No one can sell your products better than your own satisfied customers.
This is the reality that most marketers have come to accept. Studies show that modern customers trust reviews and recommendations from fellow customers more than brand messages.
A study by Bright Local reports that 50% of customers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family. This is up from 46% in 2023, and the trend will only likely increase.
Peer reviews are more authentic and trustworthy. That’s why smart marketers take advantage of reviews in their marketing campaigns. One of the most effective ways to do that is through user-generated content.
What is User-Generated Content (UGC)?
User-generated content, or UGC, is any content about a brand or its product created and shared by customers.
Think about the last time you visited a nice restaurant and had a pleasant experience. Perhaps you took photos of the establishment and posted them on your social media account.
That’s what UGC is. It’s any form of content where the user has willingly talked about a brand or a product.
Though UGC is easy to get when operating a B2C or direct-to-consumer business, B2B brands can also take several steps to encourage their users to produce this type of content. We’ll look at three distinct ways you can do that and share some real-life examples of how other brands are doing it.
But first, let’s look at why you should include UGC in your email campaigns.
Why use UGC in email campaigns?
Email is one of the most effective marketing channels. It’s also the primary mode of communication between brands and their customers. Up to 89% of marketers admit that email is their primary mode of communication.
You rely on email to convert leads, nurture customer relationships, boost customer engagement, increase loyalty, etc. That’s why brands are doing everything they can to collect email addresses. Most use lead magnets to capture email addresses online. Others make a digital business card with two-way contact sharing to capture emails effortlessly in networking events. This helps you collect emails easily during in-person interactions.
Unfortunately, your email marketing efforts will never reach their full potential if you do not include user-generated content.
Here is exactly how UGC can support your email marketing efforts:
Boosts trust and credibility
You can hire the best copywriters to explain how incredible your products are, but unless you have independent individuals to support the claims, new customers will always be hesitant to give your brand a shot.
This is the harsh truth, and it’s one of the key reasons you must include user-generated content in your emails. Customers no longer take brands for their words. That’s why 98% of them do independent research to check online reviews before making a purchase.
But that’s the thing. You don’t have to let your prospects and customers struggle with the research. You can save them the effort by bringing those reviews to them in the marketing emails you’re already sending.
Testimonials and reviews demonstrate that your products or services do what they claim. This makes your brand more credible and helps you win the trust of potential customers.
But there’s a caveat.
The testimonials and reviews must be credible for them to work. This is particularly crucial in the B2B industry. That’s why you must go the extra mile to share details about the customers behind each testimonial or review. That involves sharing their name, photo, and a link to their business website or professional profile on LinkedIn.
Enhances engagement
User-generated content usually comes in different formats. You may have photos, videos, and text. The visual content can be incredibly effective at boosting email engagement rates.
Adding video testimonials or photos of your products as captured by other customers makes your email content more engaging.
Check out this email sent by Typeform, for example:
Poor email content is one of the worst email marketing mistakes you must avoid. UGC makes your emails more interesting, encouraging more recipients to read through and click around. The result? More engagements result in better email deliverability. Not only that, but it also contributes to your conversion rates.
That brings us to the next critical point…
Improves conversion rate
What happens when you combine the most powerful type of content (UGC) with the channel that produces the highest return on investment? Your earnings explode!
We’ve already demonstrated that users trust reviews and testimonials so much that 98% do not buy a product without reading reviews.
Meanwhile, email is known to have an incredible ROI of $38 for every $1 spent.
Adding UGC to your emails helps push prospective customers across the line because it demonstrates that your products work.
UGC email marketing resolves customer objections and fills prospects with confidence in their purchasing decisions. That’s why testimonials and case studies are a key part of the lead nurturing and cart abandonment email workflows.
One study explains that site visitors who interacted with UGC at some point in their customer journey converted at a rate of around 102.4% higher than the average.
Cost-effective
User-generated content is organic content produced by your customers. You do not spend anything to get them to create that content. Yet, you can use this content (with permission) in your campaigns to build trust with prospects and convert them. That makes UGC one of the most cost-effective types of content you can use.
Now, of course, you may need to spend some money to get the ball rolling with UGC. For example, some brands will launch contests to get folks producing UGC. Others may partner with influencers to popularize their UGC hashtags.
Still, the amount of money you’ll spend on these campaigns pales in comparison to how much you spend on continuous paid campaigns.
Plus, once you create the culture of producing UGC within your customer base, they’ll likely continue to do so without your input. This gives you access to unlimited UGC for years to come.
How to encourage and collect UGC
You can encourage the production of user-generated content in three key ways:
1. Request reviews in post-purchase emails
Post-purchase emails are among the most effective ways to collect helpful UGC.
Chances are you already have an onboarding email workflow. This workflow helps you onboard a client onto your platform (if you’re a SaaS company) or services, showing them how they can use your product.
You can collect more UGC by including an email asking users to write a review. Ideally, this email should be deployed a few weeks after onboarding the client. This gives them enough time to use your product so they can now provide an insightful review of their experience.
This should be even easier to implement for SaaS companies that track their product usage. You can set triggers to automatically request a review from your customers once they hit a particular milestone.
In terms of asking for the review, make sure to point out why that review is important. You can tell the users that you need the review to enhance their experience, for example.
Check this out.
Your CTA should reinforce your message and link directly to the platform or page where you want the user to leave their review. You can create a landing page specifically designed for collecting user reviews and link to it from your emails, for example. The easier you make it for users to review your product, the more reviews you’ll likely collect.
2. Create a hashtag campaign
Another effective strategy for encouraging UGC production is a hashtag campaign. This technique also makes it easier to compile the content since all the UGC will be available under one hashtag.
Create a unique branded hashtag for this campaign. You also want it to be short and memorable so customers can easily use it.
Next, inform the users on how the hashtag campaign works. For example, do you want them to share content on how they use your product? Or perhaps you want them to give an overall experience working with your brand?
Ensure the instructions are clear to get the content you want.
As I mentioned earlier, this would also be a great place to partner with big personalities within your industry to gain that initial momentum. Just ensure you coordinate with them beforehand so they can promote your hashtag campaign how you want them to. You can hold your meetings using UCaaS platforms so you can get transcripts of what you talked about at the end of each session. You can then distribute these transcripts to get everyone on the same page.
You can also share details about this campaign across all your marketing channels, including email and social media.
Another idea is to create a contest with a big prize. One of the requirements would be to share the UGC using a specific hashtag. This is a great way to popularize the hashtag and get people excited about producing UGC.
Repost the UGC shared by users on social media channels on your brand’s official profiles to show your appreciation and encourage participation from other UGC creators.
3. Offer incentives for sharing
Finally, you can offer incentives to encourage more users to produce and share UGC. The important thing you need to consider is the type of incentive.
Your incentive must be relevant to your audience. It must also be valuable enough to convince a business professional to participate.
For example, a SaaS company might share a significant discount on their subscription fees or pricing plans. You could also offer a few extra seats for free.
You can increase participation even further by adding an element of exclusivity. For example, only the first ten people to produce and share their UGC will be rewarded.
Now, though incentives can drive more UGC, they can also hurt your reputation if users leave specific types of reviews to get the rewards. You don’t want that. Also, platforms like G2 have strict regulations around incentivized reviews.
Therefore, you must approach this strategy carefully to ensure the UGC email marketing doesn’t hurt you. First, make sure the incentives are not wildly lucrative. This can result in biased reviews.
Secondly, clearly state that though you’re rewarding people for their reviews, you don’t want a specific review from them. You want them to share their genuine experiences with your products.
2 effective strategies to incorporate UGC in your email marketing campaign
You’ve seen why UGC is crucial and how to encourage its production within your target market. Next, let’s look at two interesting ways you can do UGC email marketing to get the best results.
1. Showcase customer testimonials
This simple strategy can skyrocket the conversion rate of your email marketing strategy. Just go through your UGC content, pick the best ones, and include them in some of your most important emails.
For example, you could include them in one of the final emails you use for lead nurturing. You can also include them in one of the free trial emails when you want free trial users to upgrade to a paid plan.
Iterable, for example, shares testimonials in their confirmation email when a customer requests a demo. You can see them towards the end of the email. The testimonials and brand badges act as social proof.
One interesting way of boosting the effectiveness of your UGC is by picking testimonials that prospects can resonate with.
Let’s say you’re a software company whose product is used by brands across different industries. You have non-profit customers, agencies, enterprise customers, etc. If you’re emailing a non-profit prospect, the best approach is to share testimonials from your nonprofit customers.
Similarly, if you’re targeting an enterprise prospective client, share a testimonial from an enterprise customer.
The goal is to ensure recipients can resonate with the testimonials and see how other brands within their industry benefit from your product.
2. Feature user photos or videos
Adding customer photos and videos is another great way to incorporate UGC in email campaigns.
Encourage users to leave a short video testimonial when reviewing your product on platforms like G2 and Capterra. They can also share screenshots and screen recordings showing how they use and benefit from your product.
Here’s an example of a brand using UGC from Facebook in their cart abandonment email.
Then, get their permission to use these photos and videos in your emails. These visuals will make your UGC even more compelling, allowing you to win the trust and business of other prospective customers.
Conclusion
User-generated content can more than double the conversion rate of your email campaigns. Including this type of content in your emails is, hence, a no-brainer.
This article looked at how you can encourage the production of UGC and how to include that content in your email. You can include UGC in the form of customer testimonials. You can also share photos and videos.
It’s also important to ensure the authenticity of your UGC. You can do that by sharing the names, photos, and company names of the folks behind your UGC. Also, if you decide to use incentives to encourage more UGC production, make sure your policy is crystal clear that you want genuine customer reviews.
