Are you ready to take your pitching game to the next level? Episode 16 of The Games PR Podcast is your ultimate guide to mastering the art of B2B and games media-focused pitching. From understanding the industry to articulating complex topics, our pitching superstars Jack, Tom, Luke, and Keaiana will guide you through the entire process. Find out how to identify the different media groups for pitching and create a compelling strategy tailored to your product or game.
We delve into the intricacies of striking the perfect balance between professionalism and showing passion in your pitch. Catch the attention of journalists, even in a crowded space, as our experts share their insights into making your pitch memorable. Discover the significance of being friendly and personable, and learn how these attributes can make a world of difference in your pitching efforts.
But that's not all! We also highlight the importance of understanding a client's needs and how it informs our pitching approach. Learn how client interactions can help you better grasp their brand, business, and goals. We wrap things up by comparing B2B and B2C relationships, emphasising how understanding the industry can help you ace product launches. Whether you're a novice or a pitching pro, you will want to catch this episode packed with actionable insights and tips.
Are you ready to take your pitching game to the next level? Episode 16 of The Games PR Podcast is your ultimate guide to mastering the art of B2B and games media-focused pitching. From understanding the industry to articulating complex topics, our pitching superstars Jack, Tom, Luke, and Keaiana will guide you through the entire process. Find out how to identify the different media groups for pitching and create a compelling strategy tailored to your product or game.
We delve into the intricacies of striking the perfect balance between professionalism and showing passion in your pitch. Catch the attention of journalists, even in a crowded space, as our experts share their insights into making your pitch memorable. Discover the significance of being friendly and personable, and learn how these attributes can make a world of difference in your pitching efforts.
But that's not all! We also highlight the importance of understanding a client's needs and how it informs our pitching approach. Learn how client interactions can help you better grasp their brand, business, and goals. We wrap things up by comparing B2B and B2C relationships, emphasising how understanding the industry can help you ace product launches. Whether you're a novice or a pitching pro, you will want to catch this episode packed with actionable insights and tips.
Welcome to the Games PR Podcast, your regular dose of video game PR goodness. Sit down, relax as our team of experts and special guests share tips and tricks to help you level up your PR game with media and influencers.
Jack:You are listening to the Games PR Podcast, and we welcome you into this episode, all about pitching. Whether you are a rookie or a Major League veteran, grab a Gatorade, other sports drinks are available, and take a break while we open up the playbook and talk all about pitching. From hyping up a game release to consumer media to unveiling a brand partnership, pitching is essential to the PR and marketing mix. So I am happy to be joined today by some pitching superstars here at Big Games Machine in the form of Tom, Luke and Keaiana to head out onto the mound in the great podcast ballpark. Hello everyone, any baseball fans among us or, have I thrown in a curveball with all the references.
Tom:I know nothing about . . cricket's ricket's i j i superior version of a ball and sport based baseball.
Luke:Yeah, I've got no time on my hands to watch baseball. B. be fair, B B for spending four hours in the park just watching people throw a ball at someone. That's not for me.
Keaiana :Says who loves watching people kick a ball. . a at eachother .
Tom:That's entirely different. That's entirely different.
Luke:It's not over like four hours, is it?
Keaiana :Yeah, true.
Jack:Well, baseball puns aside, I'm sure there might be a few more during this, as it's all about pitching. But yes, hello Luke, Hello k k K , you guys are across B2B, which we'll kind of dive into a little bit later as we talk about B2C versus B2B and the different intricacies of what's involved with both. So, hello both. Welcome on for your pod debuts.
Luke:Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having us.
Jack:Excellent. Well, we got a lot to dive into today pitching. We've alluded to B2B. I think this question is going to be for you. First off, , what is B2B? And does B2B have to be boring? Because that is the perception of it?
Keaiana :B2B is basically business to business. So our main role, job and function is to show off our clients, what they offer, what they give, and hopefully get other people interested in them as well. I personally think it's boring. I think you have firstly, we've got really cool clients who do really cool things. You get to know the team, you get to know what they do, what tech they have, how they're doing it, and I think it's just really cool to find fun ways to kind of give them an interview opportunity or get them a piece of coverage in an outlet, something that's like very, you know, relevant to the industry. And finding fun ways to kind of get that done and fun ways to like have an, a byline or something is really. It's really creative in a way. So I don't think it's boring. I'm a bit defensive there. It's not boring.
Tom:Do you think people just say it, people just hear the word business and then they're just like falling asleep.
Keaiana :Yeah, I think it's because people think it restricts you, and I also think people think that it becomes salesy. You're trying to like get someone else to be a client of the client that you're representing. So then it's like, oh, come and buy this product or do this, and I really just don't think it's like that. I think it's more creating awareness and it's a more subtle way of being like how cool are these guys? And it's like putting the message out there that you really want to work with them because they're doing something really cool. So not salesy, not annoying, but just really fun.
Luke:I just want to add I think the difference with seeing B2C and B2B is that we're telling a story over a longer time, so obviously B2C can be a shorter campaign, it can be fast hits, whereas B2B you actually get into the personality and the people that actually make the business and I think that's one thing that we've seen in our clients is that we've got to know them, we've got to know their industry and we're actually impacting and showing that we are in the industry. So that's that for me, that's what business of business is building that long term strategy, just so we can actually tell the story of the people that we are clients.
Jack:It's interesting. Yeah, you bring up that longer story because for people who maybe haven't done any B2B pitching before or thought about that in their strategy because they are from the classic okay, here's our game, we need to get it out there and they haven't realized actually maybe they need to be pitching for investment. Go listen to our investing episode for some more topics about that. Do you think that, because there are similarities, if people are comfortable having pitched to B2C media, they can still take some aspects from that and apply that to B2B? You know what works and doesn't work and maybe it's good to use an example. You know to name names specifically.
Jack:But for someone who might not know what, they might have to pitch something common you see in terms of B2B, maybe investment or like funding round, something you see a fair bit and go okay, this is a really easy way of explaining to someone what this story is, because from an outsider they might go investment sounds really scary. I need to add in a lot of complicated language here that I'm a games developer. I don't know all this. How do I overcome that easily?
Luke:Well, I think relevancy is obviously the thing that we deal in. I think that is our community. Is that being relevant and being able to take to it sort of industry ongoing? So say, for example, if they do have a funding announcement, where does that fit into the ecosystem of PR? Like, where does that fit into the media? And like, what types of media are you actually going to pitch to? Like is we've we've all got identified the different media groups, and I think having that relevancy and putting your story into the grand scheme of things is ultimately the main way to do it.
Luke:You said about like the jargon. I think a lot of jargon in B2B is not for us, so we go a different way. We try to keep things as simple as possible, just so the message doesn't get sort of convoluted, and I think that's an important lesson and that was one of the biggest lessons I learned from coming into PR from university, for example. So I come in with all this jargon and all this spiel about joining all these big words and I realized that the journalist isn't going to actually pay attention to that.
Luke:They only want to know why it's important or say, for example, like what are they going to do with that funding? And I think it's adding to that story and developing that story and saying saying why, as opposed to just the general thing.
Jack:I'm glad you are. You bring up the jargon point there Because I think it is really important, regardless of the product or whether it's B2B or B2C. But yeah, keeping it, keeping it simple so you don't get confused. Have there ever been times where you've sat down and you've looked at the kind of briefing you've got and be like there is no story here? Because that's a risk I feel some people might just want to put the product out there for the sake of it without there really being a story behind it. How do you get around that? Do you have to create a story out of nothing?
Luke:Yeah, I think that's certainly an aspect of B2B, but there's always stories there and obviously that is our job is to develop that story. Whether that's into a buy line, obviously, a lot of companies do want to just do a product release when they're not actually announcing anything. But how do we make it so that there is actually something to announce? So, whether that's, say, a mountain AI for example, so everyone wants to do that. But what is the difference? What is that company going to bring to the table? And then we can obviously add that into either a media opportunity, a buy line, put them into a podcast, so they're actually adding value to the conversation and not just shouting in their own echo chamber. So, like a lot of business to business, I'd say, naturally seems like it's people just self-promotional and just adding nothing to the conversation, whereas our job is to weave that message in and actually show that.
Luke:Well, yeah, this announcement will mean this in the future. So I think we had a web three client where they're on about Democritizing web three, democratizing gaming through web three. Well, it's a big statement to make. So let's add the little product announcements along the journey and I think that's one thing that obviously I've alluded to already First building our brand story building up and just actually go in right this and up. This announcement might not mean anything Singularly, but overall, over a longer period of time, if fits into the ecosystem, if fits into the conversation around what we want, actually nuts I.
Keaiana :Think that's really important as well, because with things like web three and AI, depending on your angle of doing it, some journalists to be like that's played out, that's done like web three is massively dying down as a topic at the moment. There's only a few like niche people that are really kind of still super into it. That's another like kind of you know, like bomb to avoid. You want to kind of position it and articulate it to be like this is I know it's over saturated talking about AI right now. I was over saturated talking about this and that, but this is why it's relevant and this is why, like you need to pay attention To what we're saying.
Tom:Is that something that then also means that in some cases, you don't just have light in terms of the media you're approaching? It can be sometimes you go very specific with who you contact in yeah.
Tom:Is that relevancy doesn't just come through the product, that also comes with the people that you speak into, whereas I guess from our perspective, it's a lot more obviously. We have, like, different platforms and certain sites cover different platforms, but it's a lot the it's a lot wider. You're working with a much wider base, whereas so sometimes with how, how your pitching works, it's very specific to maybe even like one or two outlets, because that's where the relevancy is that's 100% it is.
Keaiana :So is the press list part of it to, I'll be very honest, is like my least favorite part of it completely, just because it's just you Rely on, like obviously we use like meltwater and things like that, but it's really you have to do a lot of research to make sure that whoever you're contacting is Relevant and will be interested. And even then you know, journalists are so busy and they get so many stories that you have to be so specific and sometimes you don't get it a hundred percent right. It's very much like trial and error and Sometimes the people like in the outlet that you might specifically want they might have not have that like specific person that you do also want to like Contact and get you in that niche. So yeah, you do have to be very targeted and you do have to you kind of have slim pickings depending on what you're you're pitching out.
Jack:So being approachable, then, is obviously really key, and spoken about just needing to to match it up to certain people, and we agree that's something we see on B2C. So what are some key tips? If someone is gonna be B2B pitching for the first time, just really key things you think they should Consider whether that's a certain type of subject line, whether it's just the way they present an email signature.
Keaiana :There's a lot involved when I first joined BGM, I was so scared of pitching just because I was like, oh no, ignore me. And Matt was like, don't overthink it. Like honestly, you're fine. And he said, just like, think about it as if you're like talking to your friend in a pub and you're telling them about what you're doing at work and you really want to make it sound interesting and you really want to make it sound cool and it's kind of like a colloquial, like way more informal Conversation. I think that really helped me kind of set in to like how to approach it and how to like pitch it. So I was like, hi, sir, look, how are you doing today? Like super formal, people aren't gonna be interested in that again. Oh blah.
Luke:So I think, being really friendly, but not too like oh my god, I really really want your attention and time, but like, let the pitch speak for itself Essentially yeah, and I think I I'm gonna go with a football analogy, but I think it's like being a striker at front, do I mean, where you're gonna have all these opportunities. You know there's the perfect time to shoot, but sometimes you do miss first having that Resilience and that that building of character to go. Well, I was in the right position there, I was right to shoot, but it wasn't the opposite in time. So next time I'm gonna score and I think it's having that sort of resilience and Moving on from that.
Luke:Then, in terms you said about the characteristics, you need, I think, be impersonable and actually speaking to people like people. Well, I mean, we mentioned the jargon earlier. When you're throwing all these complicated terms in and not actually speaking as you would normally, well, a lot of journalists is just gonna join me and rubbish it away and go. Actually, I'm not, I'm not reading that, there's too many words, so I'd like to keep it short. And cites and actually to the point. And I think a lot of journalists actually appreciate that, because obviously we know from our survey that a lot of people are under pressure, do I mean with they haven't got enough time, they're underpaid, and obviously we need to keep it in cites and actually show what this is the message we want to portray. Are you interested, effectively and, I think, keeping it short, sweet and personable speaking to them like you are a person and there is another person on the other other?
Luke:With Gmail, obviously, we use Gmail having a picture just to show what, well, look, there is someone on the other, on the other side. It's not just this random Random thing or this random AI doing it, it's actually us and we're actually people. I think in the generation of AI, that person abilities becoming more important.
Jack:Yeah, I think, at least from outside. On consumer, everyone tends to have a certain style of pitching they find works for them and it does benefit, obviously, having those relationships with journalists that they know to look out for your emails. But maybe, tom, you can shed some insight on this aspect, because we've already mentioned Jargon before and there are similar things on consumer. We know media know what to look out for. They can smell. When someone says like Revolutionary controls, it's probably not revolutionary.
Tom:So the way I always, the way I view it and I think this from you know applies across the board of however you pitch, is that Not to? I haven't got any specifics in my mind, but I think you know, sometimes we all see a post on LinkedIn or an article and you read it and you just think this is just a load of nonsense, like nothing's being said here. It's just a load of buzzwords that aimed at you know the Like, this whole, this business mentality you know about the grind and blah, blah, blah, and I Think for me, that just completely switches me off from stuff I don't. I stop reading the actual message because I just focus on the silly words that are being used, and I think what you were saying, luke, about being, you know, personable is is really important. I think that the way you've both spoken, I think I'm definitely understanding that that excitement is really important when you're pitching to people and and that doesn't come at the cost of professionalism and it's it is important to come across in a professional capacity. But it's also important to you know whether you are Pitching something on the B2B side or you you've got a game that you're looking to get a journalist you know interested in. You have to let that excitement through and I think the way that you do that is by you know being how you are.
Tom:Like Jack was saying, I, I think we all pitch in different ways. There's certain ways that I pitch, the certain, you know, styles of writing. Or you know we, we quite enjoy, sometimes metaphorically, letting our hair down and you know having, if we've got a game that's all about space. You know we use lots of space puns, or or you know, if it's, if it's got a really strong theme, we play into that because I think You've got to keep things compact. But you also, you know, you can have a little bit of fun of it and you try different things to try and stand out. But I think that the number one thing is really being, you know, we're all people and I think letting that come across and letting that, you know, belief in the product and the belief in the game come across is super important.
Tom:You don't want to be impersonal, you don't want it to be like, oh, we have this, this is what this does, because that's just not, that's not interesting. I don't, I don't think that's interesting. You know, when I was, when I was on the journalist side of things, that that always I just thought it's just another pitch. For me, it's like they're trying to sell me something but I'm not the person and they need they need to sell it to. I'm the person who they want to play it to then tell people about it, which I think is a really big difference, and I think it's the same for you guys. It's just in a slightly different way. You know, you're not Ultimately.
Tom:We are trying to, like, help move a product or a game along, but the people we're speaking to Are the people who are looking to buy it. They're the people who were, who we want to work with, to collaborate with, to push this message forward, and I think that's that's always in my mind is that I'm not trying to sell this to you. I'm just trying to give you the idea of what's going on, try and get you interested in it, so then you can invest the time and then that's they're the people who are working with the consumers or the other businesses and in that kind of way. I don't know if that makes sense, but yeah, I think it's. It's tricky, you know, it's always, it's different every time, but I think there are certain things which you can definitely push along to be successful. I think, yeah, be a person, actually communicate with people like a human. We do appreciate it. We appreciate it when it comes back to us. So that's that, to me, is the number one rule, I think yeah, what you said about being that person.
Luke:but one of the biggest things I'd like to say I've got a skill in is empathy and like actually showing empathy towards the journalist, showing empathy towards the client and then showing empathy to the stakeholders. Obviously, in each announcement, in each pitch that we do, we're trying to portray something. Well, what are we trying to get? And I think it's trying to fit all three there into right. This is the message that I'm trying to portray. How can I be empathetic to each party and actually put a pitch that will fund each party and will actually show that each party's I actually care about them?
Luke:And I think, tom, you mentioned the ideas. Part of it that's all. Pitching is developing ideas for clients and developing ideas for journalists, and I think that's a skill that's probably undervalued and appreciated is that we're selling ideas effectively and we've got to be curious, we've got to research our topics and actually understand where it fits into. I've mentioned ecosystem and I'm a little bit scared that it's going to go into jargon, sorry, but yeah, we do fit into the ecosystem and where we actually contribute to the conversation.
Jack:I think it's going to sound an obvious question here, but how important is it that you understand the project that you are pitching? Because there might be all the official text, the selling points you have to get across, but then if somebody comes back with a specific question, you obviously need to be in a point of expertise to answer that. So yeah, oh sorry.
Keaiana :No, go on it's important to completely understand what your purpose is of the pitch, because then that conveys into your confidence when you're writing it, when you're speaking about it. So when they do come back you can confidently just reply and sound assertive and sound, because then it's like okay, well, you sound sure about it. So that makes me want to be sure about it. If you have that little bit of hesitance, then they're going to be like I don't know if it's worth it.
Tom:I think that part of that confidence also comes through the understanding of what the client wants. I can think from our side of things that we'll sit down, we'll get a chance to play the game, look at the written materials around it and really get that understanding of the way our clients want to present it, and then that informs us how we pitch, how we write the press releases, because ultimately we're not I'm not representing my own interests, I'm not representing my own opinions. I'm trying to help our client get their perception of things across, and I can imagine that's the same on the other side of things. And it is that I think, once having that understanding and especially if it's something you're working on that's your own product, well that's great, because I'd like to hope you have that understanding of what you're doing, of what your own thing is. But I think in every way, make sure that you have that understanding of not only how you perceive the product of the game, also the way the client sees it, because then that can inform you along the whole way. And it's like what you were saying before, , about having that knowledge to be able to then go back to people.
Tom:If you do that, you can have the confidence in yourself. You won't be second guessing yourself because you know the product inside and out. You know what your client wants. You know the story that they want to tell you. You know what the message is. So doing that homework is so important. There you go. There you go. Take the floor, take the microphone.
Keaiana :I think that's why I love client calls so much, because I love that face time with the client and I love figuring out what they're like and how they speak about their brand, their business, what's going on, because then you get an idea of how they want it to be presented and what their vibe is overall and then you can feed that through a little bit and give it some of their personality as well. So, obviously, where individuals like pitching and understanding and believing and not regurgitating, but putting it forward, and so it's very individual, essentially because that's your voice and what you're carrying on. But when you like you said understanding what the client wants and things like that, you can incorporate that into it as well, so they get more of an idea of what you're also talking about and who you're talking about.
Luke:And I'm going to use a niche reference here, but I think, where the water carriers of businesses so did a Deschamps. He was always known as being the water carrier, so he was never like. You wouldn't think of him, when you come to France 98, as the most important player of the team, but he's the one that. Yes, things taken over and, to be a more recent example, someone at Busquets is that he is the brain in there and he's carrying that message. He's the one that set the tempo, he's the one that sets that standard and I think that's what we do as BRs. And sorry to be very specific, but yeah that's the way I'm going to do it.
Tom:Can I? I'll be a coffee carrier. Can I be a coffee carrier? Instead, I'll be the coffee carrier bringing the coffees in.
Jack:It's an excellent point I wanted to raise is playing devil's advocate here. If somebody is thinking, well, it's my product, of course I know it inside and out, why do I need to hire someone else in order to tell the story of my product? I think you've touched on some points there. It's the time involved, it's the relationships with the journalists and it's being able to distill those points and tell that story in a more streamlined way, because we see it from consumer side especially.
Jack:Somebody might never have been able to play, test their game. They are the only ones who've been able to give feedback on their own game. Of course they're going to think their game is the best thing, and then it can be a real eye-opener when media take a look and go well, actually, I'm not seeing any of these points, and so having a PR strategy in place regardless if you could still do it yourself, but just having some other people get some eyes on it to help you tell that story just may open up some different angles you didn't see before. I'm sure, like you said, with those client face-to-faces, there's been times where you have actually gone hey, there's an angle here. Have you thought of that? Because creativity is one of the best things to come out of PR when you can do it.
Luke:We're always consuming the news. We're always consuming what's going on and how journalists are covering things. Obviously, we're across a wide scope of publication, so when we see, when we're speaking to clients, we're actually going. Well, that would be a perfect fit here If we could just develop a story and actually add facts and figures and again we could add to that and I think we've got that breadth of knowledge and that's why I think that's why it's so important just to have that face-time and actually to understand what they want and what the journalists want, and we're just literally just a matchmaker in between.
Keaiana :And I love it when the clients are actually really excited and really open to what you have to say as well. I don't like it when, obviously, the client knows best, full stop, essentially. So sometimes you feel like feeding through ideas or information and they're just a little bit resistant or reluctant. I think on our side that could be a little bit frustrating, because, even if you don't think that our idea is amazing, having that conversation and our clients are super open and super excited and we are able to bounce ideas off each other. I really enjoy that as well, because it's like we are different worlds and you may not. Since I joined PR, though, I am surprised sometimes that some clients I feel like don't really know what we do or they're like you know they do know.
Tom:That's why these podcasts exist, that's why these podcasting is like. This is what we do. Look, Listen to what we say. This is what we actually do.
Keaiana :I love it when they're just really open and they trust us. That's it. They trust us to do what they want us to do. I feel like it makes the process so much easier and it enables you to put way more oomph into your pitch and into what you're doing, because it's like you've worked together to tell this idea and you're both excited about it and you want to just get the best results really.
Tom:That's why pitching is so important.
Tom:It's the if you've got like a triangle, if every client is like a triangle, the pitching is often that thing, right at the top. It's that. That's that all you know. All the planning and the conversations and the brainstorming and all these ideas come together and they end with that pitch and then that's the point where that's like the first contact between humans and aliens. This is the moment, you know. That's the moment that that's the exciting bit and it's exciting. You know it's nervous. I always get, I always have a little. You know, even though it's been like two years now, I always get nervous when there's a little bit of nerves when we're doing pitching, because it's like it's this really important moment. But I think, yeah, that's just the.
Luke:Exactly.
Tom:But then I guess there's definitely you know, there's what you were saying before, luke, about you know, about Us being in that position of keeping track of things. You know we have a, we have a really good newsletter that every day, you know. That's that quite. It's a compact way for us to see all these are all the bits that are going on and we'll, you know, make sure we'll have a link to that in the description of the podcast. So go and you know, go and have a look at the newsletter. It's very good, but not to show the newsletter.
Tom:But the point I was gonna make was that you know, we, we all, no matter which side of the business were on, no matter what we're focusing on at certain times, we like to keep, you know, ourselves very in tune of everything that's going on, and that is something that informs the pitch, informs, you know, from, from our perspective, when we're pitching something out, it's often, you know, a smaller product and we're trying to get those eyes on it. So it can be a case that we'll use the subject line to look at something that's Really relevant at the moment. If there's a particular game that's trending, it might be something new, it might be something old, that all of a sudden I saw the explosion in popularity, but we'll use those opportunities and we use that knowledge that we have to then try and push the in our instance, the game forward, and that can. That's often a an SEO play. For us. It'll be about, you know, the current state of Consumer games.
Tom:Journalism is this very SEO focused. So for, in our heads, when we're pitching, when we're writing press releases, when we're writing subject lines or or looking to place interviews or anything like that, one of our most important Focuses in our mind is Okay, if we're speaking to an editor, you know a guides writer, a journalist, you know an interviewer. What can we do to make this a more SEO friendly package? And that's something that it goes against a lot of things that I, like some, very much a fan of. You know the, the anti SEO model, but it's the reality and that's something that we 100% lean into Because it's effective and it can often be saying you know, oh, this game and and this game are quite similar to this that we're presenting to you now, and that's something that then an editor might be scrolling through the hundred and two hundred emails that they get every day and they say, oh, that's, that's interesting, because we know that's a popular one, we know that our Readers like that content about that game, so let's see what it is.
Tom:I think it's that, that knowledge, that that we bring to the table, which can sometimes push things over the line. It's, you know, it's always, it's tricky, but it's, it's one of those ways that we try to do that.
Keaiana :How do you feel about Subject lines? Because you mentioned it like a few times. They are important but, like, getting in the right one is just such a headache, so how do you feel about it?
Jack:Like on B2C at least we've heard from from journalists at larger publications go, can you include, like a relevant topic or trending game in that subject line. That helps contextualize it for them and because SEO is a massive driver, it means that it gives them a kind of excuse to cover the game, especially for indie titles. It's a struggle and they are taking a risk on a unknown title at the point. So if we can link it to a trending game, then Then that just helps the media. Go, okay, I can cover that and include that game in there and give it some SEO value. It could be tricky then the niche of the game the more Stretched and and vague you have to make the connections, but it's, it's good fun and I think it again shows the value we offer clients in that they can absolutely develop a game, probably way better than I could, but it's then my job in order to to tell that story to journalists and and go, okay, if you want to talk about this style of game, this is how we can bring it relevant to FIFA when that releases in a couple weeks that kind of thing. Well, yeah, fc, as we say now. So for us subject lines are contextual, the not too long, but sometimes if you go really wacky with it and might need to be quite long.
Jack:One of my favorite ones I did a pitch as a whole was a Game. It's a sci-fi game set in space. I go, okay, there's loads of these. There are gonna be too many games that I can. I can link it to how do I make this stand out further? And so it was okay.
Jack:I know the DUMMA research. I know the journalist is a massive red velvet fan kpop group, as am I, so I was like right, I can guarantee they're not getting any pitches like this this week. This is how I'm gonna stand out. I did our whole pitch on the game based using song titles To craft the pitch that was. My connection was not to a game but to a different topic that only the journalist was into. The journalist loved it. They went out of their way to reply with a similar, similar, structured email Doesn't mean you should be crafting a pitch based only on the journalist music preferences, even if they do have amazing taste and Stan Roe velvet. It's just be natural. Take it slow, don't be dumb dumb. I've done it again with the references, but that's an easy way of that could have just been a context line of K-pop, pitch below something like that, and then just something different that they're seeing stand out compared to everything else In their inbox.
Jack:So long and short of it is we can have fun and we can be wacky With him.
Luke:Reason I think that's a topic that we haven't really touched on yet is personalization. I think that is a big part of PR and it obviously is a trending topic at the moment, and I just don't see why you wouldn't take your time just to develop the pitch to the person centric. So do you know they can see a copy and paste from absolute mile away. So just make sure to just take that time, just it might be an extra five minutes, it might be an extra 20, but just know in that, right, this is the perfect fit, this is the perfect match for what I want to say. And look just even small little details, like just saying their name and actually into them directly, and, like you said about the interest, it's great if you know that.
Luke:But say, if we don't have any information from social media, just have a look. What's their background? What do they actually cover on it on a day-to-day basis? Take that time, research and actually personalize, because ultimately, we've seen much, much better results from, from personalization, because that's, in my opinion, the only way to do it, and mass pitching is just it's an outdated tactic. I just I just doesn't work. Work anymore in my opinion. I.
Keaiana :Think it also shows that, like you've taken the time to get to know who they are, what they're doing and what they're writing about, and obviously they're gonna be very interested and passionate than what they're writing about. And there's also like we all have an ego, like there's a part of that as well. You know, it kind of plays into their slightly because you're like you, sometimes I like to reference their articles as relevant to whatever I'm pitching. I'd be like love how you spoke about Do-da-da-da-da, like this is also something we can carry through for, like this person. So I'd love it if you'd sit down Do-da-da-da. And then I think that's a really important thing to do.
Keaiana :I never used to like when I first came here, I was just like I didn't, I didn't want to personalize it, so I didn't want to like overstep a line, maybe, or like be like too buddy, buddy. And they'd be like oh my god, he's this girl. Like chill out, do you know what I mean? But it really does pay off. And like that's also again like Luke You've definitely sat there and spoken to me about it. Matt again has been like so spot-on and so, charlie, just to really like Kind of figure out how to personalize it, but make it as natural as possible. If you can't find that common link or thread, then just don't don't force it. But if you can and you do your research and you know it's completely relevant, like smash out, definitely try and make them pay attention.
Tom:Yeah, I, I 100% agree. I think that you know there is a degree of that. You were saying everyone loves being told about good stuff that they've done, and Sometimes, when I'm pitching to people, I'll do that, and it's because it's people whose content I generally like, do enjoy, whether it's a podcast, you know just the way they like write articles or the things that they talk about, and or, if it's, if it's just stuff that I am also interested in, I, I think, 100% don't. I think you'd be wrong not to make use of that and I think I think you'd be silly not to, because it's Like you're saying, kind of, that's that link right there that you can make Instantly, and I don't, you don't have to think about it from like a cold business point of view. I just think there's, there's people who I email, who I genuinely enjoy speaking to, and and whether that's saying, oh, you know I, you know this, I just listened to the latest episode of the podcast. You know, really good again, really enjoy it and and it helps, but it's also just another way to Continue to build those relationships and don't don't be afraid to do that. You know there's nothing wrong. We're allowed to From a PR perspective. I think we're allowed to enjoy people's like Coverage of things or content. You know there's no shame in that and I don't think it has to have this like kind of Untoward, like Disney villain s Plot to it that, oh, I'm just using this as a way to get get some coverage, because I think, again, it's it that's just about being human.
Tom:And you know if, if you in any other capacity, if someone was doing something you know, or they were, you know, if someone wrote a really good book and you liked it, you would. If you saw them or if you met them or if you had the chance to email them, you wouldn't be like, oh, I'm not gonna mention this, I really love this person's book. I'm not gonna mention this because it would be rude to do so. I or it would be wrong, like it. I think like, no, go for it. The worst. I cannot imagine someone coming back and being like please don't tell me that you like my writing. Please don't, don't say that. Let's just keep things professional, see, yeah, I think that's really important.
Keaiana :What you said for relationships after you get what you want as well Essentially that is not a good way to phrase that but after maybe you get the coverage or you get the pickup, I love like going back to say thank you, like and just being like, oh, because it's like I don't actually need anything for you, but I'm very happy that you did that for me and I want you to kind of know that I do appreciate your time and the fact that you picked it up and were interested in it and I also aim to just like build that relationship and you know kind of, so I can go back to them in the future. But my favorite journalists are the ones that are kind of like Super, super standoffish and they're like yeah, no, or even like. Their happy mode is like saying like thank you or something. I love those like cupcakes to crack.
Keaiana :It makes me feel real good when they've been crack you know, what I always get, other sort of I love an exclamation mark Like I absolutely love an exclamation mark and I'm very like, very like hey, I like have a great weekend, like and I think sometimes I might come off like a little bit too keen, but that's genuinely just like how I just like to you know, type, type, whatever I'm thinking. So, yeah, I always worry about that's the little irrelevant point.
Tom:I think. I think I think that is relevant, though, because I think it comes back to you know what this, this whole episode, has been about and it you know the helping people. You know figure out how to pitch, and I think it's you want to. You want to, if this is something that you're only just starting to do for the first time, whoever it is that you're speaking to, whoever you're focusing on more consumer media or more business media I think that you know, don't be afraid to. You know, have your own style. Definitely make sure that you know, don't? You know? I hope that you could take lots of advice from this podcast. You know there's there's other content on the site that also goes into. You know pitching. But just get a good idea of good practices. But don't be afraid to Try things and and make mistakes. You know.
Tom:I think sometimes you know what I'm pitching, I'll I'll look at. You know. I can look back at older pitches now and think, wow, that was not a good pitch, but that's because I've learned. You know, I've learned how to be better at doing it, and that's that's naturally. You're always gonna. If you look at things that you did two years ago, no matter what it is. You're probably better at them now if you keep doing them then you were. So I think it's important you know not to Don't fixate on the small things. Just make sure that you're doing. You know You're doing the important things right and you know, like some of the things have touched on the idea of you know having that authentic voice, whether that's if you're working on your own product, you know Making sure that you're getting the voice of your product over to people, the voice of your game. You know those are the that's. That's the really important thing.
Tom:There's different ways to do that and don't be afraid to try different ways. I mean, even on the, you know when we're doing a campaign and we're, you know emailing people. You know we're pitching before in bargos. You know lift, we're pitching. When the bargos lift we're. You know following up after whether we're. You know it doesn't matter who we're speaking to, sometimes even in the same phase of A set of follow-ups.
Tom:You know I'll try different subject lines. I'll try different, you know slightly different styles of pitching to people, because I think you can always. You know you can learn from those things. You can try different things. I think, just what you know, don't have that kind of cookie-cutter approach either of just you know, this is how you know, very robotic, this is how I'm supposed to pitch. I will not try anything else. You know, have fun with it. But yes, you're gonna make. You're gonna make mistakes. I think using explanation marks isn't the worst thing in the world. What's James's role? James has the rule of like don't use two in a row. I think that's James's rule about explanation marks.
Keaiana :I've definitely broke that rule multiple times they're more redacted, redacted.
Tom:I'll cut this bit.
Keaiana :Like I feel like when I first started pitching, I Spent so much time like fixating on the tiniest things, like full of doubt, full of like no, no, no, no. But then I just realized that firstly, like BGM, trust me to know what I'm doing. I should trust me to know what I'm doing and to just, you know, read it through. If I'm really unsure, send it to someone in the team. Everyone's super helpful. They'll give me honest feedback and opinions and then just shoot it out. But the best pitches that I've sent, I think, are the ones where I've been like just Confident of myself and been like okay, cool, I know what I'm pitching, this is what we're doing, going out with it, fire go.
Tom:Find a Happy place to pitch in one of the things, if you ask Jack, jack likes to work with weird. He has this weird playlist of like war music but there's like people talking. That's Jack's like happy place when he's working and it's happy place when he's pitching. I quite like to. I've what.
Tom:This week we've been working on a press release and then pictures for a game that's based in it's, it's, it's it's sort of kung fu and it's based in like ancient China and it's to do with like the idea of Woosia, which history lesson time, big history machine. So Woosia is it's, it's a, a genre of fiction that's about martial heroes in Japan, in Japan, in China, even sorry. So while we've been doing that, I've been listening to like Chinese, like ancient Chinese music to really get me in that mind space and I find that helps me and that might be weird to some people, but it's about, you know, when it comes to actually writing it, find a way which you know, get into that mode of writing, get into that focus. I like to when I'm, when I'm writing a picture.
Keaiana :I really like to. I'm just imagining you like having a master seafood voice like in your head. Oh, just just guiding me.
Jack:But no, I think that, if we want to.
Tom:That helps me because it focuses me in on I really like to when I'm pitching, because I can be quite all over the place a lot of the time when I'm pitching or when I'm like writing my pitches and I'm emailing journalists, I really like to focus in on that, and if anyone wants to speak to me during that time, I don't like it. I really want to just focus. You know, give me a couple of hours to really go in, because that's that, that's like the execution point. That's the point where you know we're in the we're in the big leagues at that point. So I really like to go into my own space. But that works for me, but it's it's what works for other people.
Jack:You know, when it comes to there. I've done a pitch before method acting like in character. Halloween, I had a like American D-Day, you know, saving private Ryan style uniform as the costume. And then we had a a World War two game and I was like, right, let me put my costume on for the, for the helmet on, get into character and start writing the pitch.
Keaiana :That is dedication. That is why you need the BGM.
Tom:We don't have costumes. We don't have costumes for every pitch. Just to clarify the tree that's the tree. If that comes out, I think it's a football game. It's a football game. Put on a football shirt, you know, maybe go in your garden and pretend to score some, score some goals like you're a kid again.
Tom:Yeah, have fun. I think that's the most in when you're pitching across all you know, no matter who you're pitching to, no matter what you know, it's the same B2B. It's not boring, it can. It's fun, you know.
Tom:Make sure you have fun, make sure that the pitch is, you know, has that excitement and it has the has the belief in what you're pitching to people. Because if it doesn't, if you sound boring in a pitch, how do you think that reflects on what you're pitching? It sounds boring, it's not exciting, it's oh, it's oh. Look at, oh, look at you, just looking. Look at all the boring business jargon in that. How boring. I'm not clicking on the links to see what's going on. I don't, I don't care because it sounds boring. You know, the way you sell the product is by having that excitement in it. If you, if you don't come across as excited, then there's a journalist. I'm just gonna be like next, because they have plenty of choice. You know, especially nowadays there's, there's always something, there's always something else. You know, for us there's, we're into the night here so we're gonna have to start wrapping it up.
Jack:Thank you, tom, luke and Keanu for joining me on this episode. Definitely feel like we've learned a lot. We didn't even get on to influences. I think we'll revisit that topic another time, because pitching them is almost like a blend of B2B and B2C, so it'd be great to get some insight in there. So, yeah, thank you for joining everyone who's listening. Please give it a subscribe if you haven't done so already, so you always have a ticket to the next game. You can find us at Biggames Machine on Twitter or X, I guess at the minute, plus BiggamesMachinecom, which has our previous episodes as well as a load more content. Any final comments to wrap up? People, any fastballs to wrap this ending up?
Keaiana :thanks for having me, thanks for caring about what I've got to say no, you two have been.
Tom:You two have been great you've both proven that B2B is not boring, I think, and that's the most important thing of all so it's been fun to have you.
Jack:Very fun B2B is real fun have you ever went to the episode on just a massive cliffhanger like that? That's how we get a listener retention is end it on a cliffhanger and then you gotta listen to the next episode to find out what happens have fun.
Luke:I don't think.
Keaiana :I'm as well nervous. It's nice. It's nice to have you two we are experts we're just sharing our knowledge.
Luke:It's nice to actually speak to the B2C team as well, like just understanding. You always realise how many similarities we actually face, like we always feel like there's a massive difference. But again, we're just all fun, don't? We all just love fun different, but we're the same.
Jack:Excellent. Well, there we go. I've wrapped up, I've done the plugs, so thank you all. I think we'll end it there thank you bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye bye, bye, bye, bye.