Content & Beyond 2025: The 9 key takeaways for content and digital teams

It's official: this year's Content & Beyond was another success. With thousands of content and digital marketers tuning in from around the globe, this virtual event kept its promise on actionable takeaways and insights that you could take and apply to your day-to-days within the following ten mins.

That's what it was all about this year; bringing more efficiency, excitement, and energy to your daily grinds. You know, start creating websites and content that you're actually excited to roll out of bed for. 🛏️

We saw brands including Google (Gemini), TikTok Shop, and Papier give their tips on how to stir up success and brew ideas fresher than your morning coffee.

For those that missed the event, want a refresh, or just can't get enough, here are the 9 key takeaways from each of the Content & Beyond sessions this year:

1) ☀️ Keynote ☀️ Your content strategy is worn-out... but here's how to bring the (Ann Handley levels of) energy

Coming in with some harsh truths, our keynote speaker Ann Handley (yes, the Ann Handley) joins President at Optimizely, Shafqat Islam for some real talk about your marketing strategies. Here's the thing: your marketing strategy might be running, but stats show it's probably not running very efficiently.

When there's no efficiency, there's no room for creativity. Instead, you're bogged down in boring admin, sticky processes, the feedback waiting room (with an approximate 4 week and 3 day wait), and repetitive conversations on Slack or Teams with your coworkers asking where things are.

You've got to ask yourselves: Where IS the fun in that?

Who better to save the day than Ann Handley? Because yes, that actually-pretty-sad strategy is redeemable. It's all about injecting some energy into each stage of the content lifecycle, and Ann reveals how to do just that in the opening keynote of Content & Beyond 2025.

Go check it out for some *actual* actionable insights from a master creator of content. 😎

2) Sure, AI is lowering the bar for entry, but it's truly raising the ceiling, making good people great, and great people unstoppable

In a sea full of self-acclaimed AI experts (even though, a lot of the time, they're just copying something they saw on LinkedIn), it's hard to know what direction to look and learn from. Well, that's until you're presented with a Content & Beyond session on AI from Google (Gemini).

With no signs of slowing down, AI is something you need to leverage if you want to work smarter and more competitively. Andrew Pagonis, Global Product Marketing Lead at Google (Gemini) talks with our very own Anthony Aiosa, VP of Product and Customer Marketing on exactly how you should be using AI to enable—not eliminate—you in your marketing role.

Complete with lessons on how to make sense of current and future models, powerful prompts to get what you want, and its scaling potential, this session is not one to be missed—unless you want to get left behind, that is. 👀

3) "Seek omnipresence" = two ultra powerful words for brands in 2025

If you're a brand looking to really make impact this year and onwards (which, let's be real, you probably are), two words of advice from Holly Chapman, Head of Brand at Papier—or modern day marketing philosopher, perhaps?—is to seek omnipresence.

Leading stationery brand Papier has had a killer couple of years, seeing super cool wildposting fun, record Cyber Weekend sales, out-of-stock advent calendars, innovative community building, and brand awards we'd all be jealous of in this past year alone. This has contributed to their (very successful) strategy to target and win the forever-hard-to-please Gen Z audience.

So, obviously we all want to know what contributed to this success... because we want a slice of it too. 🍕

Lucky for you, that's exactly what this session with Papier covers.

Holly chats with Optimizely's Leah Messenger (the voice behind this blog, lol) to discuss how they captured the hearts of a new market, retained their already-loyal and loving customers, and generally stayed at the forefront of minds for all things stationery-related—from students and their academic diaries, marketers and their productivity planners, brides or grooms with their wedding invites, and so on.

4) The truth behind the digital dilemma of website migrations eg. the Big Bang VS the phased approach

Website migration: a term that probably sends a shiver down your spine...and you wouldn't be alone. The likelihood is that we've all experienced—or will experience—a website migration in our time. The other likelihood is that it probably was (or will be) far from flawless. There's just something about them; something that never seems to go quite the way you want it to go.

But what if you found a website migration process that was seamless? What if you didn't have to lose sleep over it?

No, it's not a miracle—it's just another session you'll find from Content & Beyond 2025. Valtech's VP, Optimizely Practice Principal, Janaka Fernando, chats to our Digital Marketing Director, Michiel Dorjee about the realities of website migrations (no cap) and how to better approach them.

Talking the Big Bang approach vs the phased approach, our speakers touch on their own experiences and learnings behind past website migrations, including top advice like how to use AI to speed up the process and taking the time you think you need for it...then doubling it. Sorry not sorry.

The moral of the story? Patience is a virtue, and so is watching this session. You can read more on Valtech's blog too.

5) How building a pillow fort led to building a next-level website for Goodwood

Nope, you did not misread that. When it comes to building an unrivaled website, you need one big thing: teamwork. Internal, cross-functional, goal-sharing, and determined teamwork.

☝️ Goodwood went there, got the t-shirt, and built a pillow fort in tow.

In this session, you'll hear from Simon Gardiner, Head of Digital at Goodwood who knows a thing or two about what makes a website great; great for sharing content, great for digital experiences, great for customers, and great for ROI.

How you make the most of your team is key to making this happen. Simon talks about leveraging the T-shaped skills of your team, which means looking beyond what the job description says, and into their actual skills as a person. An SEO with interest and skills in video editing that means saving time and money? Yes, please!

While "team building" can have mixed reactions from different people, physically bringing the team does play a huge part in this team efficiency... and it doesn't have to be cringe, we promise. In fact, Goodwood brought their whole team together for a few weeks using an out-of-season racecourse on the ground where they ideated on content together.

And that is where the pillow fort was born—there are definitely worse places to have a meeting. Find out all about it by watching the session.

6) TikTok Shop is riding the rising wave of discovery commerce, and you should be too

According to research, more than half (56%) of UK users have made a purchase directly through social media, either via a clickable link or checking out directly within an app. And before you go thinking it's just Gen Z changing things up, the same report documents one in four (24%) millennials purchase something through social media at least once a month.

These numbers are not something to be ignored, and the fabulous Nora Zukauskaite, Integrated Marketing Director for TikTok Shop UK & EMEA is here to spill the (coffee) beans on exactly how her marketing team is leveraging them... and how you can drive growth by doing the same.

Learn what big brands (and small, but big brands... you're the troublemakers here) can learn from the TikTok Shop-native brands, in terms of the content-first approach. Spoiler alert: You're gonna have to put those siloed teams to bed, and start blending your teams and becoming more integrated.

You'll also hear more about what community building and creating real connections can do for your brand, and the digital experiences you create. Yep, you're about to get more authenTik. 🥁

7) Doing more with less is a marketing MUST for 2025 and beyond

If you're sat there, spending half your days just wishing for more hires and more budget, you're doing it wrong. The reality is that these things don't just happen for companies these days; instead, you need to make the most of what you've already got.

It's called marketing minimalism... or, doing more with less. 💁‍♀️

In this session, we have Cody McConnell, Digital Marketing Director at Safran Electronics & Defense bringing some valuable insights into doing just that. "Work smarter, not harder" is a phrase that we've all heard—and probably said—but are we truly working smarter, not harder?

9) The evolution of digital experience platforms is upon us, and Optimizely is leading the way

Optimizely is making some serious moves for digital experiences, and our CEO, Alex Atzberger, is here to discuss what's we've been up to as a DXP platform, some 'casual' recognitions (*cough cough* Optimizely was 'highest in execution' and 'furthest in vision' in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Experience Platforms), and what you'll see from us in the not-too-distant future.

But for starters, what makes a market-leading digital experience platform?

Well, at Optimizely, we strongly believe that for a great customer experience, you need a great marketer experience. And for a streamlined and successful marketer experience, you need to solve a few pain points:

• Siloed teams across the department
• Too many tools in your martech stack
• Messy or poor integrations
• Complex or inefficient processes
• The ever-changing, ever-growing world of AI

And those painpoints right there? Those are why Optimizely One was created; one platform with multiple capabilities, composable features, and embedded AI (oh hey, Opal), covering the entirety of the content lifecycle or content supply chain.

Creating unreal digital experiences for your customers and prospects shouldn't have to slow down because of technology. Choose technology that keeps up; choose technology that allows for not only more content, but better content.

Less waste, more conversions, more business impact—that's what Optimizely is all about. Hear all about it in our quick wrap-up talk with CEO of Optimizely, Alex Atzberger.