Customer Content Marketing 101
Introduction Marketing has undergone a major metamorphosis in the past decade. The advent of the internet turned what was once familiar, well-trodden terrain into a largely unrecognizable new world. When navigating new surroundings, it s vital to stay aware of the emerging trends so you don t fall behind. If tried-and-true marketing knowledge is the compass you use to steer you in the right direction, this is your map to understanding how to get to your destination. Today s consumers are inundated with marketing taglines and, as a result, they have learned to recognize marketing and brand content. They have become much more wary of being manipulated by brands and prefer instead to trust real customers when forming purchasing decisions. Customers have begun interacting with brands and other customers via user-generated content (UGC). Whether this means submitting a selfie with a brand hashtag for the chance to win a contest, or reading product reviews before making a purchase, customer-created content is taking over marketing. For brands, the future of marketing relies on learning how to harness UGC and building a strategy focused on customer content. In this ebook, you will learn the basics of integrating customer content into a marketing campaign, the essential psychological principles that make it so powerful, and how customer content marketing relates to traditional consumer-to-consumer conversations such as referrals and word-of-mouth. You will gain actionable tips on how to best integrate customer content into your marketing plan in a meaningful way and how to get the most SEO benefits from customer content. Additionally, we ll address common obstacles for marketers, such as dealing with negative feedback from users, how to measure the reliability of customer content, and how to frame customer content in a digestible way. 2
Table of contents CHAPTER 1 What the heck is Customer Content Marketing? 04 CHAPTER 2 The psychology of customer content marketing 07 CHAPTER 3 How Customer Content Marketing builds trust 14 CHAPTER 4 Customer content and the future of marketing 17 3
CHAPTER 1 What the heck is Customer Content Marketing? In a nutshell, customer content marketing (CCM) is the strategy of using brand-sponsored marketing alongside content created by customers to increase brand loyalty, customer retention, word-of-mouth marketing, engagement, and more. User-generated content, or UGC, is one type of customer content that has become popular among brands of all sizes. UGC is one aspect of customer content marketing, but CCM is about more than just launching a campaign with Instagram photos your customers posted: it is about building customer centricity into marketing. Customer Content Marketing (CCM): Employing customer-created content to drive marketing campaigns. CCM is a solution for building brand trust and awareness in a digital, socially connected world. It brings word-of-mouth into the digital sphere, making it easy for brands to leverage happy customers to reach new traffic and increase sales. Customer content is diverse, including everything from blog posts and forum comments to photos shared on Facebook or videos uploaded to YouTube. It s because of this diversity that it s essential to learn how to best utilize it effectively to build a successful campaign with meaningful momentum. 4
Customer content marketing is great because it... Encourages organic conversation between customers By contributing their input, customers engage in a conversation with your brand and other consumers. Then they have intrinsic motivation to continue the conversation due to altruism and the desire to be involved in a similar community, which strengthens their feelings about your brand as they return over and over to engage. Data from over 100,000 ecommerce stores reveals consumer-toconsumer conversations don t just engage, but positively impact sales. Yotpo data found emails asking previous shoppers to answer someone s question about a product they purchased bring back 10% of previous shoppers, with a 4.34% conversion rate. Customers enjoy interacting with each other and advocating for brands they love. Naturally targets the right customers Rather than trying to target your audience with the right advertisement for them, customer content naturally targets across social networks. As customers seek out and spread information that genuinely interests them, they advertise for brands to their online networks. For example, if you run a campaign asking customers to Tweet a photo of themselves with your product and hashtag it, this will reach people in their circle of influence. The people it reaches are likely to have similar motivations, pain points and interests as the original sharer, making them the perfect target segment. Furthermore, the people who see the tweet know that someone in their social circle has put a personal stamp of approval on your brand. As a result, conversion rates from social referrals are high. 5
The average industry conversion rate is 2%. Yotpo Analytics took a look at the average conversion rates as a result of sharing customer content (reviews) on social. Average conversion rate of traffic coming from reviews shared on social. 7.00% 6.46% 6.00% 5.00% 4.00% 3.00% 2.49% 2.58% 2.00% 1.00% 0.00% Reviews shared to linkedin Reviews shared to Facebook Reviews shared to Twitter Figures courtesy of Yorpo's global user database of over 100,000 online businesses, March 2015. Data Driven by As you can see, all of the social conversion rates are higher than the industry average when they include customer content, and for Twitter, the conversion rate is three times the average. Boosts trust in brands through real collaboration One of the biggest obstacles for online businesses is ensuring customers feel comfortable and confident when shopping. Customers want to get the whole story before making an online purchase, and real feedback from fellow shoppers gives them insight a product description can t. Instill trust in shoppers who may be unsure about buying by giving them access to customer insight so they can make a purchase they believe in. 6
CHAPTER 2 The Psychology of Customer Content Marketing Customer content marketing works. And we aren t just saying that. It s backed up by serious research. Before you begin building a customer content marketing strategy, it s imperative to learn the driving factors that make customer content effective so you can harness these principles to your advantage. The Psychology of Customer Content Marketing 1 Customer content marketing leverages shoppers need for social proof; People look to advice from others to avoid mistakes and make the right choices. 2 During the top of the funnel stages, uncertainty is highest and people are most likely to listen to CCM. 3 The best CCM is targeted by peer groups; Social proof is more effective when the target perceives similarity to the person sharing the content. 4 Understanding and leveraging social proof, and its two driving factors: uncertainty and similarity, can help you build a more successful campaign. 7
The psychology of social proof: Why we care what others say What makes consumers follow the advice, opinions, or actions of other consumers? Customer content marketing works because of a psychological response known as social proof. Social proof explains we are hardwired to learn from others to help us avoid making potentially harmful choices. For example, if we see someone else touch a hot pan and experience pain, we are probably not going to try it for ourselves. In addition to actions, we are also influenced by others opinions. If we do not have knowledge about a subject, we are more open to accepting the opinions of others if we believe they know more about a situation. Even if we have not seen someone get burned firsthand, if a parent warns us not to touch the pan, we are likely to trust them and take their advice. But we aren t always influenced by others... If we based all of our decisions on others input, we would be stuck trying to choose which way to turn because we absorb thousands of conflicting point of views over any given subject. Just as we aren t entirely dependent on social proof in life decisions, consumers aren t entirely reliant on social proof in shopping decisions. Some consumers really love Coke, even though all their friends are Pepsi fans. Likewise, some shoppers will make a purchase even after others encourage them not to. 8
So what determines how much social proof impacts a decision? Uncertainty: You don t always know what you want Social proof is strongest when consumers have high levels of uncertainty. In other words, it is most effective when consumers are at the top of the funnel. If a shopper is not sure about which car to buy but colleagues chip in their opinions, the shopper is more likely to be influenced than if a general idea of what they wanted was cemented in their mind. In contrast, if a shopper already wants a Nissan and a friend suggests a Jeep, the shopper will probably still buy the Nissan. In situations in which consumers are unsure, they assume others have more information about the situation and are better poised to form an opinion. Opinionated people are hard to influence in a different direction. How to apply this to your marketing: Consumers are most likely to be influenced when they are in the top of the funnel. During this time, they are still forming an opinion about a brand or product but are not really committed or swayed either way. Know where in the funnel your consumer lies to understand which user content to give them. If they have chosen to make a purchase and are simply going back and worth between brands, customer feedback displayed on product pages can help reinforce their existing belief in the product. However, first-time visitors to sites and those who have just begun searching for information on a purchase are seeking general information and are highly likely to be influenced. Strategies like shared endorsements on social media or campaigns that take advantage of the power of numbers and show off groups of people talking about your product can help nudge them in the right direction. 9
Similarity: Birds of a feather flock together Another important factor in how much social proof influences consumer decisions is similarity. Even when a consumer is relatively sure of a purchasing decision, if close friends chime in their opinions, they are much more likely to be influenced than if they simply viewed strangers testimonials. We are more likely to believe people who appear similar to us, because we assume they would make a decision like the one we would make. This is one reason why social media is such a great match for CCM. Consumers use social media to connect with friends. They are naturally primed for social referrals, and are much more likely to be influenced by the items they are purchasing, sharing, or recommending than by brand advertising on these channels. How to apply this to your marketing: The likelihood that a friend of a friend will find your product increases when diverse groups of people are chatting, Tweeting, like-ing, and sharing about you. Reward social sharing and using hashtags to build an established social base for your brand. Offer incentives for users to share their content and include clear call-to-actions that ask users to invite others to contribute. Make sure your CCM campaign is centered on social sharing - ask yourself if it would thrive without social word-of-mouth. If the answer is no - if your campaign is not inherently something users will be passionate about sharing with their friends and family - then it s time to go back to the drawing board. 10
The Psychology of Customer Content in Action How Social Proof Really Drives Engagement & Sales Enough theory, what does the data have to say? We dove into the data to show you exactly how adding one type of customer content - reviews - impact sales and engagement. Here s what we found: The more products you have with reviews, the higher your conversion rate will be. According to the data, the higher the percentage of products with reviews (compared to total products), the more people will buy from your store. In other words, if you have 100 products with no reviews, your CVR will be lower than if you have 10 products and they all have reviews Visitor to Order CVR vs. Number of Reviewed Products 80,000 3.50% 70,000 3.00% 60,000 50,000 2.50% 2.00% 40,000 30,000 20,000 1.50% 1.00% 10,000 0.50% - 2014-09 2014-10 2014-11 2014-12 2015-01 0.00% Reviewed products CVR Figures courtesy of Yorpo's global user database of over 100,000 online businesses, March 2015. Data Driven by 11
Seeing other consumers rate a product highly makes people more likely to buy. We wanted to find out just how much the actual star ratings influence customers' future behavior. To do so, we analyzed one million reviews for 8.6 million purchases made on 6623 products across multiple verticals and stores. What did we find? The data shows that products with higher star reviews have a much higher volume of purchases. More stars lead to more sales. Average Star Rating and Number of Orders 1,200,000 Number of orders in the Last 30 Days 1,000,000 800,000 600,000 400,000 200,000 5 4 3 2 1 Average Star Rating Per Product Figures courtesy of Yorpo's global user database of over 100,000 online businesses, March 2015. Data Driven by 12
People write more reviews for highly rated products Remember when we said people are influenced by what others say? Check out what happens when it comes to reviews: The higher a products star rating, the more chance it will get more customers interacting with it and writing even more reviews. 160,000 Average Star Rating and Number of Reviews 140,000 120,000 1,000,000 Number of Reviews 800,000 600,000 460,000 260,000 5 4 3 2 1 Average Star Rating Figures courtesy of Yorpo's global user database of over 100,000 online businesses, March 2015. Data Driven by In other words, people are socially influenced by seeing other people review a good product, and it encourages them to review the product as well. Chalk it up to the Snowball Effect, but when a few people say something good, everyone else wants to pile it on. This shows that social proof is at work not just in our buying decisions, but even when it comes to how we engage with products. People are influenced by others, there s no doubt about that. 13
CHAPTER 3 How Customer Content Marketing Builds Trust So the other day, I was at this restaurant... People trust people, which is why customer content is so important for building trust. But why are reviews and testimonials so much more powerful than statistics? What is it that makes people believe a stranger s personal opinion is more trustworthy than hard numbers? The answer may surprise you. People connect with customer content because it s approachable. It s relatable. And, it frames experience as story. When we hear someone s experience - whether in a review, personal conversation, or magazine write-up - we are able to put ourselves in their shoes. We don t just try to imagine their experience, we actually mentally simulate being in their position. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that our brain lights up as if we were completing the actions ourselves. While participants read excerpts of a story, the readers brain acted as if they were completing the actions in the story. When a character s hand moved to pick up an object in the story, neurons in the areas of the brain related to hand movement lit up. Likewise, when the character looked at his surroundings, neurons related to vision lit up. Additionally, we relate information told as a story to other experiences we have had. If we read a restaurant review about delicious Italian food and great service, we remember the taste and pleasure of the last great Italian meal we had, or a time when a waitress was exceptionally kind to us. 14
Stories over statistics People can relate to another person s story. In contrast, it s difficult to identify with a statistic. Even if a product advertises that 90% of its customers experienced increased ROI, a consumer will be more drawn to believe the single personal testimony of a customer. Studies have even found that including a photo of a person increases the likelihood a user will respond. Think of the effectiveness of non-profits who attach photos to personal stories - connecting a face to the cause humanizes an otherwise abstract issue. Go beyond testimonials Testimonials are very effective ways to include personal stories of consumer s experience with your brand, but a more authentic approach is to invite users to submit real stories and photos and integrate this into a marketing campaign. For example, Target invited shoppers to contribute videos of their children receiving acceptance letters to college and used the submissions to market its scholarship program. In addition to integrating testimonials and encouraging detailed reviews that relate a shopper s experience, think of ways to create a thematic story that aligns with your brand image or message. 15
Turn user data into a personalized story You can also reach out personally to customers by taking their data and creating a personalized story for them to increase engagement. Facebook created a year in review slideshows with user s photos, and Spotify created a look back at users year in music by integrating their data and displaying their most-played and favorite tracks of the last year. This allowed current users to look back at their own personal story with each brand that year, increasing loyalty and engagement. So what s the moral of the customer content story? As much as possible, don t just integrate customer content, but create a cohesive storyline or message with them to elicit an emotional reaction. Asking users to hashtag themselves with a photo of your product is one thing, but inviting them to tell a story of their favorite time with your product takes this one step further. Think of ways you can encourage storytelling throughout the campaign to get customers emotionally invested in your campaign. 16
CHAPTER 4 Customer Content and the Future of Marketing As consumers seek a more authentic, autonomous way to interact with brands, contributing and being part of the conversation wins out over being served a marketing message on a silver advertising platter. The Millennial generation, or those born from the early 1980 s to early 2000 s, is the biggest generation of consumers in history, making them extremely lucrative for brands who can crack the puzzle of how to market to them effectively. The Millennial youth is growing up fast, and before long, they will be the ones setting the trends of how and what our world buys. These digital darlings have grown up in the age of the internet and, as a result, they have acutely different needs than anyone before for digital marketing and advertising. Although Millennials are huge media consumers - spending up to 18 hours a day with a variety of content channels, yet 45% of Millinneals say they aren t interested or compelled by content from marketers, according to a study by Tumblr, Yahoo, Razorfish, and DigitasLBi 17
So what gives? Millennials aren t content apathetic, but the #selfie generation responds to self-powered content: in other words, user-generated content. Customer content marketing is marketing for the people, by the people. It s a transparent, connected way to let your audience speak. Millennials are turned off by traditional forms of advertising and wary of brand-sponsored marketing. Millennials want to get involved and have a say in how they connect with products and services. Millennials are less likely to respond to hard advertising and more likely to be drawn to relationships with companies. About 30% of their total media consumption is UGC, which is about the same as traditional media forms like print, radio, and television. This means that UGC, a relatively new media type, is taking as much of their time as the traditional giants. And it s not just taking up their time - it s making impressions. Millennials trust and remember UGC more than every other type of media. In fact, they trust information they receive through UGC 50% more than information from other media sources. And good news for ecommerce - harnessing UGC in your user content marketing pays off with this crowd. More than 50% of Millennials consult UGC before making big purchases, and UGC is 20% more influential on their purchase decisions than other types of media. Learning how to market to millennials is crucial. These digital babies will soon take over the economy and will control a significant portion of ecommerce spending. 18
Tips for marketing to Millennials Don t over-market to them. Digital babies grew up surrounded by media and are much less influenced by traditional marketing messages. In contrast, they like to hear advice from peers, so make sure to display peer reviews and testimonials in place of traditional advertisements. In addition to running campaigns asking for their content, re-purpose it in advertising and marketing messages to demonstrate their opinion is heard. Don t abuse their trust. Millennials are much more wary of giving out their information and much less trusting when it comes to digital privacy. These generations started trends like whitewalling Facebook, showing that they want to be in control and autonomous when it comes to their online life. So, ask for as little information from them as possible and display trust badges so they know their purchasing information will not be shared. Don t abuse their content without asking for permission first to earn their trust. Use language that appeals to their power as mature individuals. American Eagle harnessed this wonderfully with their Aero Now campaign inviting UGC whose banner proclaimed, You ve changed, so have we. This message communicated to young generations they realized they were growing up and that the brand wanted to grow with them so they wanted their input. Harness the power of social media! These generations are pros on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, so make sure you are using these platforms to give them valuable content that invites a conversation. The younger generation wants their opinion to matter, so don t simply send out messages on social media and expect a response. Ask what they want and then respond in campaigns catered to them. 19
Conclusion Customer content marketing is one of the most valuable strategies for digital marketers today. There are many ways to integrate customer content, whether integrating reviews to drive new sales or creating customer-driven social media campaigns. What matters most is remembering the unparalleled value of the peoples voice. Start Getting Tons of Customer Content with Yotpo Now that you know how important customer content is for your marketing strategy, you ll need to start collecting a lot of it. Request a demo to see how Yotpo can help you turn the customer voice into your most powerful marketing tool. REQUEST A DEMO 20
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