If 93% of consumers trust content created by customers more than content created by brands, it illustrates how valuable user-generated content (UGC) can be for you.
By offering your customers incentives in exchange for original content created through your loyalty program, you can leverage your existing loyalty programs to build brand advocates.
This article will explain how user-generated content can help turn your loyalty program members into brand advocates.
What is User-Generated Content (UGC)?
UGC is a loyalty amplifier that includes any form of original content, including texts, photos, audio, images or video that is voluntarily created by individuals and shared in blog posts, on social media, brand pages, podcasts and review sites.
Loyalty amplifiers are incentives that spark loyalty program engagement and motivate and excite your members.
User-generated content can be shared among your customers via photos, videos or any forum that allows feedback.
A loyalty amplifier like user-generated content helps you easily identify your brand advocates and collect authentic testimonials. UGC is valuable to brands because they receive a steady stream of content created by their most loyal customers.
UGC is an amazing asset for your brand because consumers can create it anytime, anywhere. Consumers capture moments, pictures and videos and create content from their smartphones. And after just a few clicks, they can distribute that original content on their favorite social platforms.
Content engagement, product discovery and trusted content are huge factors that influence purchase decisions. This makes UGC valuable to your brand due to its massive reach.
Why is UGC Important to Brands and Consumers?
When your loyalty program members generate user-generated content and share it with others on your brand pages, it builds emotional bonds and creates a community.
Brands that create communities through user-generated content form strong relationships that significantly impact messaging.
Give your loyalty program members a reason to voice their thoughts about your brand and to interact with others.
Fifty-three percent of consumers said a chance to win a cash prize would be the main reason they would want to submit user-generated content (text, videos, images, reviews,).
Nearly 50% of consumers said a coupon code or discount would incentivize them to submit user-generated content, 43% said a chance to win products from the brand and 33% said a chance to win a big-ticket item like a car or television.
Only 11% of consumers said brands offer incentives to participate in user-generated content regularly, 27% said somewhat often, 31% said not often and 32% said never.
This is interesting because it presents your brand with a big opportunity to engage more with consumers using incentives.
Examples of Brands Using UGC to Increase Customer Loyalty
Capital One Bank #SHAREMYSAVE
This UGC loyalty amplifier wanted to change the social conversation around National Savings Day and celebrate the meaningful things people save.
To participate, consumers shared photos of items they’ve been saving and a description of why they are so special to them for a chance to win weekly prizes of $500 or the $10,000 grand prize.
Hilton Wowmakers Contest
This UGC loyalty amplifier promotes advocacy within the industry and deepens relationships with travel agents and meeting planners.
Professionals could nominate themselves or a fellow travel agent or meeting planner who created a “wow” moment—when they went beyond to deliver an amazing experience for a client.
Ten winners were selected to attend one of five professional conferences designed to help them develop their businesses, and each nominator received a Be My Guest certificate good for a one-night stay at a Hilton hotel.
Check out this Loyalty Amplifiers webinar recap for a further breakdown of the Hilton Wowmakers Contest.
Hannaford 2020 Graduates
Hannaford offered an incentivized UGC engagement for 2020 graduates due to their resilience during the pandemic.
Hannaford asked 2020 graduates to upload 30-second video messages of encouragement to their future selves for a chance to win the $10,000 grand prize or one of five $500 first prizes.
And the original video submissions were featured on the brand’s website in a public gallery so everyone could share in the positivity.
Take Advantage of Your Customers’ Content Creativity
Since most consumers can’t live without smartphones, why not encourage them to capture moments from their interactions with your brand and share them with loyal customers?
Your customers have the power of creating original content in their hands in the form of their smartphones.
If you create and offer an incentive around user-generated content in exchange for a chance to win a prize, your customers will respond and show you how much they care about your brand in creative ways.
This will help your brand turn your most loyal customers into advocates who create and share authentic content influencing purchasing decisions. Consumers trust the opinions of other consumers who use your brand.
This article is part of The Ultimate Guide to Loyalty Amplifiers.
If you want to learn more about loyalty amplifiers, check out the previous article in the series, How Gift With Purchase Engages Loyalty Program Members, or the next article in the series, How Social Media Incentives Can Boost Loyalty Program Engagement.
ebbo
ebbo helps brands achieve their customer loyalty goals with full-service, end-to-end solutions and also creates original educational content straight from the experts to help loyalty marketers stay on the cutting edge of customer engagement.