UGC is key to a strong startup marketing strategy
Consumers trust other consumers more than they do your brand. It’s a simple statement but one that should get you thinking about the approach you’re taking to your Challenger Brand marketing, and make you question whether or not you should be introducing User Generated Content, or UGC, into the mix.
User Generated Content has become hugely popular over the past few years. It is, as the name suggests, content (be that copy, video, images, reviews, podcasts) created about your brand by people outside of your brand. As a marketing strategy, particularly a Challenger marketing strategy, it’s making an impact:
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79% of people say UGC highly impacts their purchasing decisions. (Stackla)
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31% of consumers say advertisements that feature UGC are more memorable than those that don’t. (Jukin Media)
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Consumers are 2.4x more likely to say UGC is authentic compared to brand-created content (Stackla)
The results prove that UGC works. But why exactly is it so successful?
UGC builds brand authenticity and customer trust
Consumers trust other consumers more than they do your brand. By encouraging people to create high quality UGC and sharing the results on social media you’re demonstrating how your product or service is being used by real people in their day-to-day lives. It provides a sense of familiarity and authenticity you can’t quite capture with an advertisement or straight-forward piece of branded content.
UGC gives your audience a voice
As someone’s trust and appreciation for your brand grows, they will actively look for ways they can be a part of your narrative and align themselves with your values beyond just purchasing your products. Nike’s Nulla Puo Fermarci TikTok campaign was launched as a result of 55% of young women in Milan not doing sport, and sporting heroines being ignored or objectified.
In order to get young women moving again, the brand composed three dance routines that people could get involved with on the channel. The challenge was viewed over 20 million times, with 46,700 dance challenges (or pieces of UGC) completed.
UGC increases the visibility of your brand
Naturally, the more content that is created around your brand, the more opportunity you have to attract potential customers. Every time someone creates a piece of UGC, it’s shared with their audience, thereby extending the reach of your brand so you can achieve your success metrics. Keep in mind that, according to Statista, 56% of internet users say they find out about products from friends or acquaintances.
UGC diversifies your social media content
Alongside the above, UGC is also an excellent way to diversify your current content, and bring an outside perspective or vision to what can potentially be seen as monotonous branded content. You can use UGC to really showcase the audience you’re reaching, and celebrate the different voices that invest in what you’re offering.
UGC is cost-effective for startups
Particularly for Challengers, utilizing content on your own channels created by others means you can place more budget behind original content of your own.
You should also take a market research approach to your UGC, and use it as an opportunity to dig into what people actually feel about your brand or a new product/offering. How are they responding to it? How does that product or service actually look and feel when it’s out in the wild?
We’ve seen the impact UGC can have on a brand. One way we leveraged UGC was for Mama Earth Organics. After realizing they had incredible UGC from their farmers, artisans and real customers, we shifted their strategy to be UGC-first.
The business grew so dramatically that there is now a customer wait list and Mama Earth is actively working to build out more capacity. Mama Earth’s Instagram following increased 22% in 3.5 months and customer UGC across all channels more than doubled as customers saw that their posts were being reshared with the community.
Performance marketing campaigns saw their conversions rate multiplied by 3.5, which yielded 5x more purchases. Branded search increased x3.5, while Instagram and Facebook organic traffic grew 4x and helped generate incremental purchases.
Get in touch with us here to see how we can bring the same success to you.
For more on refining your marketing strategy, check out our winning process for developing a start-up go-to-market strategy.
A powerful go-to-market strategy is unparalleled in its importance. It’s something that spans email marketing, search engines, landing pages, social media, and more.
As well as clarifying why you’re launching a specific product or service, it helps determine who it’s for, and how you’re going to get them to engage with and buy it at scale so you can reach revenue, market share, and profitability expectations. In short, a good go-to-market strategy should offer all the clarification you need.
