Leverage User-Generated Content For Lead Generation

Intro

User-generated content (UGC) is a powerful marketing strategy that has gotten more popular over the years. It is brand-specific content created by customers and published on social media or other social channels.UGC can be in the form of images, videos, reviews, and testimonials.

The greatest benefit of UGC is that it can influence the behavior of other customers, leading to better leads. But the mere existence of UGC won’t help you get new leads if you don’t know how to leverage it.

In this article, we will discuss the ways to connect with your audience through user-generated content and leverage it for lead generation. So let’s find out.

4 Ways to use user-generated content for lead generation

1. Customer reviews

Reviews are the most common user-generated content. They get you genuine feedback for your products/services which not only encourages you but also provides helpful suggestions for improvement.

They are also a reflection of a user’s experience with your product or service and can influence how other potential customers view your brand.

You should encourage customers to leave a review on your website and other pages like Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor. Also, you can generate more UGC reviews by responding to all the reviews, even the negative ones. Here are some more tips to get more reviews.

Put Reviews Front & Center

Your brand’s website should be able to push your products and services forward. So you need to put the customer reviews right on your homepage. Or, you can take it one step ahead and create a separate review page on your website.

We love how Xtra Touch Carpet Care uses this technique to show off their rave reviews on a special section of their website. It works because users can see the reviews, weigh their options, and click the ‘Book My Service’ button immediately.

Source: Xtra Touch Carpet Care

Get Customer Follow-up

Email your customers immediately after they purchase your product or get a service from you. Your customers will give their true and unfiltered feedback when the experience is still fresh in their minds.

Try to make reviewing you as easy as possible for your customers by ensuring they can review directly in the email. You can leave a link to the platform you want them to review.

Also, you can integrate the reviews with the mail using third-party applications like Reviews.Io, as illustrated by this review email by one of their clients, Sun Of A Beach.

Source: Reviews.io

Here, customers can review the company in a one-step process. It will greatly increase the chance of Sun Of A Beach receiving more reviews, which will translate to better sales and conversions.

Respond To All Type Of Reviews

If you want to leverage user-generated content for lead generation, respond to both positive and negative reviews. Respond to positive reviews by thanking them and showing how much you appreciate the extra effort. Also, ask their permission to share their positive response on your site or social channels.

But if you receive negative reviews. Instead of running away, being defensive, or ignoring these reviews, reply to them and ask about their issue in a non-confrontational way.

You can offer discounts or returns if you feel that the review is justified. It will build your reputation in the community and may turn a bad review into a means of better lead generation.

Give Customers A Reason To Review

Lastly, give your customers a reason to leave a review on your site. It can range from customized thank-you notes to elaborate rewards and discounts. You can even post a picture of the customer with their review for some additional boost. It will definitely get you more reviews.

2. Visual Testimonials

According to a report, more than 60% of Millennials and Gen Z prefer shopping through visual search more than any other technology. You can use this fact to your advantage and use visual content to enhance conversion rates. These testimonials can strike a chord with customers at all stages of the buyer’s journey.

Sandwich Video’s video testimonial for Slack illustrates how a great visual testimonial works.

Source: Slack Youtube

This video takes a quirky approach and displays the advantages of using the product from multiple POVs, from CEO to regular employees. Ultimately, it showcases how the product meets the demand of the users, which is the review’s goal.

After seeing this video testimonial, organizations facing similar issues will relate to it and switch to using Slack, leading to better lead generation and conversion.

Here are some other benefits of using visual content to enhance conversion rates.

Better Credibility & Trust

Watching and hearing real people talk about a product or service and seeing the way they use it creates better credibility and trust. It is more effective than seeing written reviews and creates an authenticity that resonates with potential leads.

Emotional Impact

When a customer shares a story about how a product brought them out of a dire situation or helped them achieve their goal on YouTube, Instagram Reels, or other visual mediums, it packs a heavy emotional punch.

Through the power of storytelling, UGC generated with visual mediums conveys more emotions and drives the message home more than other mediums. So, a user, facing a similar situation will relate to the visual testimonial and seek out the service or product.

Attention-Grabbing

According to a Hubspot report, 72% of customers prefer to learn about a brand through a visual medium more than any other source. It is because videos and visuals are attention-grabbing.

So customers will be more interested to learn about your brand if they come across a visual testimonial for it. It increases the chances of them interacting with your content and boosting your chances of converting them.

Brand Recall

Creative visual testimonials are a sure way of staying in a customer's headspace. For instance, when someone watches a video testimonial for a service, they remember the benefits discussed in it. So when they need the service, they will recall your brand.

Product Demonstrations

Many visual testimonials show your product and services in action. It shows your products in action and dispel doubts regarding their use. It also demonstrates how your product can help them in real-world situations.

Helps in Decision Making

Imagine a scenario where a customer is on the verge of buying your product or subscribing to your service. However, they are unable to take the final leap and claim the product/service. But watching a visual testimonial about the product/ service can aid them in making a faster decision and leads to better conversions and lead generation.

3. Promote on social media

Social media platforms are one of the best places for user-generated content. And you can leverage social media for SEO success by using the UGC for lead generation.

Here is a great example of a brand using UGC on social media to promote themselves.

Source: Adidas Twitter

This content shows your product in action and helps you get customers deeper into the sales funnel. Also, social media user-generated content can reach all your followers on social media and increase the chances of lead generation.

You can do the following things to use social media UGC for better lead generation.

Define Your Goals

First, you should know your lead generation goal through the UGC. For instance, if your goal is long-term engagement, you can use UGC to initiate conversations, ask questions, and ask them to share their experience.

Then, you can upload customer reviews as social proof to your social media handle to boost conversion rates, similar to how SteamPro Carpet Cleaning and Restoration publishes their customer reviews on Twitter regularly.

Source: SteamPro Carpet Cleaning and Restoration

You can even share the UGC of customers using your product/ service for the same purpose.

If you want to increase brand loyalty, you can let customers get involved in the product creation process, like Mondelez India’s Madbury initiative.

Source: Mondelez India

In this innovative campaign, the confectionery giant invited their customers to invent the perfect Cadbury bar, as per their taste, to Choose India’s very own Cadbury flavor. The brand used the power of social media to involve customers in making the flavors of their choice using local ingredients.

The campaign was a huge hit, with around 8,50,000 entries from all over India and over 800 million impressions. It is a prime example of how social media campaigns like this help customers feel closer to the brand and lead to increased brand loyalty and conversion rates.

Motivating Customers To Create UGC

The toughest part about user-generated content is sourcing it. Luckily, there are ways to encourage your customers to create UGC organically without looking fake. You can do that by running competitions on social media platforms that involve sharing.

It can be anything from sharing photos on Instagram to completing crazy challenges on TikTok. But you can also gain some new followers with this competition like GoMacro’s tag your friends to win free products competition.

Source: GoMacro

Similarly, there are follow-to-win contests and sign-up contests. You can even create social media posts that will take the user to landing pages designed for competition.

Another way to motivate your users to create UGC is with a branded Hashtag. A great example of this is Apple’s use of #ShotonIphone to promote their smartphones. It creates connections with the customers and makes them feel closer to your brand, leading to brand loyalty.

You should also repost the UGC on your social media and give customers the spotlight. Doing so will encourage others to participate.

Choose The Right Platform

Choosing the proper social media platform for UGC is also important. But first, you should find where your most influential followers are. You can do this with social listening and analytics tools. After you know the demographics, choose a platform for user-generated content.

Each platform has a different purpose, tone, and format, so you need to choose the platform that matches your brand’s goal more closely. To illustrate, if your UGC is photo-based, Instagram should be your go-to channel. And it should be TikTok for video-related UGC.

Curate High-Quality User-Generated Content

You won’t get the required lead generation just by posting UGC on your channel. If you want to get quality results, you will have to curate the user-generated content yourself and pick posts that resonate with your brand’s image, creativity, and authenticity.

It is crucial to pick out the outstanding UGC, as they highlight what your brand is about. You can curate UGC by searching for posts that show a positive experience with your brand and stories of overcoming challenges.

Then, if you see posts that use your product or service creatively, share them to highlight the creativity of your brand. Lastly, look for authentic content. You can do so by differentiating AI-generated VS. human-written text or images. Choose images and posts that are clicked/ written at the moment for the most authentic UGC for your brand.

4. Referral programs

Referral program are also great at generating UGC and new leads. Here, you encourage your clients to refer your business to others in exchange for discounts, gifts, and other incentives.

But you need to make your referral program UGC-driven to get the desired results. Here is how to do that.

Create A Clear and Seamless Program

Your referral program should be easy and intuitive. You should make it easier for your customers to refer to others with a link, coupon, or a dedicated web portal.

Offer Incentives

You should motivate more customers to participate in the referral program with attractive discounts, deals, and exclusive offers.

Encourage UGC Submission

The main part of your referral program should be the user-generated content submission. Suppose you own a Vacuum manufacturing company, you can motivate the user to share before and after photos of their clean homes and tag their friends in it. With this, you get free promotion as well as new followers.

Showcase UGC on your Platform

You can showcase the best UGC your customers come up with on your social media handles. But before you do that, ask the user for permission to publish their content. Once you get the go-ahead, collect and curate the best UGC your clients offer and display them on your social media.

Personalize The UGC Content

If a customer successfully refers to another and you get new leads, display the UGC of both the customers and the lead on your social media.

Create Referral Gallery

You can also create a special dedicated page on your site to showcase user-generated content from the referral program. It will help potential leads see positive reviews and recommendations about your brand from real people.

Monitor & Measure

Lastly, you should track the results of your UGC-driven referral programs with analytic tools like Rank Tracker, Google Analytics, and SEMrush. These tools will help you measure the difference in your ranking after the program.

You can also measure other metrics like conversion rates and click-through rates to measure the overall success of the strategy.

Summing Up

With the rise in visual search, user-generated content (UGC) is an excellent way to generate new leads. And there are four major ways to use user-generated content for lead generation.

First is using customer reviews to showcase your customer’s trust in your brand. You should put reviews front and center of your site for potential leads to see and learn about your high customer loyalty.

Similarly, visual testimonials act as a token of trust in your brand. This user-generated content is relatable to customers at all stages of the buyer’s journey and leads to quick conversion.

Social media platforms are excellent for sharing UGC. With unique competitions, branded hashtags, and incentives, you can convert the social media UGC into a source of lead generation.

Lastly, you can even use referral programs and encourage customers to create quality UGC for discounts and awards.