In the world of digital marketing, ‘normal’ advertising is fast becoming obsolete. With 15% of people in the UK blocking ads and the use of ad blocking costing the advertising industry $21.8bn last year, it is clear people are fed up with ads intruding into their online lives.
People are blocking ads for a number of reasons - from finding them annoying or irrelevant, to them slowing down their browsing. It has created a huge challenge for marketers: what can we do to boost awareness of our brands and products in this environment?
I would suggest marketers who are looking at driving brand awareness focus on fostering a level of trust with existing customers - with the ultimate aim of them becoming brand evangelists. There is nothing more valuable than word of mouth recommendation from a friend or a family member. Customers are much more likely to trust a friend’s opinion than they are a company ‘telling them’ what they should buy. If they cannot find a friend or family member’s opinion about a product or service, the next place most people will turn to are online reviews.
The blurring of lines in how customers interact with a brand and its products and services is the effect of the smartphone. People are now connected to their mobile phones almost 24 hours a day. These are connected customers who can interact with a brand’s website and social media accounts, find online reviews and check out credentials, at the same time as standing in the company’s store.
So how can businesses take advantage of these connected customers and give themselves the best chance of success in this new digitally connected world?
Encourage customer interaction.
Instead of shying away from talking directly with customers and asking their opinions, businesses should encourage two-way communication with customers. Brands can ask customers to share their own pictures using a product or enjoying a service via their website or social channels.
Find brand ambassadors and work with them.
Look out for those customers who are the most loyal, active and engaged across all channels and work with them. Get positive stories, push case studies, ask them to run a webinar, create a hashtag and ask them to actively contribute. Make them feel special. Reward them. Foster a relationship with them. Working with brand ambassadors will give a business credibility that simply cannot be gained by traditional advertising.
Work with a digital marketing platform that powers User Generated Content (UGC).
Utilising UGC can sometimes feel daunting for a marketing team. One way of making the process a lot easier is to work with a digital marketing platform who are able to provide the means to handle UGC in all its forms, including navigating the tricky area of user permissions.
From being able to tap into social sentiment and include this in an email marketing campaign at the touch of a button, to handling customer reviews and publishing them on a company’s website, to using UGC within websites and apps – this is something brands must now embrace.
But why? The reason is simple - UGC is one of the most trusted forms of marketing; this is why YouTube stars promote products, and companies use bloggers to push their content on social media. UGC drives measurable sales.
UGC is more trusted and effective for a company to use than traditional advertising, and with new methods popping up all the time this looks set to continue. Using on-open live UGC in email results in 43% increase in click-through rates, up to 3x conversion rate improvement and 86% consumer trust rating as an indicator of product/service quality. UGC is 50% more trusted than any other content (Ipsos MORI) and can help to drive maximum returns for any campaign by combining UGC with brand content, resulting in a more authentic, personalized and connected customer experience. It is a way to massively increase the content available to brands at little cost and time – most of whom are content poor.
One brand already using UGC in their email and social campaigns #myholidayhabits is Teletext Holidays, the UK’s longest established digital travel agency in the UK, with nearly 300,000 customers last year. They use Smart Content, part of The Message Cloud, as their UGC solution.
Kelly Maher, Head of CRM at Teletext Holidays explains:
“Since using Smart Content, we have seen an unprecedented 2x increase in engagement rates. My team and I are now able to use up-to-the-second user generated content from all major social channels including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter to populate our emails with truly personalised, highly engaging content in real-time.”
So, start encouraging more UGC, provide the means for customers to easily provide it, and then leave it to develop organically. Too much meddling can result in a fake sheen being put on the whole thing and savvy customers will see right through it. Let it run and as long as the content keeps pouring in and it is (mostly!) positive, the sales will rack up over time.
Are you up for the challenge?
Download our UGC infographic here, or get started with UGC in email and web today and speak with one of our friendly consultants here.