UGC Marketing 101: Drive More Sales with Customer Content

Has your ad spending skyrocketed lately, but your conversion rate is still low? The reason may be your marketing startegy to your customers. You need to know that 84% of millennials (aged 18 to 34) no longer trust traditional marketing.

With the rise of social media and changing consumer purchase behaviours, customers no longer fall for traditional marketing methods. Everyone wants first-hand user reviews to understand product usability and quality. It’s clear that consumers connect better with consumers than the brand itself. 

Customers now look for reviews and recommendations from real users. Advertisements with user-generated content like reviews, use cases, etc, can help you better connect with customers.

In this blog, we’ll explore how to leverage UGC marketing to increase brand exposure, engagement, and conversion rates. We’ve incorporated successful strategies from top brands like Ikea and ASOS to help you understand the practical aspects of UGC marketing. 

What is UGC marketing?

UGC marketing is a strategy that use content such as text, videos, images, and reviews that are generated by real customers, influencers, and independent individuals to promote your brand. It’s a way to encourage your customers to become your marketers.

Imagine a friend recommending a product on his social media that he’s been using already. You will most likely trust the recommendation and purchase the product without second thoughts. 

The recommendation can also come from other users sharing their views about products through social media posts, reviews, blogs, etc. People put more trust in authentic reviews than traditional advertising claims. About 80% of customers acknowledge that UGC influences their purchasing decisions.

Trends are changing, and you need to rethink your marketing strategy to build customer trust. Traditional methods like influencer marketing and social media ads are expensive and less effective, with ad costs per conversion reaching $45 to $100 in e-commerce.

Instead, leverage user-generated content marketing. When customers promote your product, it boosts credibility, trust, and helps you reach potential customers more effectively. 

How to Effectively Collect UGC?

Engaging customers is often difficult. You need a smart strategy to collect UGC of many forms. The basic idea is to incentivize customers because they don’t say no to rewards. Here are a few effective techniques:

Incentive Programs

Rewards are a great motivation for customers to generate UGC. You can easily engage customers in contests, loyalty programs, and other similar campaigns. All you need is to offer rewards to winners. The rewards can be anything from a gift card to a big discount. 

On average, at least 1000 people engage with every giveaway post. If you’re setting up an attractive reward, the engagement is sure to boost. The idea is to offer customers something in return for UGC. Consider offering incentives such as loyalty points, exclusive 20% discount vouchers, free samples, or early access to new products. These rewards help increase participation and engage customers. 

Simply Be, a women’s fashion brand, started a loyalty program called “Perks“.

The program offered personalized rewards to customers. The rewards are based on customer value, individual preferences and past rewards claimed. Customers get beauty goodies, deals, and entry into competitions for VIP status at special events and exclusive giveaways.

Social Media Campaigns

Social media is the most powerful tool for engaging with customers. More than 50% of users engaging with brands through social media campaigns market their products.

Creating a social media campaign is not rocket science. You have to come up with something the audience can relate to. Social media challenges or an interactive social media campaign can encourage customers to create UGC and post it. The campaign or challenge should have a social impact to connect with customers. 

L’Oréal Paris started the #WorthSaying campaign. It allowed women to share something meaningful from their lives. The idea resonated with the brand tagline “Because You’re Worth It.”

L’Oréal Paris’s brand awareness in the US increased to 87% after running the campaign. Top actresses and women from all walks of life participated in the campaign. It helped L’Oréal Paris to connect with customers and get stories to inspire others. A great example of socially conscious UGC marketing for community engagement. 

Reviews and Feedback

Online reviews and feedback are crucial to a customer’s purchase decision. About 95% of consumers read online reviews before buying a product. That’s why every brand wants their customers to share reviews to attract more customers.

You can encourage customers to post reviews or unbox videos for discounts, coupons, or other rewards. Adding customers to loyalty programs for writing reviews also works well.

Such content acts as social proof and adds credibility to your brand. Most people find it hard to trust brands with their first purchase, but rich reviews can change that and make them feel confident. 

Jennifer Taylor Home, a furniture and home décor brand, knows well to engage customers to share user generated content.

The brand asked customers to share product photos and testimonials. It then incorporated the UGC into its website and social media ads.

Within the first month JTH saw a 22% increase in engagement on social media and primary websites. 

How to Improve UGC Quality and Brand Consistency?

UGC marketing doesn’t mean leaving everything in the hands of customers. To be honest, user-generated content is mostly inconsistent and includes fluff. You need to streamline the content to project brand value and better connect with customers. Here are a few techniques to add value to UGC. 

Set up the clear guidelines

When designing a UGC marketing campaign, you should think from a customer’s perspective. They’re not good marketers and need clear instructions for capturing and sharing content. If you want them to make some effort, you must incentivize them with gifts or lure them with rewards. 

Provide clear guidelines about content formats, themes, and tones. The content must align with the brand persona to be usable for digital marketing. For instance, you’re a clothing brand and want your customers to review beachwear by posting on social media. If the customers post a picture of them wearing beachwear to a cocktail party, it will not meet your marketing goal. 

ASOS, a fashion retailer, started a successful UGC marketing campaign for social media. The customers were encouraged to wear ASOS outfits and post pictures on their social accounts with hashtag #AsSeenOnMe.

ASOS featured the best photos on their Instagram page with 21 million followers. It would give customers a chance to be popular. 

To maintain brand consistency, ASOS provided clear guidelines on photo quality, preferred backgrounds, and styling tips. Participants had to post high-quality, original images of themselves wearing ASOS outfits. The visibility of the clothing and alignment with ASOS’s brand aesthetic were crucial.

With this campaign, customers were better connected with the brand because common people shared their styling ideas.

Find the proper marketing channel

Collaborations with influencers is one of the efficient ways to generate high-quality content aligned with brand sentiment. About 69% of consumers trust influencer recommendations over direct brand messaging.

It’s crucial to ensure that your influencer’s content align with your brand’s voice and values. Otherwise the messaging will feel unnatural and hard for customers to connect.

You first need to identify platforms that match your brand positioning. For example, Instagram and TikTok are ideal for visually-driven brands whereas LinkedIn is better for professional and B2B-focused content.

Then try to find influencers whose personal style and messaging align with your brand’s image. If your brand focuses on sustainability, you must collaborate with eco-conscious influencers.

Glossier, a cosmetic giant, uses influencer marketing to promote products. It collaborates with renowned actresses and social media stars to market their products.

The brand ambassador Emily Weiss is herself a social media mogul. She promotes Glossier products to her large following. The customers put trust in her recommendations and buy the products.

More recently, Glossier shared info on its influencer network. It has 500 brand ambassadors who contribute to its $1.2 billion valuation through content marketing.

The brand runs a successful UGC campaign with the hashtag #glossierinthewild that has generated over 500,000 social media posts. That’s how you leverage emerging trends. 

Optimze the marketing results with AI tools

When it comes to UGC nothing can beat organic content. However, consumer generated content is quite raw with unnecessary fluff. You need to optimize the content before using it for marketing.

There are multiple AI-powered tools that help moderate and filter the inappropriate content. All you need is to instruct the AI about content requirements. 

You can instruct AI to filter images that resonate brand tone. Same goes for texts, AI will skim through data across different platforms and filter useful reviews.

Krispy Kreme, a doughnut brand, is a great example for using AI to optimize USG. It runs hashtag campaigns throughout the year.

They uses TINT, a UGC manager to optimize content. The #hathathooray competition was initiated to engage brand loyalists on brand’s 75th birthday. 

The AI-powered tool collected thousands of relevant images from at least a hundred thousand posts. It then created a collage of doughnut pictures featuring user images. The engagement on Kripy Kreme website was three times higher. Without AI, the brand could never collect such a large amount of quality content. 

How to Effectively Apply UGC Across Multiple Marketing Channels？

UGC has proven to be a game-changer for brands. The conversion rates with UGC marketing are way higher than traditional marketing methods. Advertisements featuring UGC get 4 times higher click-through rates than common ads. Here’s how you can effectively incorporate UGC into your marketing strategy.

Social Media Ads

You can incorporate UGC in social media ads to resonate with the audience. About 84% of customers trust brands that use UGC in their advertisements. When scrolling on social media users unsee most of the ads because they feel like marketing gimmicks. The customers are more attracted to ads that have some sort of user-generated content.

Social media advertisements can include user videos, tutorials, testimonials, and more.

Ikea, the renowned furniture brand, leverages UGC in advertisements. It started a social media campaign encouraging customers to post pictures with Ikea furniture in their home. The pictures were featured across all Ikea social media handles. Customers could see the furniture in traditional home settings. With this campaign, Ikea recorded a 3.54 times higher conversion rate. 

If you’re running a Shopify store, you can use Trustoo to share real customer reviews—images, videos, and text—directly from your brand site to Twitter and Facebook.

Product Page Display

Using user-generated content like reviews and testimonials in product page is quite popular.

Almost every product page has a user review section, but that’s not enough. Today, customers look for visual content rather than dry text. Trustoo allows you to display reviews in multiple formats, including photo reviews, video testimonials, and rating badges, making the review section more engaging.

For new stores with fewer reviews, Trustoo also offers a one-click import feature to add verified reviews from AliExpress and other platforms quickly. 

GoPro, the popular action cameras brand, uses UGC in the product pages. The brand encourages customers to include unboxing videos in their reviews. The visitors can see the product from a customer’s perspective. It adds to the trust and credibility.

For many expensive and unknown brands, most customers always keep skeptical about ordering online. With this strategy, you can easily build the trust with these potential customers.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is highly effective if done right. Brands incorporating organic UGC in their promotional email campaigns drive 78% more traffic. So, why are you not combining email marketing with UGC?

It’s true that most customers think of promotional emails as spam. However, including an unboxing video in the email can be a game-changer. 

When designing a promotional email try to connect with the customer. The email should feel personalized to build trust. You can include testimonials from customers, real product pictures from customers, or video tutorials.

The email content should be engaging and authentic unlike those bulk-generated emails.

Zero Acre Farm, an organic oil seller, came up with a unique idea. It includes recipes from their customers in their promotional emails.

The customers can quickly browse the recipe page from email. It allows them to explore different products and buy them right away. With this strategy, Zero Acre Farm has doubled the conversion rate. 

Trustoo automates review requests via email after delivery, and you can add discounts to encourage more customer reviews. 

How to Measure the Effectiveness and ROI of UGC？

As most people perceive, UGC marketing is not like firing in the dark. You can measure its effectiveness and ROI with the right tools and clear KPIs. Here’s how it works:

Choose the best data analysis tools

Data Analysis Tools are the backbone of every UGC marketing campaign. They help evaluate campaign performance and peek into customer perceptions. You can tweak or rethink an effective social media strategy based on clear insights like engagement, conversion rates, etc. 

Google Data Analytics is an advanced tool to monitor website traffic (from different sources), bounce rates, and conversions influenced by UGC.

If you are marketing through social media, Facebook Insights, Instagram Analytics, and TikTok Creator Studio are powerful options. 

You can use these tools to check engagement, such as likes, shares, and comments. They also provide valuable insights into customers like age groups, location, interactions, preferences. Moreover, many UGC management apps also have built in analytic dashboards. 

With these tools you can check whether UGC improves brand trust and influences purchasing behavior. Also, how many customers engage through UGC and more. 

Set Specific KPIs

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the most effective way to evaluate UGC marketing performance.

You need to outline specific KPIs that highlight campaign performance. For instance, tracking likes, shares, and comments on user-generated posts helps measure brand reach.

Here’s a list of few essential KPIs that you can use:

Metric	Use	How to Measure
Conversion Rate	Percentage of visitors who make a purchase after engaging with UGC.	You can use Google Analytics or Shopify reports to track conversions.
Repeat Purchase Rate	It measures customer loyalty by tracking how often customers return to buy again.	Your customer’s order history can help track repeat purchases.
Engagement Rate	It tracks interactions (likes, shares, comments) on UGC content.	You can use social media app dashboards to check engagement.
Customer Retention Rate	It measures the percentage of customers who continue purchasing over time.	Do some simple maths to compare repeat customers against new buyers over a period.
Revenue from UGC	It evaluates the direct sales impact of user-generated content.	Track UGC-related sales using tagged links or discount codes.
Click-through Rate (CTR)	It shows the percentage of users who click on links within UGC.	You can measure CTR through any effective analytics tool.
Average Order Value (AOV)	The average amount spent per order influenced by UGC.	Calculate AOV using Shopify’s sales data.
Review Submission Rate	How many customers submit reviews after UGC marketing efforts.	Track review submissions via Trustoo or similar review management tools.
Additional Revenue from UGC	The extra revenue generated through UGC campaigns.	Calculate revenue growth from UGC campaigns by comparing sales during and after campaigns.
ROI of UGC Marketing Efforts	The return on investment for UGC-related marketing.	Calculate ROI by comparing the revenue generated from UGC with the costs of running UGC campaigns.

Best 3 Tools for UGC marketing

Are you ready to kickstart UGC marketing? There are multiple tools that can help you leverage UGC more effectively. We’ve shortlisted three power tools with a whole lot of features to manage, utilize, and apply UGC conveniently.

1. Trustoo

Trustoo is the top recommendation for UGC marketing. It can promote your brand with a rich visual experience.

This powerful tool helps you displayed valuable reviews on the home page, collection page and pop-up. You can customize and add different styles of review modules: regular review modules, Q&A modules, display the number of reviews and star ratings on the product category page, and show a photo album, card carousel, and side tab at the bottom of the product description.

Through these displays, you can maximize customer confidence in purchasing your products. Interacting with your customers in the comments, answering their questions. It could attract more potential customers to make informed decisions.

Not only that, Trustoo can integrate with many popular marketing and post-purchase tools, such as Loloyal, Klaviyo, Omnisend, and Parcel Panel. It can automatically send review request emails based on your order status (Fulfillment, Purchase, Delivered). You just need to set the email sending frequency in the backend.

It’s worth mentioning that Trustoo can help you add incentive discounts directly in the email, such as a 20% product discount coupon, 200 store points, or a refer-a-friend bilateral reward. This not only increases the likelihood of receiving reviews, but also helps bring more repeat purchases for your brand.

For most brands that value social media marketing, Trustoo can help you share the store reviews on Twitter and Facebook, expand your brand’s influence. On the other hand, these posts can also direct your social media followers to your store to place orders, driving more conversions.

GlossSkinCo recommends Trustoo to anyone looking to boost trust and conversions. They write, “Awesome features and great service. 100% recommend for any website looking for raising their conversion rates by adding reviews to their website.”

2. Yotpo

Yotpo is an AI-powered tool for managing UGC efficiently. You can use it to request reviews via email and SMS. It can also collect and filter reviews, photos, Q&A content, and testimonials from different platforms. Yotpo also comes with an advanced sentiment analysis feature to help you understand customer perception and engagement levels. 

You can seamlessly integrate Yotpo into your Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, or WooCommerce stores. The tool incorporates customer reviews into your product pages and creates engaging social media posts with UGC. It is available for $79/month only. 

3. TINT

TINT is a smart UGC marketing manager. It can save you from the unnecessary hassle of sorting and fine-tuning user content with advanced features. TINT collects high-quality and brand-safe content from users. It then creates compelling marketing campaigns by incorporating UGC in websites, digital ads, and in-store displays.

TINT has a powerful dashboard to keep you in control. It allows you to filter, redesign, and streamline content. The tool increases conversion rates by at least 15-25%. You can also give personalized responses to customers. TINT is available with a $500 per month pricing plan. 

Conclusion

What’s a brand’s real asset? It’s customers’ loyalty and trust. UGC marketing helps brands better connect with customers, project credibility, and build trust.

The only challenge is maintaining the quality and authenticity of customer generated content. You can strategically collect, manage, and apply UGC with Trustoo.

As an e-commerce expert that has helped over 300,000 Shopify merchants achieve brand growth, Channelwill provides solutions ranging from store SEO optimization, UGC marketing, and loyalty programs to improving customer after-sales experience.

If you also want to increase your store’s GMV by 30 times, our customer success team is always here to assist you.