Using user-generated content (UGC) in your marketing has many benefits when it comes to traffic, engagement, and sales. Just a few of the data-backed ways that user content is good for brands…
- User content, such as reviews, boosts SEO and brings more organic traffic
- User content helps you grow your eCommerce traffic from social traffic
- Adding user content to social boosts conversion rate and sales
However, marketing with consumer generated media has many more benefits you probably won’t expect. Here are the unexpected benefits of marketing with UGC.
1. Get new, consumer-tested product ideas
Domino’s Pizza in Australia had a brilliant idea: why not allow customers to order other customers favorite pizza combinations?
Users could swap their favorite combinations on social media, generating buzz and connecting passionate pizza lovers through their love of discovering wacky, delicious, and interesting new combinations.
Their campaign was great, but what they didn’t know was just how many other benefits it would have for them. Not only did they receive over 100,000 new ideas for pizzas, but they also had tested analytics of which did best.
Through their UGC campaign, they were able to collect data on what might be good new pizza ideas without wasting resources developing and testing it on their own.
2. Learn how to communicate better
Here’s an example of a big miscommunication:
You’re investing time, marketing budget, and tons of effort into advertising your product as high-end and luxury, but your most profitable customer base is actually more eager to find items that offer them good value and high-quality.
User content advertising campaigns give valuable insight into the way your customers really talk about your brand so you can improve the efficiency of marketing copy and boost long-tail keywords.
Coca-Cola China launched a campaign on crowdsourcing site eYeka, asking users to describe the taste of Coke.
“If you had to explain to an alien who has never tried it before, which particular element of the Coke taste experience would you talk about, and what creative expression would you show him to get him to crave a sip of that Coke taste?”
This exercise gave them insight into how their customers really talked about their product.
Even if you don’t run an entire campaign dedicated to explicitly finding out what your customers are saying, you can gain valuable insight by looking at popular hashtags associated with your products, customer sentiment, and even insight into how they use your product.
3. Save (a ton) of digital marketing budget
A 2013 Gartner survey found that companies are spending roughly 2.5% of their annual revenue on digital marketing.
Companies who took the survey but didn’t have a separate budget for digital marketing said that they are spending more than 50% of their marketing budget on digital marketing.
Among the 51% of companies who will be increasing their budget this year, Gartner’s 2014 survey cited a 17% average increase in their digital marketing budget for 2015. That’s a lot of money and the numbers keep rising.
Savvy companies know user content campaigns generate free content you can repurpose across marketing materials.
IKEA demonstrated this with their Instagram campaign that asked customer’s to submit Instagram photos of their favorite products.
Not only was it one of the most successful Instagram campaigns to date, it was also a smart way to sell through Instagram by having customers advertise products on their behalf.
4. Collect tons of new content you can repurpose in marketing materials
UGC shouldn’t die after the campaign. UGC campaigns give you valuable, consumer created content that can be repurposed in user-generated galleries, newsletters, blog posts, social advertisements, Instagram ads and more.
Overall, user-generated campaigns can collect thousands of branded photos from engaged customers; increase sales and engage with your community by repurposing this powerful visual content.
