UGC is a retailer’s best tool for conversion. Here’s how to use it in email!

Over the years, lots of research has found that some of the biggest drivers of people buying goods and services are the recommendations of people they know and trust.

It makes sense, right? If your sister tells you how much they love something, you’re going to be far more likely to trust her opinion. When someone is telling you what they think, as opposed to a brand that you don’t have much of a connection with, it can hit home.

The same is true when it comes to user-generated content (UGC). With UGC, a brand can take the content a user has made (in the form of social media, or blog posts, reviews, etc.) or tap into buying trends on their site and highlights it to other potential customers in a marketing campaign.

For a lot of brands, tapping into UGC can really help move the dial. And one industry that can see a real boost from UGC is retail. Want to learn how?

Keep reading.

Highlight reviews

One of the easiest ways to showcase user-generated content is with reviews. You’ve probably gone to a site like Amazon before to shop. Unless you’re getting something you’ve bought before, you’re probably going to take the time to read a few of the reviews and comments. When you do read them, that often will help you decide if you want to buy it.

Now, for retailers, having product reviews is a great thing. And what you should do is use them! Highlight the products that your current customers love, including what they are saying about it in your emails.

Here’s a perfect example from Bose.

When you’re sent details about a product and then also see a five-star review where a past customer is raving about it, it helps build up trust.

There’s no doubt you probably have at least a handful of great reviews from your customers, even if you’ve just started collecting them. So use them in your emails.

Do the same thing with testimonials too. You can start by sending out an email that asks your customers what they think of the product they bought from you.

It’s another post-purchase email that you can, and should, add into the mix. It can help you not only see what your customers think and help you find some ways to improve but also have a pile of user-generated content at the ready.

When you’ve got these testimonials, you can start inserting them in your emails from an abandoned cart to loyalty marketing campaigns.

Product recommendations

You can also take another approach to user-generated content and that’s looking at data.

With your eCommerce and customer relationship management (CRM) tool, you can see what products your customers are buying. So dig into the information you’ve got.

You might find that people who live in a particular geographic area are stocking up on something. Or that a new product you’ve introduced is really hot and flying off the shelves.

Use that data in your emails!

Here’s where retailers can really get personalized and segment your list. Let’s say you choose to break it down by geo-location. The fall is coming in New England, so your consumers there are stocking up on winter socks. Send a targeted email to your customers in that area that highlights the popular products that are ready to go for the winter.

You can even take it a step further and tap into weather data, sending your email about your five-star wool socks during a week where the temperature dips into the 40s.

Tap into the potential

When it comes to using user-generated content, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Retailers, especially, can dive into all sorts of different UGC concepts and ideas that can level up your emails on the whole.

So keep an eye out and see where you can continue to add this type of content in your emails and test and see what they respond to over time. Remember, it’s all about building trust with your customers; the more you do that, the better off you will be in the long run.