How Leveraging User-Generated Content Can Power Ecommerce Growth

We’re pleased to share this article by AJ, published here in its original form.

With over a decade of experience, AJ has launched an eBook publishing company, built a global ecommerce store, and now heads Audacious Commerce, a consultancy focused on international ecommerce growth. In this piece, AJ — our partner and ecommerce expert — shares valuable insights and practical tips on branding and social media marketing for strengthening your online presence.

As online store owners and marketers, we're constantly looking to reduce customer acquisition costs. One idea is to get customers to do the marketing for us by creating and distributing their own content.

User-generated content, or UGC for short, is a modern and digital adaptation of the classic word-of-mouth marketing! With several types of UGC available, it can be confusing if you haven't deployed any of them before.

Don't worry, using UGC in your marketing mix is easier than you might first think so long as you have the right steps in place and don't try to use every possible UGC option at once! 

Here's how you can leverage User-Generated Content to power up your ecommerce growth!

What is User-Generated Content (UGC)?

Simply put, User-Generated Content (UGC) is any form of content created by consumers of a product or service. UGC includes text, images, videos, reviews, and testimonials. There are plenty of places where we can use these forms of content to boost our marketing.

In addition to consumer-led UGC, we’ve seen the rise of creators who are paid to create content. So you might want to group UGC by organic (customer-created) and paid (people you give free products and/or cash). I'll be focusing mainly on organic UGC in this post.

Sadly most ecommerce businesses are only really using UGC product reviews. But we have a ton of other options where we can engage customers, and empower them to drive our marketing and create new opportunities for us to sell more products.

Why Should Ecommerce Brands Care?

A key reason UGC is more important than ever before is we're bombarded with ads that are staged. We long for real authenticity from users like us and not some model that's paid to be there. We can see through the “fake” marketing.

UGC can help us bring a softer edge to a brand and make it feel more authentic and trustworthy. As users can more easily identify with the person creating the content, they are more likely to buy as they see it as a recommendation, not a marketing message.

Put side by side, UGC can drive more engagement than traditional adverts, which can drive online conversations on social media.

It shows users care about your brand and product as they're willing to take time to create fresh and informative content, which in turn can boost your SEO efforts.

3 Simple Strategies for Collecting and Curating UGC

Many brands are eager to use UGC in their marketing, and you might be one of them. But how can you encourage users to create content and share it? It's not as hard as you think!

Where most brands go wrong is they don't create the right environment that allows customers to feel valued after posting their content. They spend their efforts getting people to create and post content and very little on the follow-up after.

Encouraging customers to create content

Firstly, you need to work with customers and meet them where they're at. If all you care about is video reviews, you'll miss out on a ton of helpful content. The same is true for text only or only letting people post content on a 3rd party review website.

Don't limit what UGC people can create and where they post it. Some might like leaving reviews on product pages, others will attach images as comments on your Facebook post, or you might even find a few customers create videos and post them on YouTube.

Regardless of the length and type of content created, spend the same amount of time you spent encouraging people to create UGC rewarding them for doing so. It could be something as tiny as a thank-you comment, a special gift on their next order, or inviting them to a VIP event.

Running contests and promotions

One way to kick things off is to run a contest and encourage existing clients to review their latest purchase or give you feedback on their shopping experience. The reward could be a gift card, free products, or a shout-out on social media.

You want to promote contests or promotions heavily. Try running one at least monthly. It's a ton of work, but your sales will grow as your customers market your business for you!

Partnering with influencers

You could create UGC by hiring content creators and by partnering with influencers. There's a cost involved, even if you just give away free products. However, as part of your marketing mix, it can be helpful now and in the future. 

These types of UGC can encourage customers to engage and start creating their own content that you can also use! So, the investment probably is worth it.

Effectively Using User Content in Your Marketing

The simplest way to use UGC in your marketing is to slap some reviews on your homepage and hope for the best! I'm not the biggest fan of this approach as it doesn't allow you to fully utilise the assets.

Try including UGC throughout your online store, in organic social posts, and as the creative element of paid digital ads. You could also experiment with UGC-focused landing pages that are built for conversions. These are all basic ideas!

For a more strategic approach, you could use UGC as part of your cart abandonment plan. It's easy to retarget visitors with specific ads that use UGC and drive them back to their cart.

A more advanced method is to use email marketing. You're likely already sending a cart abandonment email but, you could include a 2 line review of a product (dynamic content is highly possible) in the basket or the customer service in general. You could even link to a landing page with a video review of the product and a live chat button.

There are many ways you can use content your customers create beyond what everyone else is doing while maximising your marketing budget and building brand awareness! So keep looking for new ways and don't follow the competition!

Measuring the Impact

Most marketing campaigns fail due to a lack of clear goals from the get-go. It's easy to throw money at a problem and hope for the best. However, you need to start with clarity of the desired outcome and how you'll measure the results.

Part of the problem is deciding how you'll track the outcome. Will you use a link with a unique UTM code? An exclusive discount code? The amount of comments left or DMs received?

There are plenty of metrics we could track and several ways to calculate the ROI of a UGC campaign. I'd argue that the simplest are the best.

If you ask customers to post reviews of a certain product type, you should be able to map the increase in sales of those items back to that campaign.

Similarly, if you get a few customers to post videos of them using the product on YouTube, you should be able to track the sales uplift back to the source.

The worst idea is to track every metric you can, just because! Instead, pick 2 or 3 metrics that are easy to monitor and map to your intended outcome.

Staying on the right side of the law!

If a customer pays for an item and creates content around it then legally you should be fine. They paid for it, so can say whatever they want with little recourse!

Where brands skirt close to the sun is when they give products away for free in return for a review without the content creator making it clear they didn't pay for the item or are being hired as an actor to promote the company.

There's nothing wrong with paying actors or giving away free products, as long as it's clear. I believe consumers are becoming more aware when the content they are seeing lacks authenticity or transparency.

My top tip for working with UGC creators is to let them point out the negatives as a way to reinforce the product's strengths.

For example, “This watch loses a second every month but that's a quirk you don't get with a quartz watch” or “The phone's battery life isn't the best, but the camera quality is close to an SLR.”

If you don't allow creators to be authentic or transparent, customers will leave negative reviews and that could harm your business. So be upfront from the start and do your best to stay on the right side of the law.

Using UGC to power your ecommerce growth!

With a better understanding of organic and paid UGC, you can grow your ecommerce brand. Start small and focus on a few key strategies. Don’t go all in, only to give up in a few weeks.

Start by considering what benefits your customers will get from creating content and how you'll ensure they are seen and rewarded. There's nothing worse than a brand that can't take 10 seconds to reply to a YouTube video on their product or an Instagram post.

The more you encourage and reward customers for creating UGC, your sales will grow and so will your brand awareness.

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