In an age where audiences are flooded with information, relevance has become the deciding factor for whether messages are read or ignored.
For Norbert Kraus, senior communications officer at Cairns Regional Council and speaker at the upcoming 20th Social Media for Gov Summit, hyper-personalised content is a practical strategy to keep communities engaged.
By looking at how platforms like Netflix, Amazon and social media tailor content, Norbert shows why communicators in government must shift away from blanket messaging and embrace data-driven approaches that respect privacy while delivering meaningful content to diverse audiences.
What does hyper-personalised content delivery mean in the context of communications today?
When you use any social media platform today, your feed is personalised to your personal taste and interests.
When you open the Netflix app, the movie thumbnails for each movie will be different for different users—depending on your watching habits and interest.
When Amazon or Temu sends you a product newsletter, or serves you digital ads, the items included are picked based you your previous shopping habits, your age, your gender and your location.
Focusing on content that is relevant to the individual and removing irrelevant clutter is more than just a nice-to-have; it’s becoming a necessity.
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Why should organisations consider hyper-personalisation as part of their comms strategy?
Modern audiences expect communications to be relevant, timely, and tailored to their individual needs.
Generic messages often get ignored. If we want our audience to stay engaged with our communications long-term, we must try our hardest to make our communications meaningful to the individual, every time.
Working in large Government organisations, our audiences are so incredibly diverse. If we communicate every message to everyone every time, most people will receive information that is not relevant to them most of the time.
This approach will inevitably lead to a disengaged audience that is more likely to ignore future communications.
The more granular and accurate our personalisation method is, the more likely it is that our audience will engage.
Audiences are also more tolerant towards more frequent communication when the content is relevant or interesting every time they hear from us.
How can communicators use data responsibly to personalise content while maintaining trust and respecting privacy?
I think the most important point is: only collect the data you need. Ask yourself, do you really need someone’s last name (or even first name) to send them relevant messages?
If you don’t need the data to achieve your specific communication goals, don’t ask for it. Be open and clear about what data is collected, why it is collected, where it is stored and how it will be used.
Read more: Zanda Wilson on the value that former journalists can bring to communications
If you are planning to use someone’s first name to draw conclusions about their gender, and then use that information to better target them—you should be open about that.
Use plain language in privacy notices and consent forms.
Keep users informed about changes to your privacy policy and inform users about how the way their data is used is changing.
And, of course, everything you do must be compliant with the Australian Privacy Act.
What risks do organisations face if they rely on generic messaging instead of hyper-personalised communication?
The risks for the organisation are: reduced engagement, erosion of trust, high opt-out rates, lower ROI.
It’s important to understand that every time you get it wrong, it doesn’t just affect your current campaign. It will directly impact on whether people will pay attention to your communications next time you are trying to speak tom them.
The goal is to instil the confidence in our audience that whenever they hear from us, it will be useful to them and it’s worth paying attention.
How should success be measured when it comes to hyper-personalised content delivery?
This depends on the communications channel. Generally speaking, when you introduce personalisation, you should see higher engagement and performance metrics. How much higher depends on the level of personalisation and the quality of the data you are working with.
I would just like to stress that for digital channels, any level of personalisation will be better than broad communication.
We recently changed a weekly jobs newsletter and went from a broad “here are all the jobs at Council this week” approach to a personalised delivery model.
Recipients now only receive the newsletter if there is a job in one of their nominated categories. And when they do receive the newsletter, they will only see roles that match their preferences.
In this case, it meant that we are now sending out to a lot fewer people each week. But the opening rates have soared from 25% to over 80%. Click rates went from less than 1% to over 30%. We also haven’t had any unsubscribes yet since introducing the new model 6 weeks ago.
What are the key takeaways attendees can expect to gain from your session during the event?
My session will have a different theme. It will be about performance monitoring of digital campaigns.
However, there is overlap between the two topics. We know that personalised campaigns work better, because we can measure the impact that personalised content has. In my session, I will cover how one might go about tracking the effectiveness of a digital campaign.
Norbert’s insights underline the risks of sticking to one-size-fits-all messaging and highlight how even small steps in tailoring content can deliver significant results.
Adrianne Saplagio is a Content Producer at Comms Room, where she combines her passion for storytelling with her expertise in multimedia content creation. With a keen eye for detail and a knack for engaging audiences, Adrianne has been instrumental in crafting compelling narratives that resonate across various digital platforms.
