MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
by James Kaye, co-founder and director of Big Games Machine
Consumer-centric public relations has always been the dominant form of PR in the games industry. Yet, behind the hundreds of game releases, there’s an army of B2B companies fundamental to game development and publishing that don’t really get talked about. As games become bigger and more technically demanding, the number and size of these companies are growing – from middleware and analytics platforms to cheat prevention and network providers – all wanting to target decision-makers in the industry. This means there’s a growing need for PR with a specific B2B focus.
The tried and tested PR tactics that work for developers and publishers rarely apply to companies offering services or specialist technologies. If you’re one of these and are considering engaging in B2B PR, here are a few things to help you plan for success.
START BY UNDERSTANDING HOW B2B IS DIFFERENT
B2B PR and consumer PR are distinct forms of public relations with different objectives and strategies. While consumer PR focuses on building brand awareness and consumer loyalty (one-to-many), B2B PR is geared towards building relationships with industry professionals and decision-makers (one-to-one). B2B PR strategies are more targeted, focusing on trade publications and industry events to reach specific audiences.
B2B PR often involves more technical language and messaging for a more knowledgeable and specialised audience. B2B PR also takes much longer to have an effect than consumer PR, as it is tightly linked to a business sales process, which can take months or even years to come to fruition. B2C campaigns often generate instant coverage from a press release or marketing campaign, whereas B2B strategies often involve a lot of behind-the-scenes work, whether prepping a major white paper, organising a panel discussion for a conference or gearing up for a new launch. Ultimately, successful B2B PR is about much more than media relations.
FOCUS ON SOLVING PROBLEMS AND BUILDING TRUST
B2B PR boils down to one concise principle: Identify your target prospects’ fundamental challenges (or ‘pain points’), then create great content that shows how the reader can solve these problems. Often, this involves pulling together extensive research and commissioning new reports to highlight these challenges.
For example, one of our clients specialises in Edge computing that helps game companies lower lag and improve connectivity. We needed to show the widespread impact of poor connection speeds on gamers and how damaging this can be to the reputation of game studios and publishers. To do this, we commissioned research from 2,000 gamers and created an original report on how gamers perceive latency and lag. This unique research highlighted new problems and suggested ways to solve them.
Ultimately, it’s no longer about ‘me’, ‘us’ or ‘we’, but more about how you can help prospective clients solve their problems. Self-puffery and self-referencing are a big, fat no-no. Nobody cares about you. It’s all about what you can do to build trust and help people.
UNDERSTAND WHAT THE TRADE MEDIA WANTS
The best way to get into the trade media is to share insight into something that readers aren’t aware of. This could be an existing opportunity you’re seeing or a new problem only you know how to solve. It could even be that you’re tapping into a trend building up a head of steam on social media.
Once again, it’s all about building trust. High-value content, such as an in-depth report, data or insight, also gives you the best chance of securing a backlink from a website Google trusts, which delivers serious SEO juice. If you have unique data and insight to share, that’s great, but you also need to extrapolate this and communicate to readers and your client’s stakeholders why this data and insight is important and how it impacts them.
CREATE GREAT CONTENT THAT INFORMS AND SOLVES PROBLEMS
Great, engaging content lies at the heart of successful B2B PR campaigns. The best content comes from unique data and insight. Many companies in this space have SAAS (Software as a Service) platforms brimming with stats. Work with your agency to extract the stats and insights most likely to grab attention, then package them into different formats, such as blog posts, social posts, press releases, reports, videos and infographics. We’ve seen that investment in high-quality ‘evergreen’ content, such as a well-written and informative report, could drive prospects to your site for months. Great content is core to establishing industry thought leadership.
LESSEN YOUR RELIANCE ON THE MEDIA (SORRY, MCV/DEVELOP!)
Suppose you base your relationship with a retained B2B PR agency on securing monthly media coverage from a tiny pool of outlets. In that case, it’ll likely end in bitter disappointment, as you simply won’t have the constant stream of news and stories to keep you in the headlines; plus, the pool of B2B games media is minuscule compared to how many consumer-focused press and influencers are out there.
Don’t get me wrong, the media is critical, but you need to develop what’s known as an ‘omnichannel’ strategy beyond the press. Research from McKinsey & Company says, “On average, a B2B customer will regularly use six different interaction channels throughout the decision journey”. This is why we’re seeing more and more clients building their ‘owned’ channels’ through events, newsletters, LinkedIn and Podcasts. If you’re interested in the total mix, check out the PESO model by Gini Dietrich.
BE PREPARED TO INVEST
Great content also requires excellent design, writing, video and audio production, all of which require proper investment. Also, if you don’t have a platform with data, then you need to create your own insight. Often, this comes from consumer surveys, but they cost money when you want to know the opinions of thousands of gamers across several countries. If you think you can do your design using AI tools like Canva, then great, but know that if it looks cheap, people will think it is cheap. Don’t scrimp on your production values with good content, or it’s like sticking a Ferrari engine in the body of a Morris Minor.
DON’T SPEND ON AN AGENCY IF YOUR INTERNAL STRUCTURES AREN’T IN PLACE
I can’t tell you how many CEOs and CMOs I’ve dealt with over the years who think they can manage the relationship with their PR agency and their actual job. It just doesn’t work; if your agency is any good, it’ll burst with ideas and ask for insight, thoughts, stats and data. PR works best when it’s done as a partnership between agency and client, and that takes time and resources from both parties.
That means investing in a dedicated PR or marketing manager with the experience and time to properly work alongside an agency, not the CEO or a just-hired junior the agency ends up managing rather than the other way around.
B2B DOESN’T HAVE TO MEAN BORING TO BORING
We all like a laugh. We all enjoy something fun and interesting, don’t we? So why is so much B2B stuff so bone-dry and lacking in creativity? If game publishers and big brands are spending millions on creative ad campaigns, why do so many people on the B2B side of games assume their prospects have checked their sense of fun at the office door?
Dull and technical ‘white papers’ belong in academia, not in the inbox of someone who wants to read something engaging and interesting. Be fun and creative with B2B – your readers will thank you.
HAVE YOUR SUCCESS METRICS CLEAR
Consumer PR campaigns can directly correlate to game sales and other obvious metrics. In B2B marketing, establishing a direct correlation between one piece of coverage and a spike in sales is a lot more challenging. That’s why measuring a range of metrics over time is essential, such as website visits, engagement on LinkedIn, the number of inbound qualified leads, high-quality backlinks from websites with high domain authority and more.
Lead attribution and automation platforms like Hubspot and Sharpspring can tie all these metrics together for you, but these platforms can be expensive for start-ups and smaller companies.
BE IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL (AND WORK WITH AN AGENCY THAT LIVES AND BREATHES VIDEO GAMES FOR B2B VIDEO GAME PR!)
Sadly, B2B PR isn’t a quick fix, a sticking plaster or a magic bullet. You’ll have to give it at least six months to see measurable differences across some metrics I’ve outlined above.
Effective B2B PR is a long-term investment that requires excellent content, a commitment to quality, and a willingness to build relationships with journalists and industry influencers that only happen over time. It should be considered an investment in growth rather than an additional marketing cost or something you only do when you want to announce you’ve opened a new office somewhere hot.
Most importantly – and I hate this cliche, but it’s true – a decent B2B PR agency should be an extension of your team. They should understand your business goals and objectives and provide strategic advice and guidance to help you navigate any particular challenges you might be facing.
For B2B companies in the video game industry, this means working with an agency that lives and breathes video games. It’s not enough to have a general understanding of video games because, as anyone knows, new trends and challenges are emerging daily. Your agency should be able to explain why there’s so much fuss over the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard acquisition when it appears in the headlines, why platform holders are focussing their attention on user-generated-content, why AAA publishers are moving into mobile and the trends which are simply trends, or indicative of a new emerging market that you and your stakeholders should be prioritising.
In summary, if you are willing to put in the work, B2B PR can be a powerful tool for growing your business and your revenues. Just be sure to go in with your eyes wide open.
