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UGC and brand content: how it affects your sales

Using user generated content is recognizing that fact that digital marketing has changed: consumers takes now an active part in the promotion process. A recent study reveals that 70% of consumers prefer peer recommendations and reviews rather than professionally written content. Gone are the days when you could just sell with a one-fits-all marketing campaign. In fact, consumers are now in control of the entire digital message, they own their story and listening to what they want is far more effective than any typical marketing campaign. When used with brand content, UGC is very effective and leads to sales generation. Here are 4 reasons UGC and brand content should both be included in your digital marketing strategy.

1. They both create authenticity

Brand content, is the very voice of your company’s values and philosophy and it truly sets you apart from your competition. But when you integrate user generated content to it, you provide an authentic user experience.
As a result of this more personalized and engaging experience, your marketing campaigns will be more effective and more impactful. A perfect digital strategy is the right balance between the voice of your brand the voice of the consumer, which at the end, both contribute to improve brand image and sales.

2. Visual content is key

A recent statistic revealed that consumers only remember 10% of information they receive, after a period of three day. But if visual content is associated with that same information, people are said to remember 65% of the information after the same time period.
In that sense, people are more likely to remember your products and services if they saw relevant images of it, as in a social wall for example. Not only does social walls act as recommendations, but they also are advertise your brand without screaming: “buy me!”.

3. Brand content proves your expertise

How many times when you Googled the definition of a concept, have you found yourself in the blog section of a website? Probably a lot. The reason is that the content you found is considered relevant by people who look for it, and therefore by search engines too. Blogging for your business is a very import part of your content marketing strategy. By doing so you are proving to future consumers that you are an expert in you are and that they should trust using your products/services.

4. Website benefits

By combining UGC and brand content, you are creating opportunities for visitors to stay on your website.
This will allow visitors to see how well you know your area of business and how your customers are. In a sense, you are responding to the visitors’ questions before they even ask them, which will develop a sense of safety in their mind. Another benefit of including UGC and brand content in your strategy is SEO. The more you are creating relevant content, the more visibility and indexing you will get on search engines.

A good example of a UGC and brand content strategy implementation is the American automaker company Ford.
For their Ford Fiesta campaign, 100 specialized bloggers were offered a Ford Fiesta.
In return, bloggers had to talk publicly about they felt about their experience with the car, after a month of utilization. As a result, the brand got more than :

• 6 million views

• 40 million Twitter impressions

• 6,000 orders of the Ford Fiesta