number29. “ We are leveraging decades of brand and marketing expertise, and real-world experience within the esports community, to elevate organizations to create the best esports content in the most artistic and passionate industry; gaming.

Our mission at Number29 is to empower online content creators, esports teams and organizations, game developers and publishers with world-class event design, marketing, branding, and content strategy services. Our love for the gaming/esports community is not a strategic business decision, but an extension of our core values. Being such, we are committed to providing educational tools, streamer assets, and content, and insights into our own processes to help strengthen the businesses of our fellow gamers.

About Number29: We are a global esports branding and marketing agency built on a mission to support gaming communities, help streamers and esports organizations brand themselves and to encourage growth within the communities of the games we love. We do this through excellent design, focused strategy and a commitment to the next generation of gamers.

###

About Number29

Sometimes being late to the party can offer you surprising opportunities and that’s exactly how Number29 found its focus.

In 2015, after years of pushing an Art Director career into upper management, Joshua Van Horsen fell in love with twitch.tv culture, and competitive mobile gaming. With a background of playing competitively at LANs in the late 90’s/ early 00’s, Josh had been a long time fan of esports. The prospect of mobile gaming creating that same social experience for a new generation of gamers inspired Josh to leave his cushy day job and actively become involved in the fledgling mobile esports community with his company Number29, and a Vainglory focused website, Vainshame.com. Three years later, and more than 20 live esports events around the world, Number29 has helped pioneer mobile esports and the future of gaming.

Today, Number29’s focus remains the same: to support gaming communities, help streamers and esports organizations brand themselves and to encourage growth within the communities of the games we love. We do this through excellent design, focused strategy and a commitment to the next generation of gamers.

This article is the third in a series ( Part 1 | Part 2 ) focused on esports marketing and go-to-market strategies. Throughout the month I will be looking at each of the pillars discussed in Part 1 and breaking those down into smaller discussions to help you identify what approach is right for your organization.

The second strategy pillar we will discuss in an esports team GTM strategy is focused on Communication.

The decisions you made regarding your Team Strategy in part 2 should be informing the choices you will be making in terms of which marketing channels you should be leveraging for your Communication Strategy.

What is a Marketing Channel?

Marketing channels are the platforms you will utilize to get your word out to your fans. Social media is your most important marketing channel, which can be divided into each platform you will utilize to reach your target demographics. Other channels to consider are podcasts, video, ads, live-streaming, events, influencers etc.

Considering your Team Strategy

Looking back at your Team Strategy from Part 2, we considered some of the following questions:

* Who is your target audience?

* What is the team storyline?

* How are you going to gain market visibility and steal mindshare from your competitors?

* What promotions can you offer fans to make your team worth investing in both emotionally and financially?

For the sake of your Communication strategy, I want to dig into the target audience and make sure we have a clear understanding of why knowing who these fans are is important.

Your target audience is going to be a very important consideration when looking at what marketing channels you will be leveraging for your communication strategy.

* Is there a particular region you want to target?

* Is your target market on PC, Console, or Mobile or all three?

* Is your audience predominantly male, or should you be targeting
females as well?

* What’s the target age of your demographic? Typically you would be looking at 14–35 years old, however, mobile games can bring in gamers upwards of 56 years of age. Is that important to your communications?

The answers to these questions should be considered to determine which channels are going to provide the best bang for your buck to start with. While I would typically recommend leveraging as many channels as possible, knowing which channels will allow you to reach the demographic you are targeting will allow you to refine your communications.

Location can be incredibly critical in terms of how you reach your fans if you plan to represent a region, or will be creating geolocated ads. If you are targeting prospective fans outside of the US, be sure to understand what platforms are available to those users. In China, you will want to leverage WeChat and Weibo.cn as much as possible for your community building efforts. For Southeast Asia, look at Facebook as the default platform of choice.

As an example, let’s consider the Overwatch team, Shanghai Dragons. As the only Overwatch franchised team in China, their communications strategy must incorporate WeChat, Weibo, and Tencent QQ because those are the digital platforms where their regional fans are living. Just a quick check reveals:

Weibo: ~60k followers
Twitter: ~54k followers
Facebook: ~3k followers

Approximately sixty thousand Chinese fans on Weibo. I was unable to pull the stats for WeChat, but I’d venture to guess that’s even higher due to WeChat’s full penetration of China’s economic & social infrastructure. So, if you’re like me, you may be wondering how Shanghai Dragons Twitter can still have approx. fifty-four thousand followers, if what I am saying is true?

My initial hunch was that these are mainly fans of the US and Europe that are just following every Overwatch League teams. I referred to Zoomph.com to check the regional breakdown for the Shanghai Dragon’s twitter account:

As you can see here, the majority of fans on twitter are definitely based in the US, with small percentages spread through the rest of the world, with China representing the 12–18 percentile of followers.

Target devices — PC, Console, or Mobile? Knowing where the majority of your fans are coming from not only allows you to understand how they are playing, but can also dictate how and where you want to be promoting, how that content is going to be consumed, and what sort of sponsors and promotions will appeal to your market.

PC gamers are at home with multitasking and have desktop browsers at their fingertips, whereas mobile gamers are using their devices to watch streams and consume content. Console gamers are most likely utilizing a combination of mobile devices and PC due to few consoles offering a pleasant browser experience, other than watching twitch when they are not playing.

Female gamers are becoming increasingly more prevalent and engaged in esports culture. I would recommend being very considerate in how you are communicating and understand that the female gamer is not only out there, but is a growing audience. While I haven’t seen many female audiences exceed 15% for most teams and competitive games, that is still a sizable chunk of your fan base.

As a point of comparison, we can look at @ClashofClans, which actually is an outlier with a female fanbase of 19%. With a total twitter following of 4.3 million, that is still a female audience of ~817k fans. That is a huge female audience! Don’t neglect these fans.

Target age is sort of a tricky factor. Knowing your audience is one thing, but knowing who you want as your audience is something else altogether.

I actually thought this was something that the H1Z1 Pro League did pretty well this last weekend. Their pregame content (and to some extent the casting as well), was targeted to potential viewers that were not your typical gamer. Being broadcast on Facebook, they knew that they had potential to bring both an older audience and a larger than usual female viewership. They did a great job not only explaining the game and the battle royale genre, but also bringing in mainstream celebrities to speak to the strengths of gaming and esports. This communication strategy is aimed at bringing a wider demographic into the viewership, and not just catering to core gamers.

Now that we have a better understanding of our target market, our decisions on platforms and communications can be more easily defined.

Twitter: Strong in North America and Europe. Great for news and direct one on one engagement with fans.

Facebook: Top Social Network in Southeast Asia. Large female demographic, with ages ranging from 18–56 years.

Youtube: Team video content is a must. Building fans through storytelling, and engaging content. Tell human stories, not just gameplay vids.

Twitch: Great channel for player based fan building from 14–36 years old. I do believe there is a lot of opportunities for teams to build brand specific channels, and leverage the Premier and Replay features to create more intimate viewing parties for brand engagement. Take your fans behind the scenes of your videos and have players sharing their experiences real-time with viewers. Engage one-on-one with your fans in real-time and give them something few teams are doing today.

Or consider doing “behind-the-scenes” streams from your team house, while your players are practicing. Fans want this content!

Mitigating Sub-channel Overlap & Fan Confusion

One aspect of your communication strategy that I think is really worth considering for organizations with three or more teams, is sub-channel segmentation.

What I mean by this is breaking up your team communications into individual channels based on the game. For instance, having separate Twitter accounts for your Organization, your Overwatch team, your Super Smash team, and your Clash Royale team.

I don’t think this is the right approach for all channels, but Twitter, in particular, can benefit from a more segmented approach to communication. One of my own biggest pain-points as a fan is following an Org because I like their Vainglory team, but then having to wade through all their other communications, trying to pick out which ones are relevant to me. Is this a CSGO post, or LoL, Clash Royale, Rocket League, etc?

Organizations want to show large numbers of followers, to help provide value to potential sponsors and developers when being considered for partnerships. I get that. However, I’d argue that being able to show 100k followers, divided amongst 4 twitter profiles, segmented by genre is almost more valuable to a potential sponsor/affiliate.

These are now highly targeted accounts that have a very clear demographic. Your Clash Royale team twitter of 35k followers is a mobile audience. They are younger, more interested in products that make their brand of gaming easier, and typically more social and are not constrained to gaming at home. You can now approach Anker about a potential sponsorship. You can show that you have 100k total followers, but 35% of those followers are targeted mobile gamers. You can send communications directly to that market segment without paying for ads. These means that you can almost guarantee increased engagement, with a higher sales conversion, with the right communications.

I would still recommend a brand account as well. This still allows for cross-genre communications. Now your team twitter accounts can provide more of the play-by-play type tweets, with scores and matchups, and your organization twitter can provide more of the high-level promotional tweets. Save the dates, games times, sponsor messages, promotions, etc.

So, is a mixed channel approach right for your organization?

Marketing is hard. It’s easy for me to say, hey, break up your organizational comms into five Twitter accounts, and keep them all up to date, in addition to your Facebook account and your Youtube channel.

The reality of that situation for most esports organizations is that they don’t have the resources or people to keep up with that pace of content. Team owners don’t really have the time to keep all that straight. Using volunteers has its own challenges. Not to mention creating graphics, animated gifs, and videos for all of these channels, with their different aspect ratios and limitations. And by the way, Twitch is requiring your players to stream 20 hours a week in order for you to get paid.

It can be very overwhelming.

If you are a new organization, sometimes it feels like you have to start with a minimum of a Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, Twitch, Discord, Linkedin, and Telegram accounts. Not to mention building a website. But why? If you don’t have the resources to properly leverage those platforms to engage your fan base, then don’t.

Start small.

You’ve worked through your Team Strategy, and you are confident that a Twitter account is the right place to start for your target audience. Start building your fan base, and formulating your communications. Engage your fans with tweets and promotions. Find ways to leverage your limited resources to execute your communication strategy.

You have a team video you want to tweet out? Now create a youtube channel, and post it there. You don’t have to have a clear youtube strategy in place yet, just use it to house your content. Over time your fans will come, and when you are ready you can create consistent content for that channel.

As your fan base widens, and your management team grows, continue to add channels to your strategy. Revised your communication strategy, and expand your organizational footprint.

What do you think? Let me know your thoughts.

If you liked this article, please hit the recommend button below and follow me on Twitter @vainshame for more thoughts on Esports Marketing. Our visit my website at num29.com

This article is the second in a series (Part 1 ) focused on esports marketing and go-to-market strategies. Throughout the month I will be looking at each of the pillars discussed in Part 1 and breaking those down into smaller discussions to help you identify what approach is right for your organization.

The first strategy pillar we will discuss in an Esports team GTM strategy is focused on Team.

The Team Strategy should be developed as a tool to position your org expansion for future success by introducing them in the best possible light, raising your players on a pedestal and providing incentives for fans to learn more about the team and follow them.

Your team is your product.

Imagine if you were to package up your team and sell them to esports fans in a store.

• Who is your target audience?
• How would you package them to be immediately recognizable to fans?
• What is the team storyline? What do you want fans, media, and broadcasters talking about?
• What makes your team better than other teams on the market? Is it a player, a coach, a unique synergy?
• What makes this team unique vs other teams? Backstory?
• Who are your main competitors? C9? TSM? FNATIC?
• How are you going to gain market visibility and steal mindshare from your competitors?
• What promotions can you offer fans to make your team worth investing in both emotionally and financially? Limited edition Team Jerseys? Twitter giveaway?

Having clear answers to the questions above can provide you a solid foundation for your go-to-market strategy. By understanding who you are (or want to be), allows you to easily begin developing the remaining three pillars of your strategy.

I feel that most of the time, the team is represented as secondary to the org in the current esports model. I understand this. Most esports organizations are vying for the audience’s attention, and are working diligently to build recognizable (and lasting) brands. However, in some regards, this is a broken approach when it comes to esports.

Often I am involved in conversations drawing parallels between esports teams and traditional sports teams. The problem with this comparison is that traditional sports have been established around unique brands, built on a foundation of geographical fandom. This narrow focus allows the professional teams to have very clear identities of who and what they are.

Esports, however, has approached this problem from the standpoint of one org to rule them all. They don’t care if you aren’t interested in the H1Z1 Pro League, you’re going to have to hear all about it because you happen to like their CSGO team. This fractured communication results in a dilution of team branding and core messaging. We will discuss this problem more in depth in part 3-Communication Strategy.

Answering the questions above to understanding who you are (or want to be), and who your fans are, will provide you the necessary information to build compelling narratives for promoting your team.

I think it is easy for an org to start a new team, and just assume, well, we’re Cloud9 so that’s all that matters. And, let’s be honest, for Cloud9, yeah, they have established one of the leading brands in esports.

They have a great identity that’s instantly recognizable, a pedigree of success that provides them mindshare, and the resources to build engaging content and marketing when they enter a new game.

This credibility gets them invited to participate in new leagues such as the Clash Royale League and the H1Z1 Pro league because of that brand, and potential viewership they can bring. However, unless they actually position their H1Z1 or Hearthstone teams to be worth caring about, they won’t bring as much viewership as the publishers hope.

That’s because gamers care about the games they play, unless you give them reason to care about something else. Seems obvious? I’d think so, yet why are professional esports orgs not positioning their teams at the forefront of their communications? They are leaning so heavily on brand equity, they are leaving themselves vulnerable to competitors stealing their fans attention because they are not establishing their teams as worth caring about.

Don’t believe me?

100 Thieves.

I pay attention to the LCS because it’s esports and I want to know what is happening throughout the industry. I don’t really follow any of the teams or really care because I don’t play League of Legends enough to be passionate about it.

That is until 100 Thieves interrupt my weekend, grabbed my attention and made me care about who they were, where they came from, and where they were going. I am sure I am not the only one that took notice this weekend. Nadeshot places the team at the front of their communications, provides a narrative around who they are, and breaks out of the mold of esports branding. The Heist series is a great example of including fans in the narrative, showing the process of building the team, the ups and downs that go along with it, and creating an emotional connection. It also doesn’t hurt that 100T faced Team Liquid in the finals, to really help cement this underdog story through to the end.

Take a look at Team Liquids twitter this weekend, vs 100 Thieves:

@Team Liquid

100 Thieves

Which one of those tweets makes you care?

As you begin to build your go-to-market strategy for your next team, consider who you want them to be. Not only will your fans respond, but I expect your team will appreciate it too.

What do you think? Let me know your thoughts. If you liked this article, please hit the recommend button below and follow me on Twitter @vainshame for more thoughts on Esports Marketing.

This article is the first in a series focused on esports marketing and go-to-market (GTM) strategies. Throughout the month I will be looking at each of the pillars discussed below and breaking those down into smaller discussions to help you identify what approach is right for your esports organization.

Right now, esports is experiencing a veritable gold-rush. The market is gaining traction at an increasing rate while organizations, fans, sponsors, and investors are all trying to understand:

• What are the market opportunities?
• How will the esports space look in 5 years?
• Which platforms/developers will play a key role in that growth?
• How do we best position ourselves for success?

Being such, this turning point in the history of esports is allowing professional esports organizations to grow quickly, garnering increased fan support, securing both endemic and (the highly coveted) non-endemic sponsorships and leveraging resources brought in through investors.

One key component of this growth is an organizations expansion into other games and genres by either securing a team through a buyout or constructing a team with recruited players. Since it is difficult to earn enough money to create a profitable organization in esports right off the bat, this sort of team expansion is common, (and almost required) in order to increase your fan base, create additional revenue streams, increase exposure to prize pools and seek sponsorship opportunities. However, the downside to this sort of growth is the dilution of your brand segment messaging and player/fan identity within the organization.

What do I mean by that?

Suddenly, that content strategy you had been executing for your cornerstone game and pre-existing team is being adapted and regurgitated for your new team, through existing channels. This recycling of content strategy allows an org to quickly hit the ground running using (hopefully) tried and true content strategies to engage a new audience. However, what it also does is dilutes the brands core messaging, confuses the fans because they now have to consider what is relevant to them and may decrease value to existing sponsors through fractured communications.

I believe one area of massive opportunity for esports organizations is creating a go-to-market (GTM) strategy whenever they are planning to expand into a new game. By creating a go-to-market strategy, an organization can consider the messaging and positioning necessary to appeal to and ultimately grow a new subset community.

If your organization currently only has a CSGO team, then adding a mobile esport team like Clash Royale or Vainglory is going to be drawing a completely different audience to your brand then if you were adding a Call of Duty team. These differences are not only in terms of the game/genre its self, but also the language, aesthetics, demographics, and potential sponsors that is relevant to your fan base. Being deliberate in how you are communicating to these subsets of your brand with distinctly different audiences can be an important step in reinforcing your brand rather than fracturing it.

In order to create a go-to-market plan for your esports organization, you need to define the four pillars of your strategy:

Team strategy — How you position a new team within a new game/community. Who are they, what is the team storyline? What merchandise can you offer to excite and activate this new audience? Do you have a promotion strategy to help amplify your message?

Communication strategy — Which channels will be the most effective for this new team based on audience? How do you mitigate channel overlap and fan confusion? Is a mixed channel approach to marketing the right choice for you, or should you focus on single channel engagement due to regional interest, fan demographic or genre of game?

Market strategy — What makes your team the best in this game and why should fans care about what you are building vs other teams (eg. value proposition)? What are your fan demographics, location, interests, and potential sponsors?

Fan Experience — How do you engage and excite the fans of your new team to create action and loyalty? Is there a shared visual language, aesthetic, worldview that you can leverage? Are there promotions or sponsors that can speak to their particular game interest?

Each of these pillars makes up the infrastructure of your team’s go-to-market strategy, while at the same time strengthening your overarching brand and community. By taking time to consider each pillar and have a deliberate plan for execution you can identify potential communication issues before they happen. You may even walk through this process and determine that what you are currently doing is going to be fine for the size of your organization and your present resources. This is fine too. However; what is most important is being considerate in how you are expanding your brand and taking sufficient steps to ensure its future success.

What do you think? Let me know your thoughts.
If you liked this article, please hit the recommend button below and follow me on Twitter @vainshame for more thoughts on Esports Marketing.