Sponsorships are the secret to earning an income from streaming games on Twitch. Yes, you can get money from subscribers, but Twitch takes a percentage of that themselves. Also, you rely on the same amount of people subbing every month to maintain your income. Of course, you actually want more subscribers to keep making more money, which can be a challenge.
Donations from viewers also help you make some extra cash, but the real money lies in sponsors. If you line up some sponsorships, you know you’re getting paid no matter what. Some streamers have loads of sponsors, while other’s have hardly any. The truth is, you don’t need to be a massive streamer to gain a sponsorship. Here’s a short guide that will help you get everything in order:
Set up some business contact details
As a streamer, you might get DMs all the time from loads of different people. This can be from fellow streamers asking to collaborate, or it might be from fans. Now and then, a business might contact you about a potential sponsorship. Unfortunately, you could miss this if your DMs are so clogged you never look at them.
Therefore, you need to set up some business contact details. This includes a business email that you display on all of your socials to let businesses know how to contact you. You could even buy an office address for home business, giving companies a way to contact you through mail. The point is that you have ways for people to get in touch with you, and the mere presence of some business details makes you seem more professional and trustworthy, increasing the chances that sponsors take you seriously.
Build your community
Companies won’t sponsor everyone. True, they do tend to prefer streamers that have a large audience, simply as it means there are more eyes on their brand. However, don’t focus so much on gaining new viewers all the time; focus on building a loyal community. If you get the same people turning up to every stream, you’re guaranteed to have viewers. Brands like this as it shows you’re reliable and can actually pull an audience with every stream.
Yes, you do want to get new viewers as it helps you grow, but it all starts with building your community. Set up a Discord server for people to join and chat, encouraging more people to check you out. Find out your target audience and cater to them. If your audience is aged between 12-18, you need to plan streams around school times. If you stream at midday, nobody will be around. As you build your community, you grow as a streamer, which makes you more attractive to sponsors.
Be a consistent streamer
Every time your stream, you might get a very decent audience in there. Everyone’s chatting away, and you get subs all the time. It feels like you have an active and awesome community, but there’s one big problem – you have no streaming schedule. You could stream for a whole week, then not stream again for another month. You might stream once or twice a month, or have an even worse schedule than this.
Sponsors won’t spend their money on streamers that aren’t consistent. It’s a waste of money from their perspective as they’re sponsoring you, but you’re barely ever streaming. Consistency is attractive to sponsors as it means more brand exposure for them!
Reach out to sponsors
If you follow the first few steps, you should be in a position where sponsors will contact you. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t reach out to them. In fact, many streamers wonder why they don’t have any sponsors despite the fact they’re doing good things on Twitch. Most of the time, it’s because sponsors aren’t aware of them. A simple email or direct message asking about sponsorships can be all that’s needed to set the ball rolling.
Likewise, composing a tweet or Instagram post saying you’re looking for sponsors can help. People share it around, and someone who works for a company might see it and speak to their superiors. If you don’t ask, you’ll never get anything. Don’t be afraid to reach out as it could alert sponsors to a great opportunity, and they’re more than willing to act.
One final point is that you should work with sponsors that align with your own personal brand and the stream. If you’re an FPS player, being sponsored by gaming gear brands or even certain games can make sense. But, it would be strange if you were sponsored by something completely irrelevant to your stream. Anyway, once you get a series of sponsors, the money should come rolling in every month.
