The Marketing Association held one of their Brainy Breakfast events at Eden Park on July 26th. It featured a stellar team of marketers from some of New Zealand’s savviest businesses sharing their insights.

The Brainy Breakfast tackled the challenges of content production in an age of multiple channels, diverse audiences, and complex customer experiences. For those who weren’t able to make it, here are the key takeaways from our guest speakers.

1. Ensure your content meets the audience’s expectations

To succeed on a platform, you need personalised and relevant content that generates ongoing, continued engagement. As advertisers, we need to be creating a culture where people continually return to the things they enjoy. 

A key consideration for those creating content is its strategic purpose - will it be driven more by the goals of your brand, or will it focus more on something relevant to the audience?

For Nigel Cherrie, Head of Digital at Lotto NZ, context is king. “We're talking to people about things that they may be interested in, not only from a product perspective, but also from a purpose perspective, so they can see how what we're doing relates to what they're interested in,” he explains.

2. Invest in creative content that fizzes and pops

When creating content for your platform, you need to make sure it really captures their attention. As Peter Smyth, Chief Operating Officer at Velocity Made Good, points out, 65% of a brand's sales that come from digital advertising can be attributed to high quality creative. 

In order to succeed, your content needs to be engaging and entertaining, and sometimes even emotional. But above all, it has to be memorable. So, ask the following questions: Does your creative content have a visual impact? Is it important to your audience and their motivations? Do you want your content to build brand awareness or build audience engagement?

And if you need help sharpening your content, Tammy Buhagiar, Head of Marketing at Spark NZ, recommends partnering up with the experts.

“Collaboration is key when it comes to creating content because it helps your team operate with more speed to market and efficiency. As marketers, we need to always ensure we maintain consistency,” she says. 

3. Research and recycle

Building an audience takes time. Firstly, you need to research which platforms your target audience is using and how they’re engaging with them. Consider whether they are interacting with brands or content; the type of content they are engaging with; and whether they are creating content themselves.

You need to create a genuine two-way relationship with your audience. Building relationships with local influencers and community members with a presence on platforms is a great way to do this. 

Hannah Watson-Frank, Digital Manager at Amnesty International, says conducting research is a great way of finding out which platforms your audiences are on and how they’re using them. 

And don’t be afraid to reuse and recycle content to build engagement and maximise efficiency too. “Often improving on something we've done previously, rather than starting from scratch, means that you're going to free up a lot of your capacity. We looked at messages that worked well in previous campaigns and drew upon those in order to maximise conversions,” Watson-Frank adds.

4. Align your content with what your audience craves

When crafting a customer experience you need to be true to the personality of your brand. But as Velocity Made Good’s Smyth explains, “your content also should align with your audience's needs, wants, and their demands. It’s about reflecting the personality of the brand as well as your audience’s desires into your creative content.” 

The best way to reflect the personality of your brand is to hold a mirror up to your audience. If they can see themselves in the ad and see how this benefits them, they’re more likely to engage with the brand. Look to align the language within your ads with the language that your audience is using.

Written by Tifaine Ellis, Communications Consultant, Clear Hayes