Originally published in Blooloop
Engage guests by putting them in the center of the experience, says Magic Memories CEO Chris Warhurst.
“Content is King,” American business magnate and software developer Bill Gates said, way back in 1996, where he stated that content is where much of the “real money” would be earned on the internet.
That phrase, repeated by countless marketers over the past 25 years, still holds true today where we face ever-increasing content across every touchpoint, and attention becomes the limiting factor in the consumption of information. Success lies in our ability to engage.
Personalised content creation
This is where finding ways to personalise content is key. Putting the individual into the experience and celebrating your brand is crucial to the success of any business. Particularly across tourism and attractions.
Social platforms have transformed the way people make decisions. Everything from where they will eat out, shop or stay, to what attractions they’d like to experience. People build trust in a company or experience based on posts, shares, direct reviews and images of others. Memories have become a currency and the more you can create and distribute, the higher value your return will be.
Personalised content creation is on the rise. In 2020, an estimated 1.4 trillion photos were taken, an increase of 8% from the year before. Meanwhile, some 3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video are shared online daily.
Creating and sharing memories has never been easier. The ubiquity and evolution of mobile phones is driving the continued growth of this sharing economy. Now, the reign of the social media “influencer” is fast giving way to authentic, meaningful content from everyday people.
This is particularly important for the attractions industry. This is because every guest that comes through your gates is a ‘Brand Ambassador’. And they are armed with the perfect tool – a mobile device to share their unique experience of your attraction and brands.
Connecting with content
So how do attractions ‘disrupt the scroll’, increase engagement and convert customers? We believe the answer lies in the connection the individual has to the content.
When we began this journey back in 1995, in New Zealand’s adventure tourism capital Queenstown, the world looked very different. We’ve undergone a technology revolution that has significantly altered how we work, live and play. But our role as connectors to a special moment in someone’s life, a celebration of an amazing place or great people, is still the same.
The magic is, and has always been, in the content itself. Creative storytelling that puts your guests at the centre of the experience – as heroes of their own stories.
Take, for instance, the recent content creation at Madame Tussauds Dubai. That storytelling begins at the start of their guest journey – from the moment they buy a ticket, several contactless content experiences onsite through to watching themselves in the lead role later at home.
This is content they want to share with friends and family – and that’s shown in the figures. Guest engagement and conversion at Magic Memories’ partner attractions are more than 5 times the pre-COVID figures, with increases in revenue per guest of more than 40%.
Putting the guest at the centre
Over the past 18 months, Magic Memories has invested heavily in capital and resources to reinvent the way it creates and connect those memories to guests. The new cloud platform, MagicOS, allows Magic Memories to create multimedia content at high frequency, and to connect with guests and support systems at scale.
The company has designed solutions running at large volume facilities with staffed solutions, to completely automated iterations with no operational labour. It has developed an array of digital content including video, AR filters, Magic Selfie and Super Zoom and content experiences created from, and delivered directly to, the guests’ phones. This all puts the guest at the heart of their own content with your brand.
In the end, we have all become creators and consumers of our own content. The secret to engagement and value relies upon personalising a brand with creative content.