Key takeaways from Digital City Festival 2022

Earlier this month we went to Manchester for the day to Digital City Festival. From talks about repurposing content to viral digital campaigns, we were busy taking notes on all things digital throughout the day and are here to share with you our key takeaways from Digital City Festival 2022… 

Building a connection that audiences will remember

A talk from the branded-game company Peek and Poke highlighted how important an audience-led approach is when building relationships with clients and customers. When we are putting out content into the digital world, our audiences should be at the centre of our approach to doing this; meaning all marketing decisions from designing, planning and publishing content to follow-up interactions should be planned around the behaviour, thoughts and needs of our audiences. 

In this talk, Peek and Poke discussed this from the perspective of B2B marketing. In B2B marketing, it is important to consistently communicate with your clients in order to align your approach with their insights and needs.The result of doing this effectively is impactful in building trust with clients, with 60% of B2B clients repeating their purchases from companies. Therefore, it is clear to see that putting clients at the centre of decision-making processes in B2B marketing is key to forming successful and long-lasting relationships with them.   

Getting the most value out of the content you create

So, it’s safe to say we all know the importance of building a connection with our audiences… right? Well, another way of doing this is to repurpose your content. A talk from Content 10x underlined the fact that our audiences digest content in different ways, with some for example preferring text-based content whilst others prefer to watch video or listen to podcasts. So, rather than only putting out content once and in one format, it’s actually more effective to repurpose content to accommodate your different audience-types – another great example of an audience-led approach. It’s about getting the maximum value out of the content you’ve already created and meeting the needs of your audiences all at the same time. 

And repurposing is proven to be a successful digital and content marketing approach. Effective repurposing can help plan in moments of connection with audiences and drive new business without having to constantly spend time creating new content. 

Being brave with digital marketing strategies

Learning about viral digital campaigns is always fascinating, and hearing about Weetabix and Franks’ #Beanzonbix campaign was no different. Through a seemingly simple tweet about having baked beans on Weetabix, brand awareness increased by 40% on the previous year, with the tweet receiving over 130,000 likes and being spoken about across social media, daytime TV and even in the House of Commons. 

So what can we take-away from this? Well, firstly the campaign was customer-led. For several years, Weetabix alongside agency Frank had been encouraging audiences to send in their weird and wonderful Weetabix combinations, and found the weirder the better in terms of interaction, which spurred them on to creating a campaign like this. 

And secondly, this was an organic campaign, with no paid social involved. Through giving other companies a heads-up about the tweet to prompt their interaction and having the campaign be audience-led, Weetabix were able to receive high levels of reach and engagement without having to involve paid social.

Both these factors show the importance and effectiveness of being in constant communication with our customers and clients and leading our campaigns from their feedback, as well as having a high level of strategy and planning involved in our digital campaigns. 

A big thank you to everyone involved in organising and speaking at Digital City Festival this year. I’m sure we’ll be back for another day of insight and knowledge on the digital marketing world from people at the centre of it.