The Pandemic Marketing Shift: How Brands Can Drive Online Sales with UGC

With a new normal on the horizon, companies are faced with a reality they never imagined; a world where their old way of doing things does not work anymore. Accenture shares that Covid’s impact will permanently change user behavior, and there’s a growing love for local — reflected in both the products consumers buy (e.g. locally sourced, artisanal) and the way consumers shop (e.g. supporting community stores).

Much of this was already in motion, but the global pandemic is accelerating it. Brick and mortars were already retracting. Traditional marketing was shifting to digital, but companies could use their scale, resources, and the slow speed of change to remain successful while studying carefully which moves worked for them.

During the pandemic consumers will shop online, limit purchases, and seek more honest brands

Embrace your new marketing norm

With consumers spending more money online (68% increase YoY) and more time on social media (daily usage of Facebook is up 27%, YouTube is up 15% and TikTok is up 15%), brands need to follow consumers online and ensure their marketing are where their consumer is and where their consumer is going to spend. So of course, it makes sense to up your digital marketing but not all spend is the same. 

While marketing budgets are down and consumers are clamoring for a more approachable brand, it is time to get scrappy and embrace the capabilities of your consumers' voice.

So UGC is valuable, but to extract the value you must manage it

As you evolve customer engagement through UGC, there are a number of factors to consider when making this a part of your marketing strategy and execution process.

While content may be everywhere (to date, 50 billion + photos have been shared on Instagram), how do you collect the content that is usable to your brand, and collect it efficiently? Say you find 100 photos that fit the brand imagery you are trying to create and you want to do something with them. What then? Do you simply reshare it, saying thank you from a publishing platform? Do you download it and look for legal rights via direct message screenshots? Do you know if the photo you found was even theirs to use? How do you share it with others in your company? Do you have a process to manage it?

There are a litany of questions you should ask yourself about how you bring user-generated content into your company from the digital wild. Regardless of your questions, one answer that cannot be ignored is that you will need a process to manage it.

• You need a way to find their content

• You need to be able to easily engage creators for that content

• You need a seamless process that brings them into your “Tribe” ongoing

Rethinking UGC in a brave new world

Your brands need an empathetic and authentic voice and by finding and connecting with your consumers through social, you will be able to do just that. But to balance control and authenticity, you will need a combination that gives freedom of creativity with a system that guides creativity. Think of it as a CRM system for User Generated Content.

If marketing tools are judged by their ROI, then UGC should be no different.

All UGC systems are about helping you save money on creative content. You get content created by others who want recognition and/or are passionate about your brand. Is this enough? What should brands be thinking about how to make their UGC program efficient first, so it can then be effective and thus valuable?

If we break down how we can build a process there are three simple steps:

1. Find them: Your process needs a way to help you find content, identify creators, and invite them to be part of your brand’s journey. This is about bringing your consumers out of the digital wild and into your brand’s formal process for impacting your strategy.
2. Manage them: Most UGC processes are missing this. This process is critical to hitting the authenticity/control bullseye. Managing creators allows you to openly communicate with creators while keeping brand strategy in mind. Allow your creators to understand what successful UGC looks like, communicate with them in an organized fashion, collaborate with your colleagues to decide what is usable, and have a seamless process for ongoing legal rights to their creative. This part of your UGC tribe is a must if you are going to be able to grow your community and build a viable process that drives ROI.
3. Reward them: Ok, you found them, you are managing them, why should they lean in? Those who give you the authentic content you want should be rewarded. Rewarding your community will increase their brand loyalty and future creative participation. Most UGC programs try to create closed loop attribution by saying the authentic photos drive sales because they link to a website. What if you build a team of loyalists within your creators by rewarding those who produce usable content driving ROI in content, earned media and trackable sales through couponing. Rewarding should always be about driving sales, not simply paying for messaging or content.

A company with the ability to do these three things in a systematic way will grow their pool of UGC creators, increase their ROI, and consistently create authentic on-brand content.

In a world turned upside down, the time to do things the same way is over. Consumer spending, shopping and consumption patterns have changed. With that consumers' needs from the brands they consider spending with has changed as well. Rather than let the new normal take you for a ride, define your process and enable your brand to scale in an authentic digital first world through the power of UGC.