7 Exceptional Ways To Boost ROI With Consumer Generated Content

Do you know how powerful Consumer Generated Content is today? Well, 75% of consumers claimed that CGC makes content more authentic.

There is a shift occurring in content creation from brand generated content to consumer generated content (CGC). CGC is content created by consumers that advocate for a brand. People trust CGC more than brand created content.

But why Consumer Generated Content is so important in this era?

Well, CGC is perceived as more genuine, and therefore more trustworthy for the consumers. Seeing someone like them advocate for a product makes consumers more likely to trust that brand.

In fact, using CGC to increase your credibility, relevance, average orders, social media engagement, consumer time spent on site, and more can help you build a successful brand.

However, if you’re unaware to utilize CGC to increase your business ROI, this guide will help you learn how to effectively utilize CGC to increase ROI.

1. Credibility Is The Key

Let’s face it, one thing a lot of companies struggle with is perceived credibility.

Today, many ads are seen  by consumers as phony and disingenuous; and that perception will obviously hamper their ability to draw people into your site. In fact, 27% of shoppers are now adapting to CGC over traditional concepts of ads and campaigns.

76% of people trust CGC more than content created by a brand. Because, these days consumers want to know the product they’re considering has a certain level of quality, and people love a quality product that they hear about by word of mouth.

Well, you will get a better idea by the Starbucks – The White Cup Contest Campaign

Starbucks launched a user-centric campaign #whitecupcontest in April 2014. Well, as the part of the contest, consumers were asked to come up with a creative drawing on their Starbucks cups and submit pictures as entries.

The contest lasted for more than three weeks and during the contest period, approximately 4000 consumers submitted their cup pictures with drawings.

This campaign generated a massive attention as a successful social media activity. Well, this simply means that if you are using CGC for your brand, you don’t need a huge budget to have a big impact on social media.

In a nutshell, valuing your consumer’s feedback will always help in enhancing your brand!

2. Relevance Is Must!

Why consumers focus on relevance in any business brand?

These days, Relevance is important for consumers because if the ads are user-centric, the better they will perform, the cheaper they will be, and there are better chances to increase your ROI.

Well, let’s see how Facebook determines an ad’s relevance score.

An ad’s relevance score on Facebook is determined by positive and negative feedback from users. Since we already know that CGC is seen as much more credible, CGC ads will generally be better received by users and thus the brand can receive high relevance scores on Facebook.

Facebook prioritizes relevant content and that is why a relevant ad will cost you less to reach more users. In 2016 Facebook reported that CGC featuring a brand experienced a 6.9X higher engagement rate than brand generated content.

So, you should spend time and money creating your own ad, or you could utilize free CGC and increase your ROI.

3. Increase Average Order

Massively increasing user engagement is great, but did you know that CGC can also increase the amount of money people will spend when they land on your site?

Enerskin has the answer what you’re exactly looking for!

Enerskin increased their average order value by 76% by using CGC on their website. Customer photos and videos can be displayed and automated based on past consumer behavior. Such predictive content makes it easier for customers to find what they are looking for and that means your website’s average order increases.

Well, adapting Enerskin’s strategy of using CGC can also help you grow your brand’s ROI.

4. Increase The Time Spent On Website

The longer someone spends on your site, the higher the chance is of them spending money. CGC driven sites have up to a 90% increase in the amount of time consumers spend on their site, as well as a 20% increase in return customers.

CGC has a remarkable ability to bring in users and keep them around, keeping them engaged with content they find interesting and compelling enough to make a purchase. One thing you really want to lower is bounce rates.

A website’s bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate is a sure sign that your site is not engaging enough to keep someone interested in what you have to offer.

Here are some ways that can help you reduce bounce rate and improve conversions on websites:

• Create a compelling Call-To-Action (CTA).
• Enhance your brand storytelling (by making customers the hero).
• Use right content in your blog and keep it fresh.
• Add keywords with high-value traffic to your website.
• Indulge attractive meta description for users.
• Speed up your page loading time.

Using CGC is a great way to decrease your bounce rate and keep people on your site long enough to find something they are interested in purchasing.

5. Social Media Is Your Armor

Social media has become an all-pervasive force in the modern advertising world. Five million companies now advertise on Facebook alone. Companies need to use it effectively to stay competitive.

With millions of companies and Social Media Is Your Armor of ads to compete with, it becomes all the more important to create content that will stand out amidst that noise. You are unlikely to accomplish this task through conventional brand marketing. Social media is of particular value when it comes to using CGC to increase ROI.

One brand that has mastered using CGC on the social media platform is GoPro.

Every day, GoPro’s Instagram page features a new photo and video taken by a consumer. This is a great tactic to keep their page’s content credible (user generated), fresh, and free.

This way you can also prove your customers that their feelings and feedback is what the most important for the brand.

6. Integrate CGC Into Existing Methods

Pivoting your existing online resources towards CGC is a great idea!

Companies have had success by encouraging customers to submit content of themselves using specific products and then cataloguing this content for further use on their website or on social media.

Well, to understand in brief, Vanity Planet has something to share with us.

Vanity Planet shared shoppable CGC content on their website and then added the hashtag #vpbeauty. Sharing this kind of content, while drawing in social media users, encourages more people to create and submit more CGC to the company.

In fact, including lots of CGC photos and videos on your blog and then hashtag them to bring in extra viewers who are interested in your products and services. Give your email marketing campaigns a shot in the arm by including some CGC.

StudioDIY is an ideal example for your queries.

StudioDIY, a creative lifestyle company, uses photos of happy customers rather than models or stock photos, on various social media platforms. This will attract people’s eye as no model or branded product is used to depict their brand.

Similarly, you can also use CGC to make your brand stand out from the crowd!

7. Writing Help For Using CGC

It’s important that any writing you do involving your CGC is well written and grammatically correct. Remember what we learned about credibility? Poor writing, typos, and grammatical errors are some very easy, and totally avoidable ways to lose credibility fast.

But, in reality, there’s nothing to worry about!

There are many resources available to help you with your writing but if you need a personal writing assistant, SocialPilot’s AI Assistant can be of great use. It helps you come up with social media copies, hashtags and content ideas to enhance the credibility of your consumer generated content.

This AI assistant allows you to generate copy variations and removes creativity blocks at all levels. Moreover, with an AI Assistant you can also make sure that your social media copies are grammatically correct.

The Final Verdict!

The internet has become a very crowded and competitive marketplace. New ways of advertising are necessary to stay relevant and competitive.

Well, with using CGC, you can effectively and inexpensively increase your ROI. CGC is the new large scale, digital version of word of mouth advertising. You can use CGC to increase your brand’s credibility, relevance, average order value, social media engagement, consumer time spent on site, while lowering your bounce rate.

So, what are you waiting for?

Take the charge to use the above resources to make sure your brand achieve a great success on versatile social media platforms!