Grant Torrie on knowing your audience

How well do you really know your audience? Do you understand what they want, why they follow you and how to connect with them? The task of building an audience is not new to marketing, but crafting meaningful connections with a legacy audience poses its own set of challenges. And it's a challenge that Grant Torrie, acting CMO at Fairfax Media New Zealand, knows all too well. From his early days at Fairfax to now, Torrie and the executive team have worked hard to develop marketing automation literacy across the organisation, breaking down organisational silos and replacing the "spray and pray" approach to marketing. It's the soft skills such as empathy that he says are critically important in effectively communicating with your audience and managing organisational change. "I don't necessarily know that people fear change but they do fear loss," says Torrie. "We need to understand the grieving process that comes with changing things and taking away things is real and totally valid." Tune in as hosts Mark Jones and JV Douglas explore what it means to fully embrace marketing automation, how to understand your audience, and why your team are the agents of organisational change.