Imagine instantly reaching thousands of your most dedicated viewers with crucial updates. Stop relying solely on unpredictable social media algorithms. Or imagine one day Twitch or YouTube bans your account and you lose contact with your audience. In the fast-paced world of streaming, direct and secure communication is key. Of course, platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and Discord are essential for growing your audience, but there's an amazing marketing channel many streamers overlook: email marketing. It provides a powerful channel to avoid the noise, secure connection with your audience, and deliver personalized messages that resonate with them.

This article will cover how to use email marketing for streamers for stream schedules, merch drops, community building, partnerships, and more, providing actionable tips. By leveraging email, you can increase viewer engagement, boost merchandise sales, foster a stronger community connection, and improve event attendance.

Why Email Marketing Matters for Streamers

As a streamer, your success relies on consistent engagement with your audience. Email marketing offers unique advantages in this area. It gives you direct access to your audience, ensuring your messages land directly in your fans' inboxes rather than getting lost in crowded feeds. 

Unlike platform-dependent communications, email marketing is algorithm-proof, putting you in complete control of your messaging without worrying about sudden platform changes affecting your reach. 

The numbers speak for themselves - email marketing delivers an impressive 4200% ROI on average, making it substantially more effective than social posts when it comes to driving meaningful action. Perhaps most importantly, your email list belongs entirely to you, not to the streaming platforms, creating a valuable asset you fully own. Speaking of the email lists, let’s move on how to build it effectively.

Building Your Email List: The Foundation of Success

The first step to successful email marketing is building a robust email list. Here’s how to attract subscribers and build your email list.

Offer Value-Driven Incentives

Offering exclusive content such as behind-the-scenes footage or strategy guides can convince viewers to subscribe. Giving email subscribers early access to events registrations also creates a compelling reason to join your list. 

You can also consider creating special digital rewards like unique emotes or badges for email subscribers, as it adds tangible value to signing up. Running subscriber-only contests for gaming peripherals or in-game items can also significantly boost your signup rates.  

Strategic Placement of Sign-Up Forms

For your sign-up forms to actually work, you need to place them strategically. Display them in your stream overlays or include them in your Twitch panels. Creating a dedicated channel in your Discord server that highlights email signup benefits reinforces the value proposition. Adding a link to your sign-up form to your YouTube video descriptions or social media bios is also effective practice. 

You can even create a dedicated landing page for sign-ups. Use our Landing Page creator to build an attractive page with a sign-up form. Add necessary input fields, buttons, and reCAPTCHA, and publish your landing page within the myelasticemail.com domain. 

Promote Your Newsletter During Streams

During your streams, actively promote your newsletter through verbal call-to-actions, encouraging people to sign up for your list. Give people a clear explanation of the benefits of your newsletter to capture viewers’ attention in the moment. 

You can also display visual reminders on screen or utilize chat commands to direct viewers to the sign-up link. Using QR codes during the events also creates a seamless signup experience that links interested fans directly to your registration form.

Segment Your Audience

Segmenting your audience is crucial to tailor your emails effectively so that they reach the right subscribers. You can create separate lists for different interests, such as event participants, merchandise buyers, and casual viewers. 

Each group wants to receive different content. By segmenting your audience, you have a better chance to send more personalized messages and achieve desired results.

Email Content Strategies for Streamers

Crafting engaging email content is crucial for maintaining viewer interest. After you send a welcome email, for which you can use email automation, it's time for the actual content. Whether it’s event announcements, merchandise drops, community building, stream schedule or cross-promotion with other streamers, each content type requires specific strategies. Let’s dwell on each of them.

Stream Schedule and Updates

Email marketing is also a great way to keep your subscribers and viewers up to date with your schedule. Maintain consistent communication by sending weekly stream schedule emails. You can also use email to notify viewers of sudden stream changes or cancellations. 

Planning to have special guest streams? Announce it in your newsletter. Use the power of email to let people know about all the exciting plans you have when it comes to your streams.

Merch Drops and Promotions

Email is the perfect channel for promoting your merchandise and maximizing sales. You can start with building anticipation. 1-2 weeks before the launch, you can start sending teaser emails without revealing everything at once. Share design concepts or behind-the-scenes production footage to build emotional connection to upcoming products. You can even create a “notify me” list for specific items so the most devoted fans don’t miss the launch.

When you’re about to launch your merch, you can offer early access or special discounts to email subscribers to reward their loyalty and drive immediate sales. Including high-quality images and videos from multiple angles gives potential buyers confidence in their purchase decisions. 

Highlight limited stock or timely discounts to create urgency to make people buy now rather than postpone the purchase. You can share authentic stories about the design inspiration to add meaning and emotional value to your merchandise.

Post-launch follow-up? Yes, please. Setting up abandoned cart emails can recover sales that might otherwise be lost. Sending "last chance" emails before limited editions expire creates a final push for undecided customers. You can also request feedback and reviews from purchasers to build social proof for future buyers. Sharing user-generated content featuring your merch strengthens community bonds and showcases your products in authentic settings.

Community Building and Engagement

Who are streamers without their community? That’s why you should foster it and build engagement. Announce “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) sessions to give people the opportunity to interact with you. Answering questions in real time not only will give them answers they need, but it will also give them the impression as if they talked to you like a friend. 

Conduct polls and surveys to gather feedback. Your audience will feel heard, and you will get necessary information about your content and any potential adjustments you can consider making. 

Send personalized messages and shout-out to dedicated viewers to make them feel seen and appreciated. You can even share behind-the-scenes content and personal updates to make your emails more personal and human. 

Cross-Promotion and partnerships

Streamers are not lonely islands. At least they should not be. They should support each other and cross-promote their endeavors. That is why you can use email to promote other streamers or content creators you enjoy. If you have sponsors, you can collaborate with them and promote their products in your newsletters.

Event Announcements and Updates

If you’re taking part in a gaming event and want to let your followers know about it, your emails should clearly outline the event format and rules so participants know exactly what to expect. To maximize participation, provide all the important information including dates, time, and how to register.

Remember about the right timing. Sending initial announcements 2-3 weeks before registration closes gives fans adequate time to plan their participation. You can also send follow-ups with strategic reminder emails, e.g. one week, three days, and 24 hours before deadlines. Adding countdown timers creates a sense of urgency and drives people to act. 

You can also share live stream links for easy access or offer post-event recaps and highlight reels. 

Designing Effective Emails

Creating visually appealing and user-friendly emails is essential for engagement. Their design should reflect your streaming brand while driving action.

Design

Using your stream overlay colors and design elements will help you maintain brand consistency across all touchpoints with your audience. Keeping file sizes optimized ensures fast loading times, which is crucial since many viewers check email on mobile devices.

Incorporate clear calls-to-action that directs viewers to specific actions. Enhance engagement with images, GIFs, and videos. But, whatever elements you decide to include, maintain a clear visual hierarchy with your most important content at the top. This way, you make sure critical information is seen by everybody, even by viewers who don’t scroll through the entire email.

Content structure

Writing punchy, skimmable copy in your stream's unique voice helps maintain your authentic personality in written form. Putting the most important information at the beginning of the sentences, paragraphs and headings (front-loading) helps people to scan your email and understand the content without reading every word.

Consider using bulletpoint to break up the text and make information easier to digest at a glance. Apart from the content you want to communicate, include elements such as community testimonials, viewers counts or other metrics to build your credibility.

Eye-Catching Subject Lines

Subject lines are crucial in email marketing as they need to intrigue people to open your emails and find out what amazing content and design you included. 

Keep your subject lines brief and to the point - aim for 40 characters or fewer to ensure visibility on most devices. Pique curiosity and create a sense of urgency to stand out in your subscribers’ inboxes. Remember to clearly state value to give your readers a strong reason to open your email.

You can also consider using numbers, questions or emojis in your subject lines as they all catch the recipient’s attention. Also, numbers help present information in an easily digestible and structured way. Questions engage the reader’s mind and activate curiosity, whereas emojis make subject lines visually appealing and help your email stand out.

Choosing the Right Email Marketing Platform

As your audience grows, you need to use an email service provider to ensure successful email marketing and high email deliverability. Unlike typical email clients like Gmail, sending bulk emails through an email marketing software reduces the risk of your emails being labeled as spam or your domain being blacklisted. 

Selecting the right email marketing platform is crucial for streamlining your efforts. While many options exist, Elastic Email stands out as a top choice for streamers. We offer robust automation features, allowing you to schedule and send emails based on specific triggers. You can also enjoy advanced segmentation capabilities, enabling you to target specific audience segments. Our pricing is very cost-effective, which is very important for many streamers. We also provide excellent API documentation for custom integrations. You can integrate your Elastic Email account with multiple tools through various integrations and plugins.

Analytics and Optimization

Tracking key metrics and optimizing your email marketing campaigns is essential for continuous improvement. Your open rate serves as a primary indicator of subject line effectiveness and sender reputation. The industry average open rate for gaming is around 20%, but ambitious streamers should aim higher. 

Click-through rate reveals how compelling your content and calls-to-action are. Conversion rate directly measures business outcomes like event registrations and merch sales, showing the actual impact on your bottom line. Your list growth rate indicates the health of your acquisition strategy. Unsubscribe rate serves as a warning system for content misalignment or fatigue.

Use Case: GameMasterGabe's Email Marketing Mastery

GameMasterGabe is a mid-sized streamer specializing in competitive strategy games. He has a dedicated, but constantly-changing, viewership. Recognizing the need for consistent engagement, he implemented a comprehensive email marketing strategy. Here’s what he did step-by-step:

  1. Build the email list - Gabe offers a free “Advanced Strategy Guide” PDF for his main game, exclusively for email subscribers. He also runs monthly giveaways of in-game currency and limited-edition digital items, with entry tied to newsletter signup.
  1. Sign-up placement - he adds visually appealing sign-up form to his Twitch panels, with a clear call-to-action. During streams, he uses a chat command "!email" that links directly to a dedicated landing page for sign-ups. He places links to the landing page within his YouTube video descriptions.
  1. Segmentation - Gabe segments his list into "Event Onlookers," "Casual Viewers," and "Merch Enthusiasts."
  1. Stream schedules and updates - Gabe sends out a “Weekly Galactic Schedules” email every Monday, outlining his planned stream times and content for the week. If he must change the schedule, he sends an “urgent schedule change” email as soon as possible. He also includes details about special guest streams, themed days, and any planned game updates.
  1. Merch drops - GameMasterGabe introduced the "Gabe's Galactic Gear" collection through visually rich emails, including high-quality images and videos. He offered exclusive early access and discounts to his "Merch Enthusiasts" segment. He shared behind-the-scenes content and fan photos, encouraging social media engagement.
  1. Community building - Gabe hosts monthly "Gabe's Roundtable" Q&A sessions, announced via email with forum links for question submissions. He conducts polls and surveys to gather audience feedback on stream content and preferences. He sends personalized emails to active viewers, expressing gratitude and providing exclusive sneak peeks.
  1. Cross-promotion - GameMasterGabe featured "PixelPilot" in a "Streamer Spotlight" email, providing links and highlight reels. He promoted "Apex Gear" as an event 2sponsor, offering subscriber discounts and including visually appealing banner advertisements. He clearly disclosed all sponsored content, and only promoted items and people he believes his audience would enjoy.
  1. Event Announcements - for events Gabe takes part in, he sends emails with registration links, rules, player spotlights, and registration details. He always provides timely reminders before the event and comprehensive recaps afterward.

Conclusion: Build Deeper Connections and Grow Your Stream

Email marketing is a powerful tool for building deeper connections with your audience and growing your stream. Even though you're not a marketer, by implementing the strategies discussed in this article, you can enhance viewer engagement, boost merch sales, and foster a thriving community.

Start small, focus on quality over quantity, and consistently deliver value to your subscribers. Over time, your email list will become one of your most valuable streaming assets—one that supports both your community building and your business growth.

Take action today by building your email list and implementing these strategies into your email campaigns. Subscribe to our newsletter for more email marketing tips and unlock the full potential of email marketing.

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Ula Chwesiuk

Ula is a content creator at Elastic Email. She is passionate about marketing, creative writing and language learning. Outside of work, Ula likes to travel, try new recipes and go to concerts.