What is Consumer-Generated Marketing? A Comprehensive Guide

Studies show that 84% of people trust the opinions of strangers as much as
or even more than the opinions of friends or family.
Statistics like these have driven
a massive rise in Instagram influencers and YouTube vloggers and a million dollar
deals, along with humongous growth in consumer generated marketing or CGM,
of products and services amongst savvy marketing teams.
Today, let's take a closer look.
Hey, guys, it's Liv here
from Neighbourhood, where we help brands find, sell and keep their people.
So what is consumer generated marketing?
CGM is a brilliant yet underutilised type
of marketing strategy used to build an inexpensive marketing campaign.
All you have to do is encourage customers to create content,
often in the form of product reviews, photo sharing or social media content
and join in on the conversation that they spark.
Sounds simple, right?
Well, not entirely.
User generated content is, as you might expect, kind of fickle.
Some businesses find it easy to initiate consumer generated content because they're
already super popular with their customer base or the product might be something
that's not all that niche, whereas other businesses might get about
posting about their product once in a blue moon.
It's tricky.
That's why with CGM encouraging user generated content as part of the feedback
stage is a big part of the process. After all,
as with any marketing avenue,
you need a strategy and the content you receive might not always be applicable or
aligned with your creative ideas and large scale marketing decisions.
Who responds to consumer generated marketing then?
Well, as far as marketing trends go,
CGM is astoundingly popular with younger consumers who are Internet savvy and are
tired of seeing the same old marketing campaigns from their favourite brands.
Given that user generated content is a type of content created by customers,
it appeals to customers who see it as a more truthful representation
of a brand's value, often through social media posts.
In essence, it's word of mouth for the Internet age.
But instead of telling your friend that they should check out the pet store
down the road, you're telling someone halfway across the world about it.
Now that we've discussed some
of the benefits of CGM, it's also important to consider some of the risks.
The first of these risks is that your
online presence and reputation may come under a lot of scrutiny.
Now, more than ever, Internet users aren't afraid to air their grievances
online. Brands nowadays are so active
on social media and understandably want to manage their reputation.
So people often use it as a quicker way
of contacting customer services when they've got an issue.
So if your business doesn't have the best
reputation online, you need to get that fixed before you even
consider going for consumer generated marketing activities.
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Now, with that out of the way,
let's look at some awesome ideas for user generated content so that you can turn
current customers into loyal customers down the line.
One idea is personalised items when we buy personalised things, we're already more likely
to share them on social media, whether that's a new dog tag or a custom
T-shirt or a Starbucks cup, we love showing off things that relate to us.
If you already sell personalised items,
then you'll likely already have some user generated content to work with.
But if you don't, consider if it's feasible
to offer personalisations on some of the things that you sell. Along
with personalisation, competitions also a great CGM strategy,
which is why they are used so often as part of marketing content.
All you need to do is decide what content you want your users to generate,
whether it's a photo of customers, online reviews or blog posts come up
with a way to expedite the customer data collection process and decide
on appropriate prizes to ramp up customer engagement.
Consumer generated marketing is clearly an exciting means to market.
So use these two strategies to propel your strategy into the modern age.
If you found this video helpful, feel free to share it with someone
that you know that needs a hand with consumer generated marketing.
You could also subscribe to our blog,
we will find a bunch more tools, tips and templates to Help you Find Sell &
Keep your people, just like Neighbourhood does.
But for now, that's it from me. Happy marketing.