In this episode of On The Same Landing Page, Riley Soley discusses with the team the importance of face-to-face events, branding, sponsorship and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at ESports Insiders events. With experience in multiple areas of the marketing industry, Riley is an expert in media marketing with a strong passion for both esports and EDI.
Riley:
With Esports its really important that you get people under the same roof because you get these people together and you can create some magic. Not only with networking, which is that’s the key to our events really is providing a place and an environment where people can network. Where people can talk about what it is they’re doing in the industry and build valuable partnerships.
Astra:
Hello and welcome to episode seven of On the Same Landing Page. As always, I’m Astra Newton, the head of advertising here at Web Presence. Jason is my co-host. I’ll let him introduce himself.
Jason:
Hi, marketing manager.
Astra:
And today we got Riley Soley on the podcast to talk all things events marketing and diversity and inclusion. It might not seem like those two things go together very often, but after starting her career at a marketing agency and progressing into the Esports industry, Riley is now a marketing and media executive and EDI officer at E Sports Insiders, which has a lot of e’s and a tongue twister
Riley:
Yes, definitely.
Astra:
Welcome, Riley
Riley:
Hi. Thank you for having me.
Astra:
I think I’ve covered your bases there.
Riley:
Yeah, I would say.
Astra:
Anymore e’s to add to that tongue twister?
Riley:
No, not really. No, that’s pretty much the gist of it iots of fingers in lots of different pies in my company. So.
Astra:
So just to give you an overview, like what’s your day-to-day Because I know your role straddles quite a lot of avenues of marketing and specifically events at the moment as it is events season.
Riley:
Yeah, definitely so obviously the company I work for, EA Sports Insider, is sort of a multifaceted B2B company where we are sort of the main focuses. We’re a journalism site publishing news on the e-sports industry that can be anything from like partnership sponsorships to like league news or anything like that. And then the other sort of aspects of our company is events where we have like major events all across the globe with e-sports, business to business, and we also do other smaller events in the UK, just like our breakfast clubs which are like invite-only talks sessions where we can really focus on the nitty-gritty of a subject when it comes to e-sports. Then obviously other aspects of that as well. I know e-sports isn’t really known to be the most diverse industry and that’s something that me and the team E-sports Insider are working to change from the inside.
Astra:
Excellent. And just briefly touch on because I know you’ve worked both B2B in traditional marketing and now events like how do they differ? What’s like the main differences you’ve seen as a marketer?
Riley:
I think with e-sports as an industry, it’s really unique in the sense that there’s no there’s no target audience really. When you’re looking at sort of B2B in a specific like for example, I know we used to do when me and Astra used to work together. I don’t know if you touched on that, but we worked together for a couple of years and we have sort of a better idea of exactly who our target audience is.
Whereas with e-sports, especially the business to business side of things, there are 25 year old CEOs in e-sports I mean and but there’s also 60 year old CEOs. And they’re all across the globe. And it’s a completely like almost a remote industry in the sense that at ESI we have people that work all across Europe really. So I think it’s definitely harder in the sense to, to, to knock down who exactly you’re targeting your marketing activations towards because it’s it’s so, so broad and obviously so new as well.
It’s not as if there’s books on it, you know, I mean, like esports is really sort of taking its marketing to a completely new place over the past five years. So it’s still, still really fresh when you think about it that way. So I guess it’s it’s more complex in the sense that it’s sort of it’s new territory, really.
Nobody, everybody’s just sort of trying to figure out.
Astra:
Yeah. And obviously one of the key differences from where we used to work together versus where you work now is these events that you hold, like we used to do smaller scale events with smaller companies, you know, like maybe there’s a radio advert and we have like an opening day for a store. You’re doing like multinational global events now.
How important are they in marketing for e-sports specifically?
Riley:
Oh, absolutely. Incredibly, incredibly important. It’s it’s such a like it’s such a remote thing. Everybody works from home, sort of in e-sports. I mean, there obviously are a lot of like offices as well. I know our head office is based in London, but with e-sports it’s really important to get people under the same roof because you get these people together and you can you can create some magic, not only with like networking, which is it’s that’s the key to to our our events really is providing a place and an environment where people can network, where people can talk about what it is they’re doing in the industry and build like valuable partnerships.
So that in that sense makes it really, really important to get these people together, have a bit of fun, have a few drinks, listen to some panels like talk, talk about like topics that, you know, are really, really interesting in e-sports at the moment. So we’ve got our event in Singapore next month, which is the next major that we’ve got coming up.
And and I know I’ve seen like the agenda and some of the things that we’re going to be discussing with some people from the most important companies in e-sports. And it’s just it’s a really good opportunity to to take something that’s all across the world and and bring it together under one roof.
Jason:
Can I ask how you do like, I would imagine that I’m going to distil perhaps stereotypes and hopefully unmask some of them. I would assume that there was a lot of kind of in the pandemic that kind of helped a lot of introverted people who wouldn’t necessarily be great in these events to kind of network, because then they can kind of do what they normally did and just do that virtually or digitally. How do you allow them to still kind of network and be confident in these spaces when you’re now introducing into the physical world because it must be so different to how they would normally operate?
Riley:
Oh, absolutely. During the pandemic at ESI, we were hosting digital events. So the ones that we’re doing now, like we just had one in DC and we’re having one in London later on in the year. Everything that we were doing was digital. So we had our digital summer events, our digital winter events and and obviously it’s a completely different kettle of fish when, when you’re thinking about not only like planning but also marketing it, but we use a system called Bizzabo currently fit for our events, which allows people to still have that virtual side of things.
You can still message people that you know are going to be at the event and ask if they want to meet up. And it takes away a little bit of the the shock of having to approach somebody because it is it’s nerve wracking approaching people at an event, especially if it’s somebody that works for a company that you like highly respect or anything like that. So still having that virtual aspect where people have the ability to send someone a message and say, Hey, are you free to chat at this time? Or like, let me know if you want to grab a drink later or something like that. I think that does help break the ice when it comes to going from being inside all the time to being at these massive conferences where we have like 200, 400 plus attendees, 60 plus speakers, which which can be intimidating.
And I also, you know, So what I something I introduced at the Washington event was something called the safe space, which is part of my EDI activations within e-sports, and that’s to provide a room external to the conference where people can come and unwind and relax and get away from the hustle bustle and get away from the stress. Like we have people that just finish panels, go in there and just being like that was really overwhelming. So now it’s time to take some space for myself and I feel like that safe space. I don’t really see us going forward with any major events where we can’t implement that again and it’s just it provides somewhere that people can go back to being themselves and just relax and try and not stress too much. And it works really well AT dc.We thought we saw some really good outcomes there. So I think it is really important to notice that not just in e-sports but in every industry, there’s people are nervous. People don’t always want to go into rooms of crowd of people and have no way out. Yeah.
Jason:
So it’s knowing what you do when you get there. I remember going to my first trade event as a client side kind of person, and I was like, How does this work? What am I doing? Am I just walking around stalls and being sold to all day? Or am I going to go and watch lectures like, well, I have no idea of what I was expected to do. And then I remember asking my boss that. So that will work out as anyone that can help us know. Don’t feel too pressured, but just have conversations that scared me more than anything but just have conversations.
Riley:
our commercial manager Mak He knows how to work a room. And so does our MD, Sam. And that just scares me. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t walk up to somebody and try and sell them something. Like I would much rather just being in the background during the social media.
Jason:
You go to a lot of these events,don’t you? so it’s good to have like a balance in terms of you providing that, as you said, safe spaces and witnessing the fact that there are people that go in with that experience.
Riley:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Especially when you’re talking about people from like marginalised communities or like neurodivergent people or people who deal with that have extra like accessibility, accessibility needs and things like that. It’s important to notice that if you want those people to come to your events, you need to provide a place for them. You need to make them feel welcome, and you need to make sure they feel safe. And that’s that’s why it’s something that we’ve been introduced. And that’s why EDI in e-sports is a passion of mine, because that the community is there, you know, like I know the community is there. I’m part of that community. And it’s just about making sure that they feel seen and they feel heard.
Astra:
In terms of the events, this is kind of a two pronged question, but the event like how you measure the success of an event. So internally, how do you measure the success of an event? Is it like Jason said, like making connexions networking amount of attendees? And then the second half of that question is from an EDI perspective, what’s what’s like a measure of success there? Is that just having people come to the safe space, having people tweet about it, what kind of how does that reflect back onto the business?
Riley:
So we’re really we’re really keen on on making sure people have a space to provide feedback. So like you said internally, it’s t ticket sales. It’s whether we got like some really good companies to come and speak. It’s, it’s whether or not people are posting about it on social media. And, and with our most recent event in DC, we saw that we saw people reacting to it really well. And then obviously there’s like the partnerships that we make while we’re there.
So obviously all of our events have sponsors. We are events wouldn’t be possible without these sponsors because obviously, it is you know, it’s not cheap to run an event in Washington DC or in Singapore. So we rely on having those companies and we meet those companies and make those connexions our events. So it’s kind of like it’s a snowball effect in the sense that we start from it. We started so small and then the more people we meet, the more connexions we make, the more partnerships we make. And that’s not necessarily just paid partnerships either. It’s strategic partnerships. It’s it’s media partnerships. And and we are really lucky that we’re we’re in a position where we have these companies that we can go to and say, listen, we have this great idea for an event. Will you support us? So that’s also a way in which we measure our success is making is seeing which partnerships that we build on or new partnerships that we create at these events and then on an in an EDI initiative as well.
Like so our safe space was sponsored by WIGI – Women In Games International. They’re an absolutely excellent company when it comes to helping women get involved in the games industry, not just e-sports but games as a whole. So they sponsor that and it allowed us to make sure that we had some comfortable furniture in there and that we had like a volunteer that we could post there. And I was, I was there throughout the day as well, and they were coming in and checking on it and they were really happy with it. And they saw that, you know, their money didn’t go to nothing. The money went to something that that was really valuable to have at the event. And I think that’s sort of how we measure the success in that sense, because obviously, we didn’t want we wanted them to get the return, what we wanted them to see where their money went. And then the fact that they were there at the event and they saw that the room was being utilised like that.
And it wasn’t even just that, like we had pronoun badges at the events, we had like covid badges for people that didn’t want people to come too close to them and stuff like that. So it wasn’t just the safe space, it was the event as a whole where we operated quite a successful standard of, of making sure that people would be catered for with additional needs. So I think while people weren’t tweeting about it and people weren’t like raving about it, that’s that kind of wasn’t the point really. Yeah. We, we didn’t do it for the engagement. We did it because we thought it would be it would be valuable and it was.
Astra:
And so I guess as well, the sort of back handed benefit of those things is that even if it’s not the aim, you’re making people feel safe and comfortable, and then that in turn will be like great for the brand. Like, Oh, by the way, they provide a safe space. And I could go, Yeah.
Riley:
Absolutely. And with our post-event feedback, we always do a form. We send it out to the people that came and just said, Listen, let us know, like let us know what you thought and having the safe space at this, this one was actually feedback that we got from our last event. So when we did London in oh, it was last year, late last year, I think November maybe. But somebody commented on the fact that it was it was a rowdy event. It was a boxpark in Wembley and, you know, we had lots of people there. And it was it was a great event, but there wasn’t a place where somebody could get away from that unless they wanted to leave the building. And we don’t want people to leave the building. So and once we saw that feedback, we built on it. And that’s something that we implemented at this one. And I’m sure there’ll be feedback from DC that will implement at the next one. And it’s just it’s making sure that our attendees are happy and that’s the most important thing at the end of the day is that we’re seeing that feedback and we’re building on it for the next one.
Astra:
How did you or did you should be the question when events were like mostly virtual in the lockdowns and stuff, did you have any EDI initiatives then or was there a way that you reached out to people or beforehand, that kind of thing? But how obviously it’s been much more difficult. Like you can’t, you know, breakout rooms and stuff like that, but it’s still quite alienating in a digital environment, isn’t it?
Riley:
Yeah, I think, I think our digital events worked well in the sense that we would get speakers for those that we wouldn’t necessarily get for our in-person events. So because, you know, people, people are nervous, people that want to stand in front of a crowd. It’s much easier for me to sit here in front of my webcam and talk to people I can’t see than it is for me to stand on the stage with a microphone in front of hundreds of people. So I think we were we were good in the fact that we could get more marginalised people to speak at these ones because they might not necessarily be comfortable at speaking at the larger ones or like we were able to get speakers from all across the globe like in DC, all of our speakers had to be from DC or New York or, you know, Virginia, Maryland like in their local areas unless they wanted to travel like miles and miles and miles. So that’s the restriction that we had when it comes to in-person events. Wheras is that restriction doesn’t exist when it’s digital. You can be from anywhere as long as you clock in. I think we actually had somebody clock in from a wedding at one of our events, like they were out the back on their laptop speaking on one of our panels and it was just like, there’s no limit to who you can have a digital event, but there are more restrictions when it comes to marketing and selling that because it’s it’s almost like who’s going to pay to sit in front of their laptop and watch something. It’s harder to to market that kind of event. That is, hey, let’s go get a drink at this event. Like, you know, let’s watch a panel, let’s meet up and have dinner together and stuff like that. It’s much easier to market that kind of activity than it is. Pay us and sit in your bedroom or sit in your office and watch this. But like I said, like, if anything, the content that we could cover in the digital events was, was more diverse because we were able to get more def more speakers from anywhere. So it’s kind of like there’s, there are benefits and there’s, there’s not because, you know, it’s a completely different way of organising and marketing event.
Astra:
That was just you can tell that that guy who left a wedding to go and attended a panel like that. But it’s your target market right there, right? He leaves and then I’m going to I’m going to sit this one out, guys up.
Riley:
And I was in he was in like the garden of the wedding, like sitting at a table outside. And it was it was really funny. But obviously, we deal with other issues when it comes to like digital events, like an issue that we were dealing with earlier, which is connecting, getting microphones to a webcam to work like the amount of times people’s wi-fi would drop out while they were live on a panel and we’d all be in the background like oh God, trying to put out fires this way, more fires to put out during a digital panel than they’re raised during a real one.
Astra:
Yeah, I can tell that like this is going to be a very balanced answer from what you just said. But in terms of, say, attendance, what was more valuable to the company, virtual versus digital? I’m sure it’s virtual versus in-person. And I’m sure that now in person also embodies a little bit has taken forward things like virtual things as well. But if you had to like to fly between one, obviously, as you said, there’s different benefits to each one.
Riley:
Yeah, I think so. Our digital events were on when nothing else was. So, this was like peak of COVID. Like, nobody’s going out, nobody’s going to events. So, our digital events provided something that wasn’t there for anybody else at that time, which was a really unique position because it meant that we were able to benefit from, you know, people coming to the event that just wanted to do something, you know? I mean, but I definitely think we probably see more value from in-person attendees than we do digital. Like it’s, it’s much easier to physically look out on a group of people and be like, wow, this is successful than it is to just look at a number on the screen like we it feels. I mean, me personally, it makes me feel like my hard work has gone to something more like worth it for someone that yeah. Absolute. Absolutely. And I think I allow myself to be harsher on myself when it comes to digital stuff because I am just looking at the figures, I’m looking at ticket sales, I’m looking at you know, how many people are watching. I’m looking at how many people are commenting. And also because all the panels would have Q&A at the end, it’s all about like, is anybody asking questions? You know, is anybody engaged? Whereas when you’re at a physical panel, you don’t need to ask those questions. You know, you can tell by the audience’s response. You can tell by the people that are like reacting to the answers and the people that are like putting their hands up to ask questions. I think it’s it’s definitely more valuable for me as a person to see that than it is for me to just see it behind the screen.
But it like I said, there’s benefits to both.
Astra:
How do you so internally you said before obviously sponsors and of helps fund these events how do you avoid wasting time and money when you set up one of these events?
Riley:
That’s a really interesting question. I think it’s all about making sure, because obviously whenever we sign a sponsorship, there’s clauses, there’s there’s things that we need to meet. So as long as we’re making sure that the client is happy, that the sponsor is happy, and that, you know, where we’re delivering on the things that are promised, we we usually don’t have any other issues other than not like our sponsors tend to be quite good friends of us.
Like that’s the thing with e-sports, everybody’s, everybody’s friend really like it’s a business partnership, but you don’t make business partnerships with people you don’t like in e-sport. Yeah. So it’s really interested in the sense that we have wonderful sponsors and wonderful partners that we can say to them, Hey, is this okay with you? We run it past you, and it’s all about having an open form of communication.
So as long as we’re like, Hey, are you okay with this? Or they are able to say, Hey, we’re not really happy with the placement of our logo on your site, would you mind changing it to somewhere else? I’m like, Yeah, of course, that’s no problem. So it’s all about just just meeting the needs of the clients and making sure that you’re communicating with them throughout the whole process because we want them to sponsor the next one.
Jason:
Exactly how to get the most out of the like what do they need to do? You think about how a sponsor has really got their name out and absolutely smashed in an event is probably think of a campaign event or like a kind of combined effort. What is it that they’re doing different to the ones that maybe spends around the same but just don’t do it as well as they could?
Riley:
I think with ESI, we are quite unique in the sense that we’re well-established within e-sports. If, you know, e-sports, you know, us kind of I know that sounds a bit cocky, but and I think so just having their names attached to our events is, is seen as a good thing, like people like and we see it in our panels. We’re like massive thank you to this company who’s helped us be here. So it’s really interesting. Like even just attaching your name to an inside event is considered an activation in that sense because, you know, it’s we have run successful events and then because we run these events, because of these people, you assume, wow, these people, these companies, they know what they’re doing. Like, you know, that they attach themselves to this successful event that we went to. So they must they must know, you know, they must know that the company’s good and they must know that they’re helping put on good events like it comes down to like we have many different ways that they can do it. But for example, like, there we go, this is my Eastside Washington DC lanyards and you can see thank you to our key event partners grid and events DC And it’s just about making sure that every aspect during the event, you know who made it possible.
Jason:
Okay, so it’s brand awareness, making sure your message, your logo is clear and in the right places
Riley:
Yeah, and it’s, it’s not even just like logos for example, like WIGI sponsor in the safe space. That’s another way in which they could help support the event or it’s like different breakout areas that are being sponsored by different companies. I know a company brought a latté bar to the event in DC and it’s just about finding different and interesting ways to increase brand awareness. But whilst also keeping keeping your that name in your head like I tell anybody that went to Washington DC will forget who the two main sponsors were. And that’s the most important thing to us is that people not only walk away from our events knowing that it was successful and having had fun, but also with those names in mind. And when that comes to them doing their own thing, they’re like, Oh, well, I know a company that can do this because they sponsored the event that I was, and that’s a really valuable position that we can offer to our clients.
Jason:
Are there any other tricks like the latte bar that works quite well? Well, I’ve seen a couple of we’re not going to run trade events and you’re like, Oh, that’s clever because I, I want to go there too. And whether or not, you know, of a member brand now because of that, are there any other examples like that that you thought were really good?
Riley:
I mean, another coffee-related ones, to be honest. We did an event in Manchester earlier this year. Host, I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but it’s a great building and they’re making strides in Indian e-sports and so building e-sports as in Salford. So is it said Media City. It’s is it’s great and we had like I think it’s Joe’s ice coffee or something there and they were doing a little tournament on a, an old game machine. And I think it’s just about providing something interesting that isn’t, you know, because obviously the main focus of our events is the panels it’s in, it’s, it’s listening to the discussion, it’s networking. But we also want to be able to provide just a little bit of fun, something a little bit extra to, to, to keep it in people’s memories. So, yeah, I would say that one. I mean, I’m not really sure, like we’ve always tried to have something interesting at our events just to, you know, you don’t always want to be, you know, talking and giving people about your business cards. You want to you want to relax a little bit as well because that’s e-sports is supposed to be fun.
Jason:
Yeah.
Astra:
And if there’s anything that brings, like, gamers and corporations together is coffee, right?
Riley:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
Jason:
And competition.
Riley:
And competition and coffee and competition.
Astra:
I just have one last question on your like inclusivity events before we sort of wrap this section up. But since you started running events specifically with inclusivity in mind, have you seen diversity increase? And do you measure that? Do you track events.
Riley:
100%, 100%? We have seen an increase in the kind of people that are coming to our events that is incredibly more diverse. Kendricks, who is the CMO at WIGI, actually said to me, And I hope she won’t mind me saying this, but she said, You know, I’ve been going to ESI events for a few years, but I’ve only felt, well, not only I’ve started to feel more comfortable being here since you started working on the events, and I was like, Wow, that’s really that’s so flattering. But she was saying like, you know, the steps that I’ve been taken to make it more inclusive has not only made WIGI invite people to the event on their behalf, but it’s also meant that the people that were coming to our events previously feel more comfortable are events now, and that’s the goal. So WIGI do this incredible programme called Get in the Game, where they invite people who want to get into the games industry. So women non-binary, femme presenting and they invite them to these conferences and they pay for them to come and they pay for their tickets and it’s, it’s an opportunity that they wouldn’t necessarily get and it helps them learn how to network and it helps them learn, you know, like elevator pitches and, and how to operate in these sort of like quite intense situations. And the fact that they, they brought the team over with us to DC was showed that they were happy with the way that we were making our events more inclusive to people like that, because that’s what we want. We want a more diverse audience that you can never be upset at more people coming to your events.
Astra:
But it isn’t. It like it’s never a bad thing. There’s loads of I mean, we’re going to come on to some statistics about inclusivity and diversity a little bit later on, but some of them are astounding. You wouldn’t believe them. So we’re going to move on to the next bit, which is we we actually don’t have a name for this bit, but we asked the same question as the time to kind of quantify some generic marketing overviews.
Jason, do you want to do this bit?
Jason:
Yeah, yeah. So yeah. So if you were to order the following marketing kind of channels or approaches from best to worst, what would be top and what would be bottom? PPC so that’s like Google ads, social media that includes organic and paid, email marketing and SEO, what would be the most effective for you in your experience, in your view?
Riley:
So the E- Sports, it’s definitely social media, I would say, because we are dealing with a younger audience when it comes to EA Sports and you know, everybody’s on Twitter and also LinkedIn is also really important for us because we are in a business to the business stance that’s our target audiences. It’s the people behind the companies, you know, the CEOs, the MDs and stuff like that.So LinkedIn is really important for us to be able to get our message across to those people. So I would definitely say social media is number one and then I would also say email marketing is number two. So ESI is really, are you disagreeing with me Astra.
Astra:
No. I’m just every time someone come on the podcast
Jason:
You come in last.
Astra:
Yeah.
Riley:
Really. See, I.
Astra:
Don’t let my facial expression.
Riley:
You roll your eyes and I was like, okay, here we go…
Jason:
Because of the colour of her face.
Riley:
You. So ESI we have newsletters like it’s, it’s a large it’s a large part of our just the way we operate. We do different newsletters on different aspects of these sports industry. But also anybody that signs up for our events is added to our mailing list when it comes to events content. So we get a lot of our events marked and done through email. So it’s like top five things you can see at DC or like here is a tip for you if you go into ESI London and stuff like that. So it’s really important not only for like markets in the aspects of the event that we want people to know about. But it’s also really good at just maintaining, maintaining that the existing audience that we have from our past events.
And then I would probably say PPC, yeah, but see, it’s not something that we massively do when it comes to ESI because we are in the unique stance where we, you know, we have access to the audience like quite immediately, like if you don’t know them, you know someone who knows them, you know, I mean, so we do use PPC campaigns when it comes to events advertising and we do use PPC campaigns when it comes to advertising, the media arm of our company. So like the banners on our site and you know, editorials like sponsored editorials on our site, long form, short form. And then also we have all the E Sports Journal as well. So that’s all part of our media arm, which we do advertise on PPC. So I would say that that would be useful to us.
And then I would say SEO not because it’s not important. Like it is obviously incredibly important for increasing, you know, visibility online. But it’s also it’s, it’s difficult because it’s not like people are searching you people are searching for sports news. You search for E Sports News. It comes up with these sports insider and that’s because we have good SEO on the site and that’s extremely valuable in that sense, where it increases the audience of the people that are on our site And then once they’re on our site, they learn more about us. So they learn about our events because, you know, our website where we actually are launching on our website today, I believe finally after a quite a few months. But yes, so once you’re on our site, that’s when you get to know all the other different aspects of it So SEO is important in the sense of getting people on the site, especially when it comes to like viral news stories. So e-sports has some crazy stories when it comes to like Snoop Dogg joins that e-sports team and stuff like that. So there is that that like click ability in the sense that we have these viral times that we can optimise because people are Googling, people are Googling Snoop Dogg.
Jason:
Yeah, yeah. So and then on a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you in your current marketing strategy?
Riley:
So it’s something that we’re working on. So we’re looking at doing sort of an overhaul on our social media at the moment. We’re looking to move to Tik Tok. Yeah, which is yeah. So I would say probably about a six at the moment, but that’s just because we’re where we want to work on it. Like it’s something that we’re, you know, we’re talking about every week, you know, how do we how do we improve our social media presence? How are we marketing our events? You know, should we’ve move more into like the video marketing side of things or should we be doing YouTube ads and stuff like that? So it’s really interesting in the sense, like I said, not nobody has the book on how to do EA Sports Marketing. I’m sure there is a book. Yeah, I’m sure there is a book, but like it’s especially because the E Sports Insider is so unique in its target audience that we have to find the way to market our company ourselves is nobody’s going to tell us how to do it. It’s something that we we need to look at. You know, our analytics need to look at where our audience is. We need to look at how old our audience is and sort of build from that. But I would definitely say our marketing strategy at the moment is it’s a work in progress, but it’s still successful.
Jason:
Yeah, that’s the thing. Is it once you produce a book on it, it’s too late, isn’t it? These things have to be learnt sometimes. Even blogs are too late because it can move that much cant it?
Riley:
It’s such as E Sports is is such a fast paced industry like it’s nothing like it was when I started working at ESI and that was like a year ago. Like the way things change in this industry, like you have to learn on the fly.
Jason:
Awesome. That’s that was one of my quantifiable questions. And then we go on to the next segment.
Astra:
Fake Facts! This is where the diversity and inclusion takes a heavy hit on the podcast. These are quite long winded facts, so you’ll have to bear with the sound of my voice for a little bit longer. And so the concept of this is there are three facts. One of them is false. You guys have to guess which one is false.
So number one, more diversity equals more innovation. According to research by Josh Bersont. In fact, companies that ranked as more inclusive were 1.7 times more likely to be innovation leaders in their market and 1.8 times more likely to be change ready. So that’s that number one.
Fact Number two, according to a survey from Glassdoor 52% of respondents say that a diverse workforce is an important factor when evaluating companies on job offers and nearly a third of those wouldn’t apply to a job at a company where diversity is lacking.
And fact number three, a white paper by Clover has found that inclusive trends actually make better businesses. Oh, sorry. Inclusive teams actually make better business decisions 87% of the time. And they make those decisions twice as fast with half as many meetings.
So just to recap, in fact, one, businesses that are more diverse are on average 1.7 times more likely to be innovation leaders. Fact 2, 52% of respondents say that a diverse workforce is an important factor evaluating companies. In fact 3 those are more diverse teams make better decisions 87% of the time.
Riley:
Okay, so one one of these is fake?
Astra:
One of them is fake.
Riley:
See, I think the second one is fake because I feel like it’s more than 52%.
Astra:
Okay, Jason, what you also.
Jason:
Saying for the same reason and the of the other two makes sense.
Riley:
I mean, if if only 52% of people care about a diverse workforce, that’s a bit sad to me. Yeah.
Astra:
This is what made it too easy. Guys, you went straight for the jugular .That is in fact a fake fact. According to the survey from Glassdoor, 76% of respondents.
Riley:
That’s more like it.
Astra:
Is an important factor. So there you go. Nice. Well, that was a very short round of fake facts. I will move on to.
Riley:
This just to go.
Astra:
This is a brand new segment for episode seven called Who Said This? So Jason has put together some quotes and we have to guess whether a wise scholar or social media influencer said them. Jason, do you want to take us through them in your best wise scholars slash social media? Influencer voice, please.
Jason:
Yeah. Okay, I’ll try and be neutral, but I’m from Essex, so it will come out like, oh.
Astra:
So it sound like a social media person. Yeah, they will.
Jason:
Its best to be better than bitter
Astra:
I think scholar.
Riley:
Scholarly I think I think something like I feel like that’s something molly-mae would have said
Astra:
And by scholar I mean Florence and the Machine.
Riley:
You know, it’s best to be better than bitter. Yeah, I think that’s the social media influencer.
Jason:
Riley, smashed it. It’s molly-mae.
Astra:
It’s actually I know we had we had a brief before this and we said we were not going to drag molly-mae. She gets enough crap, I think. Yeah.
Jason:
I think I did say that she wasn’t a scholar. I just said it was molly-mae.
Astra:
Okay, all right, all right.
Riley:
We’ve all got the same amount of hours in the day.
Jason:
The next one is actually related to that very relation. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Riley:
I feel like Dumbledore said that. Is he a scholar or a social media influencer?
Riley:
I would say I’m going to I’m going to go for scholar.
Astra:
Yeah, I think scholar. But only because my brain’s telling me to do that thing. We I’ve already picked the other one once, so.
Jason:
Yeah, we’re calling him a scholar. That is Steve Jobs in some way an influencer. So. Yeah, but it’s.
Riley:
Also true.
Jason:
Yeah, life is a test, love is a prize. Some people either win it or they don’t.
Riley:
Like that the prise.
Astra:
Was it Ronan Keating?, The woke version.
Riley:
I’m going to I’m going to say social media influencer. I feel like it’s too generic scholar.
Astra:
Love as a prize doesn’t sound something super academic. No offence if you said this, but.
Jason:
So you’re both going to go with Social Media influencer?. It’s Tommy Fury.
Astra:
Yep.
Jason:
So that’s the social media influencer to more last second. From last one: there is only one way to avoid criticism. Do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
Riley:
I’m pretty sure that’s Aristotle.
Astra:
Yeah, I was going to say it’s quite reflective. So I’m going to say scholar also.
Jason:
Jeez Riley.
Riley:
I was that.
Jason:
Someone read their books.
Riley:
So the funny thing is I can’t remember the last time I did read a book.
Riley:
Too much time listening to social media influencers.
Jason:
So then the last one might not be that tough. You’re not Jesus bruv. You can’t expect to be perfect. It’s not realistic, bruv.
Riley:
I’m pretty sure this is actually a direct quote from the Bible.
Astra:
It was Judas.
Riley:
Yeah, yeah. Social. Social media, influencer.
Astra:
Yeah, yeah.
Jason:
That’s Ovi Soko, from love island. Can you tell that I just searched love island quotes
Riley:
Oh, amazing.
Astra:
Well, I think that is the perfect quote to end this podcast. Um, Riley, thank you very for coming on. Is there anything we’ve missed that you’d like to add?
Riley:
No, not really. Just if you know you’re interested in an e-sports and e-sports events, then have a look at e-sports insider We do some wonderful ones all across the globe. And if you’re in Singapore next month, you know, we’ll see you there.
Astra:
Awesome. Thank you so much for your time Riley.
Riley:
No problem. Thank you for having me.
Astra:
We will see you on the next episode, everybody. Goodbye.
Jason:
Thank you.
