Picture this: You’re walking through the store, your stomach is growling, and you’re looking for the perfect thing to eat. Then, out of nowhere, a person shouts, “Free samples!” and hands you a hot bite of pizza just oozing with melted mozzarella cheese. And hey, it’s dinner time…you want more! *Add to cart.*

Now, replace that pizza with anything else — wine, ice cream, a handheld vacuum. Once customers try it, they’re more likely to talk about it, buy it, and share it. That’s why, despite the costs, product sampling marketing is one of the most effective ways of collecting authentic content and increasing conversions on your e-commerce site, social pages, and beyond.

Chapters:

1. What is product sampling?
2. When should you launch a product sampling campaign?
3. Why you should launch a product sampling campaign
4. Product sampling strategies
5. Get started with product sampling

What is product sampling?

It’s the practice of offering goods or services to your audience in exchange for increased brand awareness, brand loyalty, reviews, feedback, and other revenue-boosting user-generated content (UGC). This is a form of experiential marketing because consumers are able to completely absorb and engage with the product prior to buying it.

Quick history lesson: Product sampling is a tried-and-true marketing strategy dating back to the 1850s. Benjamin T. Babbitt, a soap manufacturer, was one of the first people to hand out samples to his fan base. As time passed, the power of this marketing strategy was realized by others and has since become popular in a variety of industries.

Today, there’s several different product sampling methods:

• Traditional sampling means giving away free product samples to customers, so they will feel more confident buying the product
• Digital product sampling is a sustainable sampling method, where customers buy a product in a store or online with a provided coupon, or receive money back after uploading the receipt — no samples need to be shipped meaning no unnecessary packaging waste
• Sampler packs include small or trial-size products. If the customer likes the sample, they are more likely to buy the product at full size
• Mail drops are when you mail free samples directly to customers’ homes
• Limited time samples are free only for a specific amount of time, such as three days, a week, etc. This adds excitement and plays to the psychological fear of missing out (FOMO!)
• Virtual sampling is when consumers are able to try out a product online without visiting a store or receiving something in the mail. This type of product sampling campaign relies on technology like an app or artificial intelligence

When should you launch a product sampling campaign?

You should launch a product sampling campaign when you need to boost word of mouth or get feedback on a new product.

• You have a high-quality, effective product ready for people to test. It’s important to make sure you’re delivering something genuinely good before people’s opinions start flying. A bad product will be all the more maligned by product sampling
• Your budget can handle sampling costs. This includes the cost of the samples as well as shipping, handling, staffing, and marketing. Note: Digital product sampling alleviates a lot of fulfillment costs!
• You need increased brand awareness for an existing product. If your brand isn’t well-known but you have a great product, you need positive word of mouth to increase brand awareness and fill your sales funnel. Just make sure expansion is feasible for you based on your current business model
• You have a new product to launch. Product sampling will help with product development, as well as create some additional buzz. People who sample your product and love it are more likely to buy it, tell their friends, and even create shareable content about it

Why you should launch a product sampling campaign

Product sampling marketing helps brands boost feedback, conversion rates, positive reviews, and social content for both small and enterprise brands alike.

Get valuable product feedback

Product sampling is a way to connect with and get feedback from your audience.

According to Ryan Stewart, a marketing expert and the managing partner of WEBRIS, “We normally ask them questions about their experiences with our services, show how they use them, or even invite them to take part in an online contest that involves using our services.”

You can also use surveys to collect quantitative and qualitative data. This feedback can help you further develop the product into something your audience will love.

Boost sales and conversion rates

Sampling a product makes customers want to buy it. It’s wired into our psychology. Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University, knows samples create desire. “If I gave you a tiny bit of chocolate,” he says, “all of a sudden it would remind you about the exact taste of chocolate and would increase your craving.”

Take Costco, for example. An oft-cited study about Costco revealed the grocery store saw a significant boost in revenue thanks to its free food samples. And Stewart confirms sampling is a solid way to increase sales. He asserts, “People who feel like we value their opinions are more likely to buy from us when they need something similar in the future.”

Gathering UGC and reviews from shoppers also gives brands a significant boost in sales. Absolution Cosmetics wanted to support product launches, build brand awareness around their healthy skin care messaging, and boost customer loyalty and engagement to ultimately increase sales. The brand implemented a dual review collection strategy, combining an evergreen sweepstakes on their website, ensuring a constant influx of fresh UGC and reviews, and targeted product sampling campaigns to support new product launches.

As a result, in just a six-month period, Absolution increased its revenue per visitor from 14% to 123%, customer engagement from 28% to 61%, and earned $107K directly attributed to ratings and reviews.

Encourage positive reviews due to a sense of reciprocity

Free samples encourage potential customers to play into the idea of reciprocity. In other words, people who receive the sample want to do something for your brand in return — like posting a positive review on social media.

This by no means every review is going to be positive of course. Neither should that be expected. Product sampling isn’t “we’ll send you a product sample in return for a positive review.” By contrast, reviews should be honest regardless of the sentiment. And even negative reviews provide added authenticity for your brand.

But one of the reasons sampling does yield such positive results is because the right provider (like Bazaarvoice ) can create campaigns for a hyper-targeted audience across demographics, behaviors, preferences, and more. When the recipient is the exact target audience the product is for, the review is much more likely to be positive. Just make sure your sampling provider can accommodate this.

“Product sampling allows us to get our audience involved in the creation of our content, which gives them a sense of ownership over what we’re sharing,” says Stewart.

For instance, after TTI Floor Care North America allowed top brand loyalists to sample Dirt Devil vacuum cleaners for free, they saw an 86% response rate and more than 700 reviews full of positive, authentic UGC. As a result, Dirt Devil product reviews went from 2.8 to 4.5 stars. These reviews not only filled TTI’s own webpage but were also syndicated on major retailers’ sites.

Supercharging brand awareness with social content

You probably already know that social content is an important way to reach consumers. Combining the reach of social media with the effectiveness of sampling gives you a unique marketing campaign powerhouse.

Most Bazaarvoice Sampling customers are brand managers who use sampling to generate and feature content on social media.

“Linking sampling to social is a core tenant of any e-commerce plan,” says Kerry Bridge, Global Director of Advocacy at Bazaarvoice. “You need to be able to collect that great content from social in order to populate your product pages. Plus build your community.”

We’ve pinpointed a few different reasons why social content and sampling go hand-in-hand:

1. New product launches benefit greatly from large amounts of recent UGC. 89% of shoppers check reviews before making a purchase, and 60% of shoppers feel more comfortable making a purchase if they can see product images or videos first. A great way to collect this valuable UGC is to employ sampling
2. Entering new markets helps you expand your reach. Each demographic is different, and over 70% of shoppers are looking for perspectives that reflect their own. Product sampling can help you get your foot in the door and provide UGC that speaks to these new markets in a relatable way
3. Supporting your core SKUs with product sampling allows you to collect quality content at scale. Your core products are hot sellers for a reason — get them in your fans’ hands through a sampling campaign and encourage them to create content. Data from our Bazaarvoice Network of over 12,500 brands and retailers found a 135% increase in conversion rate and a 164% increase in revenue per visitor when shoppers engaged with social content from their peers
4. Working with the right content creators can help you skyrocket your brand awareness and success. Creator collaborations add to your content volume, and by sharing with their own engaged audiences, they also extend your reach

Relaunch your products

There may be times when you want to shift your brand strategy and reformulate or reinvent your product. With the introduction of the FTC’s 2023 review hijacking legislation, reformulating your product isn’t just about tweaking its features — it’s about ushering it into the market as if it’s an entirely new line. It’s a unique challenge, with the daunting task of resetting your review count and content collection to zero. But sampling can help you rapidly rebuild from this new starting line.

• Relaunch your product with fresh advocacy: Successfully relaunch your reformulated product by targeting the right audience, providing an experience, driving UGC from day one, and gaining actionable insights from product samplers
• Combat misleading reviews with authentic content: If the reformulation means the product is “substantially different” in “one or more material attributes” from the prior version (as per the FTC), it would be deceptive to continue using existing reviews. A sampling campaign can generate fresh reviews and customer photos quickly and effectively so you have an arsenal of new social proof you can show off to shoppers

Product sampling strategies

Ultimately, all sampling campaigns help your potential customers get a preview of what you’re selling while helping you get more visibility for your product and brand overall. The individual strategies can take several different forms, from in-store food samples (Costco) or mailed glasses to try on (Warby Parker). The details depend on your business model and campaign goals.

Here’s seven examples from the masters that you can imitate when you craft your own campaign, including the relevant sampling program they used.

Costco nails the traditional sampling strategy

Costco is famous for the traditional, in-store, free sample method. People have gone so far as to tour the sample tables at various Costco stores. The more samples people try, the closer they get to a free lunch. Personal finance and food bloggers have picked up on this idea as well and have even written articles encouraging the practice.

Costco’s store sampling draws people to its stores, thanks to one key message: Going to Costco is fun (and yummy!)

While you might be nervous about handing out “freebies,” the benefits far outweigh the costs. In fact, according to the College Marketing Group, “Interactions — the company that handles Costco’s sampling — found that their efforts led to a 71% increase in sales of beer and a 600% increase in frozen pizza.”

Traditional sampling works especially well for supermarkets like Costco, as well as other brick-and-mortar stores like makeup counters. Just remember that the goal for this type of sampling is to increase sales and positive word of mouth. You probably won’t get a lot of usable content out of it.

L’Oréal gets personal with virtual sampling

Since its target market is focused primarily on beauty, personalization and creativity are everything for L’Oréal. That’s why L’Oréal’s special offers and promotions are tailored to this demographic’s specific preferences and needs in the form of virtual sampling.

Customers simply select a product like hair dye or blush. Once they grant L’Oréal access to their camera, a small window shows them what they would look like wearing that product. It’s kind of like Zoom + the Sherwin-Williams ColorSnap Visualizer. But instead of paint, it’s a beauty product.

Virtual sampling is attractive because it’s incredibly scalable, not to mention germ-free. Brands aren’t limited by physical space in stores or the cost of making or shipping the product. Instead, consumers are able to instantly get a good idea of what the product would be like for them without the hassle of applying the sample color to their wrist (eww), applying to a program, handing over their personal info, or potentially wasting a product if they don’t like it.

This technique is also sometimes more helpful and realistic than physical store samples because the tool takes into account different product combinations and how they affect each other. For example, if I dyed my hair bright red, would that red lipstick look good? Hmm… maybe a more subtle shade would be better.

Brands can use virtual try-ons to fill their social media calendars. If you have a tool like this, inspire your customers to post a photo of themselves on social media “trying on” your product. Then collect, store, and track that content using Bazaarvoice’s AI-powered Media Library.

Warby Parker masters the mail drop

Warby Parker prides itself on its choice selection when it comes to new, stylish, and comfortable eyeglass frames. It provides a quiz to help customers determine exactly what type of frames will best suit them and then a personalized selection based on their responses.

After completing the quiz, customers can choose up to five frames that are delivered right to their homes, where they can test them for five days. After finding that perfect pair, customers can buy what they want and ship the rest back. The return shipping is free with Warby Parker’s return label.

For something you have to wear all the time (like glasses), comfort and style are paramount. Warby Parker helps customers feel assured that both needs will be met because customers can literally see the results for themselves at home before buying.

For brands that want a turnkey sampler program, Bazaarvoice offers a white-labeled sampling program to help retailers get their product samples directly into the hands of their community and start generating UGC.

Neuro optimizes product development

Sampling isn’t just to market and sell existing products. Kent Yoshimura and Ryan Chen, co-founders of wellness company Neuro, explain in this podcast one of the key ways they achieved their success: making sure Neuro Gum was as perfect as possible before they jumped into product activation. They gave out free samples of the gum to family, friends, and co-workers to test a variety of key details such as:

• Different ingredients (20 milligrams of caffeine to 80 milligrams of caffeine)
• New flavors
• Different sweeteners
• Hard chews vs. soft chews

After perfecting the product, Yoshimura and Chen surpassed their crowdfunding goal in just three days and ended up selling over 12 million pieces of Neuro Gum. And those people who sample the product became loyal customers.

“Once we introduce that product to somebody, the repeat purchase rate can be up to about 40, 45%,” said Chen. “Our challenge is getting people to try the product. Sampling is a really big opportunity for us.”

Neuro ensured it had a good, high-quality product and an active community of fans, thanks to product sampling. According to Chen, “We’ve grown such a loyal group of customers that they give us feedback all the time. It’s built a community which has been inspiring for us and has given us the motivation to keep going.”

After their initial success, they continued sampling with specific cohorts like the CrossFit community. They’ve also shipped product samples to new distributors to explore a potential new market in Africa.

Using samples and collecting customer responses is the most effective way to get meaningful feedback about your product, so you can improve it and launch with confidence.

Bazaarvoice’s sampling programs can help you learn from sampler feedback and expand into new markets via our robust, global Influenster community.

Home Depot doubles conversion rates with Managed Sampling

Home Depot Canada wanted to increase the volume of UGC, particularly reviews, its brands get on its product pages. So they partnered with bazaarvoice to create the Home Depot Seeds Sampling program.

“UGC is becoming increasingly important. It’s no longer a ‘nice to have.’ It’s a necessity. We see our site as a research tool, so even if people come into the store, they still use their phones to see ratings and reviews and make a final decision.”

Gabriela da Silva, Senior Brand Advocate Analyst, Home Depot Canada

Seeds Sampling is a review-seeding program that puts a brand’s highest priority products into the hands of its shoppers, in exchange for honest reviews on HomeDepot.ca. Since the program’s inception, it’s already led to some brands doubling their conversion rates on HomeDepot.ca.

It’s not just legacy products either. WiZ, a brand featured on HomeDepot.ca, used Seeds Sampling to generate buzz for new products and earn that UGC before they’d even launched. 

It worked, too. The conversion rate for the products used in Seeds Sampling was 68% higher than products not part of the program. Not bad at all.

Home Depot isn’t the first retailer to turn to Bazaarvoice for a Managed Sampling program. We’ve built sampling programs for Walmart, Target, and Sam’sClub, to name a few. And you could be next.

Get started with product sampling

Ready to experience the power of product sampling marketing in your own business? Bazaarvoice makes it easier than ever to get your products into the hands of the perfect customers, leading to a surge in reviews, social media buzz, authentic word-of-mouth, and sales.

You can learn more about Bazaarvoice Sampling here, or get started directly below.

LEARN MORE

Buyer’s guide: Find the perfect product sampling partner

Read here

That isn’t surprising. It’s costly to create compelling visual content across your product catalog. But it doesn’t have to be! Today, social media platforms offer plenty of authentic product and brand focused social content created by your customers — aka visual user-generated content (UGC).

The average consumer devotes over two hours per day to social media. With over 250 billion photos on Facebook and 95 million new photos and videos posted on Instagram each day, user-generated visuals flood our digital devices. You and your marketing team should be taking advantage of this content and also populating your website, product pages, and own social channels with it. 

5 step go-to-market strategy

When you leverage this visual UGC that consumers are creating, you’ll be able to set the perfect foundation for a go-to-market strategy for any product you offer. 

“Customers will be your best advocates. If you want to launch with the maximum impact, it’s they, the people, who matter. Not your company. Let them do the talking,” Vishal Patel, Digital Interactions Specialist at Canon Europe.

1. Plan your go-to-market strategy early

This may sound like an obvious first step, but one reason brands often get their go-to-market strategy wrong is because they don’t leave enough time for planning.

You’ll need to make sure you leave enough time to collect visual UGC, tweak product messaging, and allow for the inevitable delays that crop up.

2. Create buzz on social media 

Social media helps consumers discover new products and brands. After seeing a product or service on Instagram, 92% of users said they have taken some kind of action, like buying the product online, visiting the brand’s website, or following the brand on social media, according to research commissioned by Facebook.   

Social media influencers can also help spread the word about new products to their followers. According to a Morning Consult report, influencers especially resonate with younger demographics. Over 50% of Gen Z and millennials say they trust influencers’ advice about brands and products.

To create buzz on social media with visual content, start with relevant influencers and your most loyal customers. Consider sending them samples of your new product and asking them to use a specific hashtag when posting about the product on their social channels.

This will build awareness about your product, make it more discoverable by new customers, and provide you with some good visual content from influencers and followers to use in the rest of your go-to-market strategy. 

You should also perform regular searches to find where else your customers are posting about you. Search your name on social platforms, find YouTube mentions, audit event photos, look at tagged locations for your physical stores, and use Google Analytics to see where on-site traffic is coming from.

3. Add customer photos to product pages

Once you start finding the visual content that customers are creating about your brand, you can use that content to enhance product pages on your website pre-launch. 

Shoppers are 6x more likely to buy make a purchase if the product page contains social content. User-generated photos are especially important for categories like apparel, food and beverage, home furnishings, health and beauty, and pets.

Use the visual content your customers post on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and TikTok to add photos and videos to your product pages. Visual content gives customers the information they need to make a confident purchase decision. We’ve seen conversion rates increase by up to 150% when visitors interact with images displayed with Bazaarvoice Galleries. And, Salesforce reports that visitors spend 90% more time on websites that include UGC galleries.

4. Learn customer use cases to influence your go-to-market strategy

Product descriptions can only say so much. But when paired with content that actually shows how the product can be used, they help customers make the most informed purchasing decisions. 

Find visual content from customers that displays how they’re using your products in their real lives. Plus, by incorporating common customer use cases and customer phrasing from social posts and reviews into your product pages, you’ll also improve search and marketing copy. 

When lifestyle brand Oliver Bonas started using UGC galleries to show how customers were actually styling jewelry, they saw a 188% conversion lift among those who engage with social and visual content.

5. Explain your products with how-to videos

With TikTok and Instagram Reels making videos as common as photo content, shoppers are taking notice. 

Bazaarvoice’s research on visual UGC found that 24% of consumers say videos may highlight something that wasn’t obvious just from the still images or product description, and 21% would like to see a product in action before they buy. 

Work with influencers to create short, engaging how-to videos that you can post on social media and product pages pre-launch. When customers immediately understand how to use your products, they’ll be more confident in making a purchase.

Get go-to-market right with a full UGC strategy

It’s time for brands and retailers to put visual UGC to work in their go-to-market strategy. Embracing this provides a tremendous opportunity to increase shoppers’ awareness of new products, inspire purchasing decisions, and build loyalty to your brand.

But a great go-to-market strategy encompasses more than just collecting visual UGC. You need to collect a wealth of different UGC and then make sure it reaches multiple digital and physical touchpoints across the customer journey. Learn more ways to successfully launch your product here.

FEATURED RESOURCE

6 ways to launch your product with a bang

Read now

As insights technology continues to innovate, retailers have no shortage of analytics to glean from the UGC collected across their e-commerce site. Data from UGC can tell you how consumers feel about different your products and brands, which products are performing best, and which products are in need of improvement.

UGC program insights

From product review coverage to overall customer sentiment, these are the five types of insights retailers should consider regularly monitoring through analysis of their UGC program data. And that’s irregardless of whether you’re a Bazaarvoice client or not.

1. Measure the conversion impact of UGC on your site

Your UGC program data should be able to show you exactly how it’s impacting your bottom line and what types of UGC increases conversion rates. 

You want to be able to identify key UGC drivers on your product detail pages (PDPs). You’ll gain valuable insights when you can monitor how shoppers engage with UGC and identify how it affects sales on your e-commerce platform. For example, across the Bazaarvoice Network, we found a 136% lift in conversion rate when shoppers interact with UGC on best-in-class sites.

By measuring shoppers engagement with different UGC, you’ll discover the difference between:

• How customers convert when there’s no content
• When there’s content but they didn’t actively engage with content
• If they passively or actively engaged with content

If you’re a Bazaarvoice client, you can keep close tabs on this UGC program data with the Conversion Impact Report. This report allows you to easily monitor how shoppers engage with UGC and identify how that affects sales on your e-commerce platform.

2. Evaluate product coverage

Evaluate product coverage to see where you can improve your PDPs by seeing which pages lack adequate review coverage. By regularly identifying products with high page views but low review volume, you can better understand popularity and gaps.

You want the content that performs well — which UGC does — to be in as many places as possible. Especially where you know you customers will see it. 

Bazaarvoice clients can easily track the percentage of products or page views with at least one review, regardless of whether the review came in via native, sampling, syndication, or product families, and view a list of popular products with few reviews or a list of products with high page views and low review volume.

3. Track at the brand/product/category level

As a retailer, it’s important for you to know what brands are performing well and which are underperforming. By tracking UGC program insights at the brand, product, and category levels, you can quickly identify areas of opportunity and prioritize accordingly. 

Bazaarvoice clients have access to Product Performance Insights, which allows you to easily view products, brands, or categories that have a low average rating. And with a vendor scorecard, you can take those insights and score brands or products for performance with average rating, review volume, and percent of questions answered.

You can then send the scorecard to your brands to show them what they need to do to improve sales. 

4. Understand customer sentiment

Discover how shoppers really feel about your products to improve your products and/or messaging by leveraging UGC program data to identify areas of praise and complaint. An ideal customer sentiment insights strategy should analyze the lowlights and highlights, revealing what customers love and hate about products.

It should also have the capabilities to extract notable quotes in reviews that will level up your marketing strategy. Nestle Canada noticed a stream of negative customer reviews about a product. Noticing the insights provided, the team changed the recipe and the average rating increased from 1.7 to 4 stars. 

With Bazaarvoice, clients can easily access customer sentiment insights to identify Products with Lowlights/Highlights and Products with Notable Marketing Quotes. This helps you quickly identify what your customers are saying about the products you sell — especially beneficial for your private label items.

5. Track performance

On top of analyzing insights at a micro-level, make sure you’re monitoring insights from a birds eye view. Keep tabs on content collection and overall UGC program performance. A successful UGC program should have insights that allows retailers to monitor broad trends and review volume holistically. 

Retailers should also monitor the performance of post-interaction review request emails asking for reviews and track unexpected changes. For example, you should know quickly if volume drops drastically month-over-month, so you could adjust your strategy accordingly. 

Bazaarvoice clients can seamlessly monitor the performance of their review request emails with the Email Engagement Dashboard, as well as broad trends and review volume with the Program Overview and Inbound Syndication Dashboard.

Start your UGC program audit now

By monitoring these five insights, you can easily keep your finger on the pulse of the health of your business and see how your UGC program is helping your business grow. 

If you’re a Bazaarvoice client, jump down to our UGC audit masterclass to take your UGC program to the next level. If you’re not a Bazaarvoice client, you can learn more about our Insights and Reports tools here.

CONTINUE YOUR EDUCATION

The audit your UGC program needs

Learn more here

But where many businesses trip up is lack of quantity. They simply aren’t asking for reviews. Whether it’s because they don’t realize they need to, or they don’t know how to ask — either way, we see it too often.

This user-generated content (UGC) goldmine is criminally underutilized. Which is why we’ve created this comprehensive guide to show you the best ways to get more reviews for your business.

Chapters:

1. How reviews benefit your business
2. What customers look for in a review
3. 5 ways to get more reviews for your business
4. Get more reviews for your business with Bazaarvoice

How often do you check reviews before visiting a restaurant, booking a trip, or buying something new? Probably most of the time. Maybe all the time. If yes, you’re one of the 88% of shoppers who rely on reviews to discover and evaluate products and services. Reading about the experiences of others instills confidence, builds trust, and inspires shoppers to return and buy again.  

Even just a few reviews can have a significant impact on your business. Shoppers typically view up to 10 reviews before deciding what to buy, and they’re influenced by both negative and positive reviews. The more high-quality reviews you can get, the more benefits you’ll see.

Without a doubt, there’s a strong correlation between customers interacting with reviews and conversion rate.

Sven Lindell, Chief Marketing Officer, Appliances Online

The best way to get more reviews for your business is to simply ask — over 70% of the customers who are asked to write a review actually do. Shoppers enjoy sharing their opinions and appreciate opportunities to interact with the brands they love.

But what’s the best way to ask them? There’s several ways to ask for reviews, from emailing consumers directly to offering samples in exchange. Here’s how to ask for them, and why you definitely should. 

How reviews benefit your business 

Before we get to how to ask customers for reviews, let’s delve into why you need them. In short, it’s great for business because they build relationships and significantly boost conversion rates and sales.

There’s more to it than that though. Here’s the five top ways ratings and reviews benefit your business. 

1. Drive conversion 

Shoppers place a high trust value on reviews and are more likely to purchase from sites with recent, high-quality reviews. In fact, they’re 2x more likely to convert when they interact with reviews. according to Bazaarvoice’s Shopper Experience Index, product pages with at least one review can see a:

• 354% conversion rate increase
• 446% revenue increase per person compared to pages without reviews

For example, Australian online appliance retailer Appliances Online has gathered 386,000 total reviews to date, which the brand uses on its product display pages. This influx of UGC translated to a 3x higher conversion rate.

And business technology company Brother International Europe also worked on its reviews strategy and has since seen customers spend 3x longer on product pages that have reviews. 

2. Boost revenue 

Reviews entice shoppers to spend more time on product pages. This tends to increase conversion rates, often giving brands a revenue boost. Businesses can drive 52% more revenue when they have nine reviews and 108% more if they have 25, according to Womply. And businesses with a higher-than-average number of reviews experience a 54% increase in annual revenue. 

Feelunique, Europe’s largest online beauty retailer, worked with Bazaarvoice to grow increase review volume and encourage shoppers to make purchases. The retailer experienced a 140% increase in conversions, a 32% lift in average order value, and a 375% jump in the time on site. The impact of which generated a $10 million revenue lift for the brand, as explained below:

Reviews, both negative and positive, also give customers a true sense of what a product looks like and how it works. This helps them make more informed purchases. This often reduces return rates, which is good for a brand’s bottom line, too.

For example when fashion brand GANT began including product reviews on its website, it reduced return rate by 5%, significantly increasing revenue.​​

3. Establish brand trust

Shoppers want to feel secure when they purchase something and confident that what they buy will meet their needs. About 80% of consumers trust online reviews and 40% rely on them to inform their purchases, our research shows. Most shoppers trust reviews, just as much as, if not more, than a recommendation from a friend or family member. Ultimately, they inspire consumers to continue purchasing from the brands they trust. 

Consumers want to hear what their peers have to say. Encouraging reviews, displaying them across your channels, and engaging with shoppers by answering their questions builds trust and promotes authenticity. And this will translate into sales.

French retailer GroupeAdeo launched a user-generated content (UGC) program to collect as many ratings and reviews as possible, and realized that 50 reviews increased orders by 30%. The process aided the brand in establishing itself as a trusted expert, reassuring customers along the way. 

4. Improve SEO performance 

When you think of reasons to get more reviews for your business, search engine optimization (SEO) probably doesn’t spring to mind. But when shoppers are hunting for a specific item, they often start on a search engine like Google. Search engines rank brand websites higher when they have new content, and one of the best ways to rank higher is to ensure fresh reviews are constantly coming in. 63% of brands rely on ratings and reviews to boost their SEO performance.  

Essentially, reviews ensure customers can find you easily through SEO. The professionally written descriptions on your product pages sound great but they likely use wording different from what consumers use to search. For example, your team may identify something as “cigarette pants,” while shoppers are actually searching for “skinny black pants.”

UGC is written by real shoppers, so it’s more likely to contain keywords that match what consumers are querying. You can also use tools and plugins to display social media content on your website, including videos and influencer posts that are SEO-friendly.

Primal Kitchen for example has a blog of recipes, above, that incorporates its products and adds keyword-rich content to its website that boosts SEO and appear higher up in search rankings. 

5. Improve products 

Ratings and reviews offer consumer insights into what about their products is working and what isn’t. UGC often identifies issues with products, new use cases, and areas for product innovation. According to our own research, 25% of shoppers want businesses to use their positive reviews to make product improvements, and 38% want their negative reviews used for this purpose.

Consumers do the talking for us. They speak, and we listen and take action

Lee Beech, Director of Consumer Experience, Nestlé Canada

This exact scenario played out for European retailer Vertbaudet. The team had noticed similar customer feedback surfacing in product reviews — a line of maternity dresses was cut too tightly. They responded by reassessing the line and fixing the cut accordingly, leading to a 12% sales increase.

What customers want in a review

We know how important reviews are for for your business, and that they can help you boost sales, drive conversions, and build emotional connections with consumers. But, what specifically do shoppers notice and care about most when they read a review? Here’s a deeper look at what customers look for. 

Review recency

Gathering as many reviews as possible is crucial for a successful UGC program. But, it’s not a one-time thing. Keeping a fresh flow of UGC coming in is even more important than how many reviews you have. Not only will new content improve your SEO, it instills confidence in shoppers. 

81% of consumers value review recency as much as or even more than the quantity and quality of reviews, and most would rather buy items with fewer reviews overall if they were written recently. 

Quantity of reviews

The more product reviews you have, the better. Though there’s not necessarily a magic number to reach. But we do know that one review alone lifts purchases by 10%, and every review brings exponential growth — 50 reviews can increase sales by 30%, and so on. Focusing on increasing review volume is an essential strategy for business growth. 

For example, Dole Packaged Goods implemented a new UGC strategy which collected 2,300 new reviews, leading to a 64% conversion rate lift among shoppers who engaged with content.

Authenticity 

Consumers place a high value on brand transparency these days. They want every interaction to be as authentic as possible, and that includes reviews. Shoppers are concerned about fake reviews, with 54% saying they won’t purchase a product if perceive a review to be fraudulent. 

Fake reviews diminish trust, and once trust is lost, over 80% of consumers will never shop with that brand again. They’re also likely to leave a negative review and post about the experience on social media.

You can reassure shoppers that reviews are indeed from real consumers by setting up a verified buyers program, which identifies reviews with a badge or icon. Verified buyers have been shown to sway shoppers and boost sales, as consumers consider them more reliable. 

Visual UGC 

Visual UGC, like photos and videos, is perceived as more authentic and trustworthy. Consumers also think visuals are more helpful. They can see how clothing fits or what furniture looks like in a real living room. When we asked 30,000 global shoppers why they consider reviews with photos more credible, they said:

Featuring visual UGC along with reviews heightens product discoverability, increases purchases, and makes shopping experiences more exciting. An easy way to feature visual UGC from social media on your website is with Bazaarvoice Galleries. Brands using this tool have increased conversions by 150% and overall order values by 15%. 

Responding to reviews

Shoppers feel the deepest connections when they feel brands understand their needs. 57% will spend more when they feel that connection and 76% will keep shopping with those brands, according to Sprout Social. An effective way to build and solidify these connections is to listen to shopper feedback and respond — whether the feedback is negative or positive. 

No one wants to receive any negative feedback, but it’s inevitable so it’s important to show customers that you’re dedicated to righting wrongs. Negative reviews, which detail a product’s best and worst features, are sometimes even more useful to shoppers than positive ones. 

Nestle Canada did just that when it listened to customer sentiment about a new iced tea product and made a change to regain their trust, and it paid off when sales increased.

5 ways to get your business more reviews 

Growing your review volume will help shoppers make more informed shopping decisions and give brands the opportunity to boost revenue and build a loyal following. There’s several ways to get more reviews for your business and keep review content fresh. Here’s how to do it.

1. Launch a sampling program 

Everyone loves a freebie. We’ve found that 88% of shoppers like receiving free samples, according to the 2021 Bazaarvoice Shopper Experience Index. A product sampling program exchanges free product samples in return for authentic reviews. Sampling campaigns increase product discoverability and are a proven tactic to increase reviews for a new product release or freshen up core SKUs.

Through a survey of over 6,000 Influenster members, we found that of the shoppers who’ve participated in sampling campaigns:

• 63% purchased the product they sampled (97% of whom purchased at least one additional product from the brand)
• 87% recommended the product/brand to friends and family
• 50% said the product became a new staple in their life
• 50% followed the brand on social media

McPherson’s Consumer Products, a health and wellness brand, sent samples of its Manicare brand to shoppers and has continued to run sampling programs. Now about 20% of the brand’s review volume come from sampling campaigns.

Sampling works for retailers too. Beloved Pet retailer Petco recently rolled out a new sampling campaign, which has grown review volume by 405% and led to 48% increase in revenue per visit for sampled products.

The bottom line is if you want more reviews for your business, sampling is how you do it.

i) Tap into the Influenster community

The Bazaarvoice Influenster community is a community of over 7 million engaged shoppers eager to share feedback via reviews or visual UGC. Influenster members, often recipients of sampling campaigns, have already left over 55 million reviews, growing by 1 million each month.

Beauty brand Pacifica utilized this community and gathered 2,000 reviews for 200 products in just a few months, inspiring shopper confidence and driving sales. The fresh review content you want to grow your brand is already there — go out and collect it.

2. Ask on social media 

Social media is where brands and customers go to connect. And, that makes it a great place to ask for reviews. Especially since people typically use social media platforms on their phones and are likely to respond to review requests quickly via mobile. 64% of consumers say they want brands to connect with them on social media, and 37% expect brands to promote UGC, according to Sprout Social.

Over 25% of shoppers say they’ve been approached on social media about leaving a review. You can target customers on social media to ask them to leave a review or send a general branded message asking for one, and include a link to make reviewing easier. If influencers are part of your marketing mix, invite them to leave product reviews. This will resonate with shoppers who often base purchasing decisions on influencers’ recommendations.  

A good time to ask for a review on social media is after someone tags your brand in a post, likes a post, or interacts in another way. And, you’ll get bonus points if you respond publicly to reviews. Here’s an effective template for asking for a review on social media: 

Do you love [brand name or product name]? We’d love to hear from you! Would you mind writing us a review? Click here here to share your thoughts with us. [add the link] Thanks — we appreciate you so much! 

3. Send a review request email

Almost 50% of consumers say they’ve been asked by email to leave a review. And, it’s one of the best ways to rev up UGC. Most people check their email regularly and are likely to open a message from a brand they trust. 

We’ve found that a review request email can increase review volume by 50% and account for 70% of a brand’s total review volume. And the best part is they’re fully automated.

Review request emails should include a link to the product purchased to leave a review and a simple call to action, such as “write a review.” Ideally, send the email right after the consumer has tried the product, but when the purchase is still on their minds.

Take the time to personalize the message and thank shoppers for their recent purchase or continued loyalty, too. Here’s the perfect review request email example. 

Dear [customer’s first name], 

Thanks for purchasing [product name]! We hope you’re enjoying it. If you have a second, please share your thoughts with us by leaving a review. We love hearing what our shoppers have to say, and are always looking to improve. Your review will also help your fellow shoppers make the right purchase in future! 

“Leave a review”

Thanks so much for leaving a review! We love you! 

[Brand team]

MeUndies, the quirky underwear brand, turned to review request emails as part of a new review collection strategy, and saw review volume grow 218% year-over-year.

i) Text message review collection

Similar to review request emails, just on a different channel. Text message review collection is simply a highly effective method of asking for a customer review via text — the average text open rate is 98%.

Text message review collection helps you collect almost 2x more ratings and reviews by sending requests where your customers are already checking.

4. Use review syndication tools 

Review syndication is a great way to enrich the organic reviews that you collect from social media or review request emails. Review syndication involves collecting UGC and distributing it across different channels, like social media, email, and brand websites, to reach more shoppers.

Syndication drives sales because it puts UGC right in front of 20x more consumers — no matter where they are. And consumers are 6x more likely to purchase from product pages with UGC on them.

For example, direct-to-consumer brand Primal Kitchen increased conversions by 131% on Target.com using review syndication. The brand uses the Bazaarvoice platform to curate UGC content from customers and distributes it across its channels. Primal Kitchen also syndicates visual UGC on its Target.com product pages. 

5. Request visual UGC 

While shoppers seek out written reviews to learn about products before purchasing, reviews with photos and videos particularly resonate. In fact, 62% of shoppers are more likely to buy products with reviews containing visual UGC. Consumers are growing to prefer visual UGC over professionally shot photos because shopper photos display products in action in real-life settings and seem more authentic. 

So, make sure you’re allowing and actively encouraging shoppers to submit visual content. The visual UGC can also be incorporated into your marketing campaigns to elevate the customer experience. When you send an email or request a review on social media, ask them to submit a photo or video showing how the product meets their needs or fits in with their daily routine. 

Home Depot Canada worked with Bazaarvoice to launch photo syndication, which is the collection and distribution of visual UGC for brands to retailer websites. More than 930,000 of its syndicated reviews now include photos and about 1.4 million of the photos have been syndicated. 

Get more reviews for your business with Bazaarvoice

Honestly, there’s multiple ways of asking for reviews. All are effective in their own right. Which is great for your business. Because the more you increase your review volume, the more likely you’ll reap the benefits.

Whether it’s sampling, review request emails, or syndication, Bazaarvoice has a solution to support your review collection strategy. Learn how Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews supports best-in-class site performance. Or you can get in touch below to get started right away.

FEATURED RESOURCE

How lean marketing teams can get the most out of ratings and reviews

Learn more here

But scaling your business internationally often comes with a set of challenges and risks.

How will you provide support to a new customer base? How can you build brand awareness and establish your reputation? And how can you relate to a brand-new audience with different tastes and behaviors?  

The key to a successful transition is understanding how to make your brand accessible to the international market. Expanding into the flourishing world of international e-commerce holds the promise of more customers and much higher revenue, as long as you have the right marketing tools to connect with your new target market.

3 steps for international e-commerce domination

Expanding into international markets can be daunting. Where do you even begin? A safe start is by getting a feel for local customer sentiment and what they want/don’t want from brands. Hosting focus groups for example gives you these insights from prospective customers firsthand. Or running customer surveys helps you find your ideal customer and figure out how to reach them.

But while these are a good few initial steps to test the waters, how do you turn an international e-commerce strategy into action? Here’s how.

Step 1: Ensure accessibility for international markets

Creating an accessible website and marketing content for global markets, including translations and localization, leads to a smooth browsing and purchasing experience (a key factor in customer retention!). Accessibility means offering content in the local language, launching well-reviewed product pages, and localizing your e-commerce site.

i) Personalize your product pages

Personalized product pages and social media accounts improve local shoppers’ e-commerce experience, as well as their view of and connection to your brand. 

Imagine scrolling through Instagram, and you spot an item you need to have. You click on the product tag and land on the company’s product page, but when you get to the checkout stage, you realize they only ship that item within Australia. Frustrating, right? 

We know that visual and social content is important. Placing product galleries on product description pages results in a:

• 250% increase in time spent on site
• 150% increase in conversion rates
• 15% increase in average order value

The key to achieving these numbers in a new market is to personalize your content to offer localized product information. 

Localized content means your customers in Latin America will only see products available to them. And your shoppers in Japan will automatically see the converted price to the local currency rather than in dollars. Localization includes adapting website content and product offerings to better suit the culture, currency, and preferences of different countries. 

In fact, one survey found that 76% of shoppers prefer when brands offer content in their native language, and 40% simply refuse to shop on websites that aren’t offered in their language. These country-specific changes lead to a more personalized, seamless online shopping experience, meaning happier customers and increased online sales. 

ii) Syndicate ratings and reviews

One of the biggest challenges of entering a new market is the lack of brand awareness among international customers. Ratings and reviews can boost your brand visibility and increase trust in first-time shoppers because they give shoppers access to additional information and authentic feedback. 

But how do you launch a successful regional website, filled with authentic reviews, when you have little to no customers? The secret is review syndication — a process that takes your product reviews from the original source and posts them on other international e-commerce websites, like online retailers and regional homepages.

Home appliance brand Beko for example used review syndication as a solution when breaking into the Australian market. Although its brand was leading the European market, it was virtually unknown in Australia. 

“When we first started doing business in Australia, people here didn’t know who we were,” said Amanda Hart, Marketing Manager at Beko ANZ. “We needed to build a swell of customer voices to validate our brand quality here. It has definitely helped support the validity of our brand among new consumers.”

With review syndication, Beko built up its review volume to 30,000 authentic reviews across international e-commerce websites, helping to boost its reputation and build brand awareness in the new market. 

“Reviews are an essential part of our successful strategy that’s getting Beko products into more homes across Australia,” said Hart.

iii) Translate syndicated content

Entering a new, foreign-language market requires brands to localize their content, including syndicated reviews, to the shopper’s language preferences to provide information and build a relationship. Product reviews are a significant source of trust for online shoppers. But if they’re written in a foreign language, the chances of making a sale are slim to none.

Home Depot Canada recognized the need for translated reviews to improve the customer experience of its French-speaking customers. Nearly a quarter of Canadians cite French as their first language, so Home Depot was missing out on providing crucial information to a large chunk of its target market. The home improvement retailer turned on Bazaarvoice’s Review Translations feature and instantly improved its French-speaking customers’ experience. 

Thousands of syndicated reviews are great, but if your customer base can’t read or understand them, it’s not doing anyone any favors. 73% of consumers want to see content in their own language, so translated reviews need to be a key component of your international e-commerce strategy.

Step 2: Adapt your social commerce strategy for each target market

The social commerce market is expected to experience a 12.2% growth annually by 2025. So adapting your social commerce strategy for international e-commerce is a smart investment. Find out:

Good places to start are sampling campaigns and working with regional influencers to get the products into the hands of potential customers in international markets (and collecting valuable consumer content in the process). 

i) Launch regional sampling campaigns

Running local sampling campaigns ensures that you’re able to gather enough local user-generated content (UGC), like customer reviews and photos, to build a strong relationship with new customers, increase brand visibility, and gather insights. 

Through sampling campaigns, you can learn about (and address) shoppers’ concerns and preferences specific to that market — like a trial run of sorts. Leading cleaning equipment brand Kärcher used this tactic to collect feedback when entering a new international market and found that its customers didn’t really understand the product’s features.

“Because the product was completely new, we noticed from reviews that many customers didn’t understand the product’s purpose or how to use it…so we adjusted our messaging on the product pages, packaging, and in the user manual to make it more clear. This is something we wouldn’t have known to do without reviews,” said Kevin Wiredu, Senior E-Commerce specialist at Kärcher.

In fact, reviews can act as a form of market research because customers freely and honestly share what works and what doesn’t. Taking this feedback and adjusting the product offerings is exactly what Kärcher did. 

“Without much market research, UGC is our way of collecting insights, especially at the time of entry,” said Wiredu.

Sampling campaigns also helped Kärcher gather high-quality UGC, which the company then incorporated into its product description pages. This collection of localized UGC allowed the brand to launch new international e-commerce product pages tailored to regional markets, making them more personalized, accessible, and informative for customers. 

These sampling campaigns resulted in an impressive collection of reviews totaling 80,000. The reviews were also syndicated across 73 retailers’ websites, putting Kärcher’s total review volume at 280,000. 

The success of this technique lies in the power of social proof: 88% of shoppers consult reviews before making a purchase. If new potential customers see reviews in their native language from customers in their region, it will be easier for them to trust the source. 

“Having reviews in place just before the retailer releases our products gives consumers the confidence to try our new products right from the start. It’s a key to our success,” said Wiredu. 

ii) Work with regional influencers

Influencer marketing helps build brand awareness, connect with customers, and boost trust. All of which are especially significant in new markets. After all, word-of-mouth is one of the oldest marketing tools in the books, and it’s now going digital. Surveys show that 61% of consumers trust product recommendations from family, friends, and influencers, while only 38% trust branded content.  

Personal care brand Rael leveraged this e-commerce trend to build up trust among its customers when it launched a new product category. Rael had been a staple in natural period care products and wanted to enter the beauty market. 

“We previously worked with another sampling provider, but with Bazaarvoice, we’re getting more precise targeting that lets us improve on our review volume and quality. Bazaarvoice targeted specific audience groups with products that matched their skin type and other demographics, interests, shopping behaviors, and product preferences — like moisture versus acne,” said Sorah Park, CMO at Rael.

Through Bazaarvoice’s Influenster community, the company gathered a massive 9.8 million impressions, which included posts, shares, comments, and likes. 

Working with regional influencers will not only help spread your brand message through social media but will also lead to a strong collection of UGC for your website.

Rael took these social media posts and shared them across every marketing channel to promote its new product line with authentic content. Shoppers were able to see photos and videos of real people using the products, which is a key factor in marketing beauty products. Since consumers can’t see, touch, or otherwise experience the product firsthand, detailed reviews and photos aid in the decision-making process. 

“Knowing that people can’t touch and feel a product online, and with the sensorial aspect of beauty and skin care, the third-party validation from UGC is so important,” said Park.

Step 3: Establish a global customer support system

Around 81% of shoppers agree that a seamless customer support experience will prompt them to re-buy products from a brand. Offering multiple support channels, hiring multilingual agents, and interacting with target customers will ensure shoppers maintain a positive image of your brand and increase repeat sales. 

According to Zendesk, help ticket volumes have increased across multiple channels since 2020. Customers seeking help are no longer stuck on the phone in never-ending helplines. While calls are still popular, some of the largest increases in customer support channels were social media, SMS, and WhatsApp.

Offering your new customers different ways to get in contact with you is key. But there’s also another way to provide customer support: review interaction. For example, global technology giant Brother dove headfirst into customer support through interaction by monitoring and replying to customer reviews while expanding to seven international markets. 

Since 75% of shoppers are more likely to re-purchase from a brand if their customer service program is offered in their native language, translations were a significant factor in Brother’s support strategy. 

Expand your international e-commerce reach

Transform your brand into an international e-commerce powerhouse with Bazaarvoice’s suite of tools intended to build brand awareness, boost customer trust, and increase sales.

From review syndication and translation, to high-quality UGC through sampling campaigns, we can help you optimize your international e-commerce journey. Learn more about how you can expand globally here.

FEATURED RESOURCE

The retail marketer’s guide to global expansion

Read now

Another 74% of shoppers want to see that content shared on brands’ websites. As more brands become hip to the power of UGC, its applications in marketing continue to change and evolve.

Our favourite examples of user-generated content marketing

This year brought more innovative and brand-boosting UGC to the playing field. In this year in review, discover the 10 most impactful user-generated content marketing examples from brands, artists, and tech leaders. Use these strategies for inspiration in the new year to create powerful messaging that clicks with consumers.

1. Tentsile makes UGC shoppable

The tent and hammock brand Tentsile has a gorgeous gallery of Instagram photos, and their customers contribute many of them. But beyond just sharing this striking UGC, Tentsile tags their products and turns the photos into shoppable images. That way, Instagram users can go from “I’d love to do that” to “I’m going to do that” with no steps in between.

Lesson learned: Make UGC a social commerce tool

Social commerce is growing rapidly, with several social media platforms adding new shopping features in 2021. In the past year alone, the Twitter Shopping Module, TikTok Shopping, and Facebook’s Live Shopping Fridays all debuted. These developments follow the massive popularity of Instagram Shopping, Facebook Shops, and Pinterest Shopping.

A growing shift to social shopping drives the development of these new digital outlets. Younger shoppers are leading this change in shopping behaviors, with 49% of millennials and 43% of Gen Z using social media platforms to purchase products or services in 2021.

On Instagram, there’s many ways to make your content shoppable, by tagging products in static posts, Stories, Reels, IGTV videos, and Live streams.

Pro tip: Bazaarvoice’s Like2Buy feature streamlines the process, so users can shop every image on your Instagram feed without ever leaving the app.

Shoppable UGC takes social commerce to the next level. Consumers trust other shoppers’ opinions significantly more than branded content, and social commerce shortens the shopping funnel. 

Trust + convenience = conversions 

Shoppable UGC can extend beyond posts from the average user to include influencer content. Many enterprise marketers are already leveraging this tactic: 86% have enabled purchasing from influencer campaigns in 2021.

2. BarkBox makes influencers out of their followers

If you want a user-generated content marketing example that’s both cute and effective, you’ve found it. Look at any dog owner’s camera roll, you’ll likely be treated to hundreds of images and videos of their pet. And those proud pet owners love to share that content online, which BarkBox cleverly uses to source influencer content.

Dogs play starring roles on Instagram accounts of many lifestyle bloggers and celebrities. Some are even influencers in their own right. With accounts all of their own. Many of those accounts also belong to BarkBox customers, giving the brand a built-in team of influencers freely posting content they can share with their 1.7 million followers. This helps both parties. BarkBox sells more subscriptions, and their followers that contribute content get access to a huge audience.

Lesson learned: Rethink what influencer means

Influencers don’t need to be celebrities or have millions of followers to make a big impact. They can be everyday people (or pets!) who have loyal followings, are avid users of a certain type of product, align with a particular lifestyle, or are experts in their field. Or even work for a brand.

Like BarkBox, other companies are shifting their focus to micro- and nano-influencers. According to Linqia’s 2021 State of Influencer Marketing report, 90% of marketers expressed interest in working with micro-influencers.

People perceive these influencers with smaller followings as more authentic, so they are an effective and affordable resource. A Bazaarvoice survey found that 56% of respondents follow regular, everyday influencers more than any other type of influencer, including traditional and social media celebrities.

3. Crocs assembles a UGC squad on TikTok

Crocs is one of the most successful brands on TikTok, the platform where all the cool kids are these days. In the past year, their branded #croctok hashtag created a tidal wave of UGC, inspiring hundreds of TikTokers to create Croc-themed TikTok videos. In these TikToks, Crocs’ customers show off their new shoes, create how-to videos for cleaning and decorating Crocs, and anything else Croc-related.

TikTok videos with the #croctok hashtag have generated six million views so far. This UGC on TikTok is valuable for many reasons, from inspiring excitement and interest in the brand to producing a ton of content that Crocs can share and use for marketing purposes.

Lesson learned: It’s TikTok time

TikTok is the “fastest-growing social media network ever,” outpacing Facebook and Instagram, but still in its early stages as a marketing channel. Early adopters of TikTok as a marketing tool will be at the forefront of a rapidly growing trend, adding to their credibility as industry innovators.

According to an InVideo study of 650 TikTok videos, popular content types for brands include influencer collaborations and content from brand employees — two types of UGC. Another top brand on TikTok, Chipotle, inspires a lot of UGC with their #chipotlehacks content. It’s used by employees, food influencers, and customers to show how they customize their Chipotle orders.

4. Bodyform gets real with the #meandmyperiod campaign

Some of the best examples of user-generated content marketing are educational content. The women’s health brand Bodyform doesn’t just sell hygiene products — it’s become an educational resource and community for women to share their reproductive health experiences. Bodyform launched the Me and My Period campaign on Instagram in September 2021 to create a safe space for their community to share their stories. The #meandmyperiod hashtag has become a rich source for meaningful UGC.

Bodyform cultivates trust and authenticity by encouraging transparency and normalizing reproductive conditions and pain. They reveal the problems and pain points that their product and brand attempts to solve.

Lesson learned: Show authenticity with UGC

The whole point of UGC is that it doesn’t provide the pristine, unattainable images of traditional advertising. UGC shows how real people use and enjoy products in their everyday lives. UGC comes from a genuine affinity for a brand and its products, not because the customer is peddling something.

Because 92% of shoppers trust peer recommendations over claims from brands or retailers, UGC shows that brands can deliver their promises. Developing brand pillars will help identify what values to align messaging and campaigns with.

5. Dove takes a stand with #nodigitaldistortion

Dove’s latest campaign in their ongoing mission to advocate for self-esteem and body positivity is #nodigitaldistortion. This campaign combats the pressures that social media puts on its users, especially young ones. Dove asks its community to have “The Selfie Talk” with the young people in their lives using the “Confidence Kit” it provides as a communication resource.

Dove’s comprehensive campaign partners with influencers like Lizzo and Shonda Rhimes to talk about what having a healthy image means. They then ask their social community to share their own thoughts about #nodigitaldistortion. Dove promotes the campaign on its active social media channels, including Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

On Instagram, over 1,000 posts are tagged with #nodigitaldistortion, and hundreds of conversations including #theselfietalk appear on Twitter.

Dove isn’t the only Unilever brand benefiting from UGC. Socially conscious ice cream darlings Ben and Jerry are also UGC pros to draw inspiration from.

Lesson learned: Start a movement with UGC

#nodigitaldistortion is more than just an example of user-generated content marketing. It’s an entire movement. Dove invites UGC with the intention of disrupting current social media standards and culture. Growing their community and building brand awareness and loyalty are all bonus outcomes. Galvanize your online community around a purposeful mission, idea, or statement, and you could see similar results.

During a 2021 Advertising Week New York panel, Lindsay Stein, chief of social impact at Havas Media, emphasized that 78% of consumers will choose a purpose-driven brand over one that lacks a message and identity that demonstrates brand values.

6. Fresh Beauty masters the art of Instagram Video

Skincare brand Fresh kills the Instagram video game. Instagram itself cites the brand for leveraging Instagram TV as a social selling tool. Fresh also utilizes Stories, in-feed videos, and Reels, continuing to innovate with each new Instagram video feature.

Fresh regularly reposts their customers’ video content, tagging any featured products so other shoppers can instantly learn more and make purchases. One reason these videos are so effective is it shows the customer’s genuine reaction to the product as they’re using it in real time.

These examples from Fresh’s Instagram feed are an Instagram video and Reel created by shoppers that Fresh reposted and tagged with products. Of all the user-generated content marketing examples showcased here, this is our favourite. It’s UGC in the purest form.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Fresh (@freshbeauty)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Fresh (@freshbeauty)

Lesson learned: Embrace Instagram Video

Video on Instagram garners more views and engagement than any other content type. Permanent, in-feed video posts receive 46% more likes than static image posts, and Stories with videos have a lower tap-forward rate than images, meaning they retain users’ attention better and for longer.

It was all about video last year, and the format shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Video is not only dominating engagement on Instagram but all other major social media platforms, as well. And video is a persuasive shopping tool. 84% of respondents to a Wyzowl survey reported making a purchase after watching a brand’s video.

7. T2 successfully launched new products during pandemic lockdowns

This is one of the best examples of user-generated content marketing because T2, like so many other e-commerce and retail brands, faced new product marketing challenges as a result of COVID. This was especially true for food and beverage product launches, more than half of which were delayed due to the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, T2 offered new product samples at their tea bars located in physical retail spaces. The global tea brand was ready to launch new products but knew shoppers would be hesitant to try something new without sampling it first.

The solution was to, “get the latest tea to their most loyal customers, like top review contributors and members of their loyalty program” through a targeted sampling campaign. Not only could those high-value customers get access to T2’s new products, but they could spread the word to other potential customers in the form of UGC. “We saw an immediate increase in reviews just after products went live. That gave other customers confidence to buy the new teas,” said Sally Lennox, head of digital at T2.

The reviews and visual UGC that the sampling campaign produced resulted in a significant increase in conversions and revenue per visitor for T2.

Lesson learned: Launch and revive products with UGC

Now’s the time to invest in product sampling. So you can get the word out about products in a world where in-person shopping is still recovering slowly. According to Adweek, “The great shifts of preference, mindset and expectations will have a significant impact on the product sampling industry and how brands adapt to utilizing this proven marketing strategy.”

A benefit of product sampling is that samplers produce high-value UGC, which brands can use on product pages and social channels. Sampling yields authoritative reviews from customers who have personally tested products, and, “every 10 reviews nets a 5% conversion rate lift,” according to our sampling data.

This approach works well for hero products in need of some revitalization, too. Sampling is a great way to reintroduce established products to customers and accumulate more recent reviews, which prove more reliable to customers than older reviews.

For example, French skincare company Clarins lacked reviews for one of its key product. So they opted to run a sampling campaign targeting that particular brand staple. Within 36 days, they received 138 reviews, and 91% of sampling recipients left a review.

8. Maybelline puts the customer perspective front and center

If you want to know the secret to crafting a high-performing product page, Maybelline can show you how it’s done. Hint: It’s all about the UGC. Of course, Maybelline does have beautiful, professional product photography. But the real secret weapon is how they’ve combined and displayed different elements of UGC.

Take the product page for their Lash Sensational Sky High mascara, for example. Directly under the product description with the “buy now” button and product photos, there’s a gallery of visual UGC from social media. The entire gallery is shoppable, with tagged products in each image.

Below the UGC gallery is customer reviews of the product, with a breakout section at the top for review highlights. Because there’s over 400 product reviews, the highlights condense and summarize the reviews with key takeaways. That way it’s easy for shoppers to digest quickly.

Lesson learned: Optimize product pages with UGC

Product pages are the gateway to checkout pages, so if you’re not optimizing them, you could be losing sales. To leverage this critical space for conversions, go all in with a combination of visual UGC and customer reviews. Visual UGC sourced from social media on product pages can increase conversions by 150% and average order value by 15%. Reviews are highly influential to 95% of shoppers who read them prior to making a purchase.

By strategically and prominently placing UGC on product pages like Maybelline, you can attract the majority of shoppers who rely on them for purchasing decisions. For reviews, that means highlighting the most important elements. Which, according to a survey of 30,000 global shoppers, are: recency, volume, images with text, positive reviews, and negative reviews that brands respond to.

9. Spotify’s Only You campaign

Spotify knows a thing or two about getting its audience hyped to interact with the platform. Just look at the hold Spotify Wrapped has on society. This year, Spotify’s Only You campaign provided its users with an in-app experience that revealed their unique listening habits based on Spotify’s internal data.

Only You asked users what three artists they would choose to have at a dream dinner party. Once listeners engaged with the feature, Spotify generated personalized playlists based on the final results. Only You appealed to each listener’s personal tastes and invited them to share their results on social media, thus turning the feature into a source for UGC. The campaign delivered content that fans were eager to share because it reflected their interests, and who doesn’t love talking about themselves?

Lesson learned: Use customer trends for creative campaigns

Spotify leveraged its own insights and analytics to share with its listeners, allowing them to explore information about themselves with the option to share it. A lot of people did choose to share their Only You results because it was unique to them, fun, interesting, and wrapped in an attractive visual package.

Brands can take a page from Spotify’s book and send customers content related to their shopping experiences that they can customize and share. For example, an apparel brand could send customers a branded “best dressed” badge or template they can use to post with their favorite outfit from a recent purchase. A wine subscription company could send their customers digital cards they can fill out with their favorite wine selections and tasting notes to share on social media.

10. Lucy Dacus’ Brando music video contest

Our last user-generated content marketing example, but certainly not the least. For the release of her latest album, “Home Video,” Lucy Dacus hosted a contest asking her fans to record themselves dancing to her single, “Brando,” for a chance to be featured in the music video. The final product is a heartwarming compilation of the submissions, serving as a kind of tribute to her fans.

With this charming and inventive piece of crowd-sourced UGC, she made her fans creative collaborators and strengthened her relationship with them. “These videos brought me a lot of joy and made me feel more connected to the song and all of you,” Dacus said in a press release.

Lesson learned: Run a contest that celebrates your fans

Involving your fans in your creative process is one of the best ways to engage your community and build loyalty. And if it’s a contest, that gives your followers an extra incentive to participate. The reward for entering could be as simple as being featured in a campaign or piece of content — like the Brando contest — or something with more concrete value, like a gift card, free experience, or subscription.

Be an industry innovator

Take what inspires you from these user-generated content marketing examples and make them your own to fit the tone, style, function, and personality of your brand. If you want to boost sales this year, you need to push UGC forward to the next level.

Still need convincing? Our free marketing ROI calculator tool will show you the positive impact UGC can have on your sales.

FEATURED RESOURCE

The audit your UGC program needs

Learn more here

Chapters:

1. Why launch a product online?
2. 8 strategies for a successful online product launch
3. Follow up post-product launch
4. Create your online product launch plan

Why launch a product online?

In short: pandemic shopping trends are here to stay. When most people had to stay at home, consumers began browsing and shopping online through necessity. In March 2020 alone, page views on e-commerce sites increased 25% year over year, and order counts grew 21%, according to data from across our network of 12,500+ brand and retailer websites. We saw this increase even further in later months — page views are up 75%, and order count is up 95%. 

But even now the world is back open, consumers are still mainly shopping like it’s closed. And it’s not just the traditional e-commerce realm either. 80% of shoppers say their time on social media has increased significantly, which has helped spur the meteoric rise of social commerce.

And given that social commerce, the buying and selling of products and services through shoppable content on social media, is projected to to reach $79.6 billion in 2025, launching your product online only ensures you’re meeting shoppers where they are. Here’s how to do it.

8 strategies for a successful online product launch

To get your new product in front of shoppers, you need to meet them where they are. Here’s eight strategies to successfully teach you how to launch a product online.

Or, for ease, you can jump down to our short masterclass on how to have the most successful product launch possible.

1. Determine the market need for your product

The best way to uncover whether there’s a market for your new product is to look at what consumers are buying and how your product aligns with those trends. Maybe it’s setting up your own private label brand to coincide with the struggling economy. Or it’s a new TikTok tool to keep up with rapidly-rising TikTok e-commerce.

But, shoppers are browsing and purchasing lots of other things online. In recent years we’ve seen over 100% growth in orders across the following categories:

• Home improvement: Tools, paint, furniture, and building materials
• Sporting goods: Athletic equipment, fitness items, bicycles, and recreational vehicles
• Health & beauty: Cosmetics, over-the-counter medications, hair care, grooming items, and fragrance
• Food & beverage: Fresh and packaged foods, and alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages
• Arts and entertainment: Books, video and music downloads, and streaming services
• Consumer electronics: Computer programs, apps, and appliances

Aside from just researching current consumer buying behaviors, examine your own data about customer behavior to understand shoppers’ interest. What are they browsing and buying? How have related products performed? Which products are shoppers reviewing?

Ratings and reviews especially tend to reveal special product requests, new trends, and overall sentiment about your brand.

2. Set up a timeline for the launch

Getting your product in consumers’ hands as quickly as possible is undoubtedly your number one goal. But, it takes time and planning to get there. Prepping and launching a product generally takes about one to one and a half years, according to Claire Maynard, Head of Product Marketing, New Products & Solutions at Atlassian. Sometimes working backwards from your ideal launch date can help create a reasonable timeline.

You need time to develop a solid online marketing strategy that spans social media, email, and a website. You also need to tap into your creativity to craft your brand’s story, identify your target audience, and get them excited about your product, well before it launches.

3. Collect user-generated content with sampling

Part of your timeline needs to account for allowing time for a sampling campaign. Why? 89% of shoppers check reviews before making a purchase, so launching your product with an existing pool of reviews is going to boost sales. And sampling is how you do it. Product sampling is a tried-and-tested marketing tactic where you offer goods or services in exchange for reviews, social posts, and other user-generated content (UGC). 

For launching new products online, not only does it generate invaluable brand awareness and social proof, it also provides valuable insights into shopper sentiment and potential sales. Including time in your project plan for sampling ahead of launch will give your product a stronger start in the market.

Burt’s Bees for example turned to product sampling ahead of launching a new makeup line — the largest expansion in the brand’s history. Naturally, this made them nervous. But thanks to sampling, they needn’t have worried. Within just two weeks, the brand had collected 300 reviews, with an average star rating of 4.48. After six months, cosmetics accounted for 21% of all sales on the brand’s site.

4. Tell your story in a creative, appropriate way

Telling a compelling, creative story about your brand and product resonates with shoppers. Once you land on your central story, develop content to support it — professional photos and video, UGC, descriptions, landing pages, and more. 

Just make sure the content is appropriate and meaningful. 58% of respondents from the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer said they only buy from or advocate for brands whose beliefs and values they support. This is especially true when it comes to Gen Z.

In addition, consider factoring in the UGC you’ve collected into your marketing campaigns by showcasing customer testimonials or photos. This is especially beneficial now in a time when consumers are sensitive to brand missteps. Using UGC in your online product launch campaigns is a smart and authentic way to connect with your audience, like these examples demonstrate.

Repurpose content across your entire online presence: social media posts, email marketing messages, websites, digital advertising, etc. Include calls to action asking consumers to sign up for emails, favorite a post, or visit your website too.

5. Generate buzz on social media

Social media plays an integral role in helping consumers discover new products and brands. Countdowns, product previews, “coming soon” messages, giveaways, and hashtags are a few ways to use content to drive excitement for the launch. But consumers also actively turn to social media platforms to discover new products and brands. Scrolling is the new window shopping:

It’s not just discovery, either. After seeing a product or service on Instagram, 92% of users say they’ve taken some kind of action, such as buying the product online, visiting the brand’s website, or following the brand on social media, according to research commissioned by Facebook.  

An example of a brand generating buzz on social media for an online product launch is Tula, a probiotic skincare company. Recently, Tula launched a new size of one of their best-selling primers, so they shared product images on their social channels to get the ball rolling:

Targeted social media ads are another way to reach your desired audience and compel them to purchase your product or engage with your brand. Among social media users, 48% say they’ve purchased something after seeing an ad on social media, according to The CMO Survey. 

6. Partner with influencers 

One of the best ways to make sure you land your online product launch is to use the audience already there: influencers. Social media influencers are helpful in spreading the word about your products because they already have a vast, often loyal, network of followers. Influencers especially resonate with younger demographics, with more than half of Gen Z and millennials saying they trust influencers’ advice about brands and products, according to a Morning Consult report.

If you’re using influencers, make sure they’re genuine, with a high engagement rate and not just a large number of followers. And, examine the type of engagement the influencer receives. For example, are the comments on a product post actually relevant to the content?  

Once you’ve chosen your desired influencer(s), reach out to them and include them in your sampling campaigns outlined in step 3 above to collect authentic, organic UGC.

After Tula had started generating buzz on its Instagram, the brand partnered with influencers to spread further brand awareness and collect feedback.

7. Set up a website or a product landing page

A designated website or detailed product page on an existing site gives consumers a place to learn more about your product. It also builds trust with consumers that could encourage them to place an order.

Product pages are a great place to house a detailed product demo video and a visual coming soon display, like a countdown clock. Nail your product page first time with the following best practices:

Above all, you can use the site to collect details about the consumers showing interest. Most consumers are willing to share their personal information with brands if they get something in return, like exclusive access or a discount. 

8. Spread the word by email

Once you start collecting consumer email addresses, send one-on-one messages. Over half of consumers check their personal email 10 times a day and say email is how they prefer to receive messages from brands.

The first stream of emails should hint about the new product. Then, follow up with details about the launch date. When the product launches, send “buy now” emails with vibrant images and a call-to-action link to make purchasing easy. Add a sense of urgency to encourage purchases by offering discounts or limited-time offers.

Tula also included emails as part of their online product launch strategy:

Pro tip: don’t sleep on SMS marketing. 85% of smartphone owners would rather receive text messages from brands than phone calls or emails.

Follow up post-product launch

The work doesn’t stop when the product launches. Post-launch, focus on customer care. Respond to messages quickly and check your social media mentions. And, keep up the market strategy you put in place.  

Next, don’t forget to email customers who’ve purchased the product and ask for a product review. Just one review can increase future purchases by 10%, according to Bazaarvoice data. Also use the insights provided in these reviews to tune your products accordingly. European retailer Vertbaudet for example amended its maternity line based on feedback from customer reviews, which led to a 12% increase in sales.

Create your online product launch plan

Launching a product online isn’t easy. But over 39% of global shoppers have recently purchased from different brands they hadn’t heard of before and 83% of shoppers will continue to buy from newly discovered brands, according to our Shopper Experience Index. So now’s the time to capture these consumers with your new product launch.

Product launches can bring success even before they go to market. Read our e-book below and learn how you can create a UGC plan, and use it to create the most successful online and offline product launch possible, with easy-to-use tools and best practices.

LEARN MORE

6 ways to launch your product with a bang

Read now

Chapters:

1. What is product marketing?
2. Why is product marketing important?
3. Product marketing phases
4. Land your product launch

In 2001, the Segway scooter launched as one of the most hyped products in history, promising to change the world by replacing automobiles. Instead, the Segway bombed and ended up as a mall cop punchline. One of the main reasons behind its failed launch was its inventor’s obsession with secrecy. He didn’t allow his marketing team to do the research they needed.

If he had, they would have discovered the scooter was overpriced, and people thought it looked really stupid. (#awkward)

One of the biggest misconceptions about bringing a product to market is that someone just swoops in at the end to sell the finished product. But that’s not how things work in reality. Segway’s failure is a great illustration of why product marketing shouldn’t be an afterthought.

Product marketing is integral to every aspect of a product’s lifecycle — before, during, and after launch.

What is product marketing?

At its core, product marketing is the process of bringing your customers and product together. This includes developing a go-to-market (GTM) strategy, as well as synthesizing feedback from customers and a core team of cross-functional stakeholders, ranging from product, sales, customer success, and marketing.

Then, throughout the launch and growth phases, product marketers help make sure that market-facing teams are continuously enabled to effectively represent the product and that the product is positioned for optimal performance.

The role of a product marketing manager (PMM) varies between different industries, companies, and products. Usually, a product marketer’s responsibilities include conducting market research, crafting a compelling product vision and narrative, developing a launch plan, launching the product, and supporting its growth by driving demand and product usage.

They also take market insights like customer feedback and competitive intelligence back to the product team to influence future product development.

Why is product marketing important?

Product marketing is crucial to every business strategy. 

Why? Because it’s the voice of the customer.

To support a successful product launch and ongoing growth, businesses need to build customer relationships all along the product journey and continuously advocate on behalf of the customers’ pain points and goals.

A great product marketing team empathizes with customers’ pain points. They ask: What problems do they have, and how does our product solve them? Then, PMMs communicate the product’s value to customers, advocate for its use, and take customer insights back to the product team to further tweak features or troubleshoot problems.

“…product marketing actually assesses the market, what sort of core competencies that organization already has, and then pulls that empathy and understanding of the market into what should we go build, because we fundamentally understand there’s an acute pain point going on for which people are willing to pay for a solution, and that is truly the value that a product marketing manager brings to the table.” – Elizabeth Brigham, Head of Product Marketing at Morningstar.

Product marketing phases

The Product Marketing Alliance outlines the phases of product marketing, which we’ve adapted below into three main stages: before, during, and after launch. The first two phases (preparing for and launching a product) generally take about one to one and a half years, according to Claire Maynard, Head of Product Marketing, New Products & Solutions at Atlassian.

1. Pre-launch stage: Market research, positioning, awareness, and reach

During the pre-launch phase, you gather info on the market and define your position. This includes conducting market research, telling your brand story, and expanding your reach by identifying your customer base and building buzz.

In essence, you’re trying to ask a lot of questions and foresee Segway’s ‘mall cop’ punchline before it happens. Then avert it.

“The biggest opportunity for [product marketers],” according to Christine Lee, VP of Network Accounts at Bazaarvoice, “is to be the devil’s advocate in the ‘pre’ stage to make sure all road bumps are known/uncovered.”

Market research

When you’re in discovery mode, you should make an educated hypothesis about what customers want, test your assumptions, and review and refine those assumptions. Then build a business case for your product. One way to do this is by talking directly with customers. 

“Representing the customer is all about having deep, specific knowledge from actually talking to customers,” says Natala Menezes, Global Head of Product Marketing at Grammarly. “Launches themselves are just actually a next step in that process, and it’s not where their relationship is beginning.”

Peloton is a prime example of a using the discovery phase to refine marketing strategy. The brand hypothesized only fit, affluent riders would buy the product, so that’s where it focused initial marketing efforts. But through conversations with their community, they realized they’d missed the opportunity to sell to less wealthy consumers who liked the bike’s convenience, and were willing to splurge.

Thanks to this market research, the brand introduced a new financing program and a more diverse marketing campaign. With a market cap of $10billion, the pivot clearly worked for the brand. Which demonstrates precisely the importance of the market research phase. Just because the feedback isn’t what you expected, it doesn’t mean a lost cause.

After you’ve thoroughly tested your assumption about your project and audience, it’s time to plan how you’ll bring your product to market:

1. Objectives
2. Messaging
3. Pricing
4. Delivery and servicing
5. Enablement of market-facing teams
6. Demand generation
7. Market communications
8. And the list goes on

Positioning

Once you’ve mapped out your plans, you should define your brand and product’s positioning. In your market research, you identified your target audience, and now it’s time to map out the customer journey toward product adoption for each buyer persona.

This involves delving into your audience’s pain points and then choosing the right messaging and channels to reach them. You’ll also need to choose a product name and logo that’s accessible and appealing to customers.

For example, when Airbnb rebranded in 2014, it positioned itself as a way to belong anywhere in the world. With a worldwide audience, the new logo and accompanying ads had to carry a message that would resonate no matter who or where you are: “We are all seeking to belong. We all want to connect and share to feel accepted and feel safe.”

A more recent example of brand positioning is Nike’s “Play New” campaign. With messaging like “Here’s to giving it a shot, even though your shot is garbage,” it’s clear that the brand is trying to reach an audience that’s just dipping its toes into sports and fitness. People feel fearful and awkward when trying new things (like me at my first spin class) — and they often fail (also like me at my first spin class).

Nike’s clear empathy for those feelings is what makes the campaign so appealing to people who aren’t professional athletes.

To ensure your messages land, pay close attention to audience feedback. If the story you’re telling doesn’t resonate or misses a wider audience, you should shift your messaging strategy. But if your video is racking up tons of views on YouTube and the comments are full of positive vibes like Nike’s, you’ll know you hit the right nerve.

Generate awareness and anticipation

With a teaser, you can generate a feeling of anticipation prior to a product’s GA release. Do this by posting a video, social post, or ad without any specific product or launch details. Nike’s Twitter post showing a runner using AR lenses is a perfect example of how brands can use videos on social media as teasers for new product launches.

Similar to a teaser but with more details, the sneak peek is especially suited for Instagram because you can sneakily () build an audience and create buzz around your product before you try to sell. Gathering feedback at this stage can help you determine if you’ve found product-market fit.

Texas fashion boutique Gypsy Waltz takes advantage of this approach by offering a few tantalizing and strategically placed photos of upcoming products and when they’ll be available to purchase.

One of the advantages of the sneak peek is the feedback opportunity. You can field questions via email, social media, or live chat, and customers can like and share the product before they even buy. Or you can utilize a hyper-targeted sampling campaign and send product samples to your dream customer in exchange for honest feedback.

Another way to amplify your launch event is by creating a “save the date” video to excite your audience and generate buzz. In the video, share the time and date for your launch event. Even mention something special that will encourage people to attend, like an exclusive live performance. Taylor Swift does with her save-the-date video for the launch of her album Lover.

Below the ad, Taylor also posted links to pre-order the album, attend the launch event, buy merch, and follow her on social channels. This may seem a strange example, but Taylor has a million Grammies so we can’t knock it.

Pro tip: Don’t over-hype the event unless you’ll deliver above and beyond audience expectations. For example, Taylor’s ad felt very chill and unscripted. But the actual launch event felt like a valentine for fans. Taylor read from her childhood diary and gave away free copies, shared her thought process for creating the album, and talked with guest Stella McCartney about their fashion collaboration.

Expand your reach

One of the best times to earn new customers is before a launch. If you’re a new brand launching your first product, you’re just trying to go beyond your family and friends. And if you’re an established brand, you’re trying to expand your reach beyond your established customers. 

Either way, your existing network is your best tool to recruit new customers.

Referral marketing is a strong strategy to snag new customers — especially millennials, many of whom won’t even consider a product if their friends don’t like it. You should capitalize on the social proof trend by offering an incentive for existing fans to share your product with their friends.

A great example of this is when Harry’s published a pre-launch referral page with the copy “Shaving is evolving. Don’t leave your friends behind.” The company offered tiered prizes (from free shaving cream to free shaving for a year) depending on how many successful referrals customers signed up.

The week-long campaign generated about 100,000 emails through referrals before the company even launched its product.

As a bonus, this pre-launch referral approach makes your customers feel like insiders, which encourages brand loyalty and customer retention.

2. Launch stage: Build trust and activate users

During the product launch stage, you’ll usually release your product in three stages that correspond to customer tiers:

1. Alpha (hand-picked customers)
2. Beta (larger group of fans)
3. GA (general availability)

Each stage gives you a chance to learn how customers are responding to the product. Then use these insights to tweak aspects of your product such as capabilities, pricing, and messaging.

It’s time to prepare your sales assets and marketing campaigns and equip your team with field enablement sessions. And you’ll thoroughly document everything so your core team can fully understand, promote, and support the product.

“You sort of learn as you go,” says Maynard. “Your initial idea for a product might end up being completely different once you’ve tested it with end-users.”

Build trust with user-generated content

An effective way to establish trust and build buzz for a new product is to show other customers’ experiences with that product. Ask your alpha and beta users to share reviews and post content on social media. To collect more user-generated content (UGC), reward customers with gift cards or the promise of early access to your next launch.

Collect and share customer quotes as part of your launch campaign. Use customer testimonial photos and videos on your website, YouTube channel, and social media. Or — for B2B companies — spotlight customer success stories in case studies (like we do).

Take Nourison, a leading supplier of rugs, carpets, and home accessories. The company converts 4x the customers by bringing user images from social media into its product detail pages. Even negative customer feedback is useful because it enables the company to glean meaningful insights to improve the product, its features, and marketing messages.

Activate your audience

At the beginning of the product launch, your primary goal is to activate users ASAP. In other words, to get customers to make a purchase, become repeat buyers, and/or engage with your brand in some way.

You can do this by providing a sleek onboarding experience that quickly ushers them to the “a-ha moment.” For example, after insurance company Lemonade’s users sign up, it takes only about 90 seconds to get them a quote. This helps customers see the product’s value in the most frictionless way possible.

You can also activate customers by making a subscription signup process as non-committal as possible. Stitch Fix does this in style with its style quiz.

Visitors share their email before taking the quiz (oopsie! not just a quiz). By the end of the quiz, visitors who were inspired by the styles they saw can sign up for the service. Or they can wait to receive tantalizing promotional emails that offer credits toward their first style.

Another great way to activate customers is to embed content marketing within your product marketing strategy. SaaS company Atlassian does this by publishing a keyword-optimized template or tutorial that appeals to its target market. People in its audience who are interested in that topic click on the tutorial and land inside the product itself.

Because the experience of getting into the product is frictionless, it drives activation just from searching.

3. Post-launch: Consistent messaging, engagement, and expansion

After you’ve successfully launched a product, you should invest in growing its demand and adoption. The goal of the post-launch phase is to grow your customer base, as well as your product.

“DO NOT BE AFRAID TO MODIFY the offer/solution in market if something isn’t working as planned.” – Christine Lee, VP of Network Accounts at Bazaarvoice.

You should analyze the customer journey and create consistent messaging and opportunities for engagement and expansion throughout. Then you can use customer feedback to create a roadmap for future product features or integrate it into an omnichannel marketing communication strategy.

Repurpose across channels

One of the most important parts of the post-launch phase is to keep messaging consistent across different channels. Besides creating a consistent experience for customers, it also saves marketing dollars to repurpose content in different ways.

Pro tip: Post a five-minute YouTube video on your product detail page. Then, include a still from the video in launch emails with a CTA to watch the video on your product page. Post and boost an IG carousel with a link to visit the product page. And finally repurpose one of your IG images in a direct mail piece with a short product description and an exclusive offer.

Breakfast food brand Kodiak Cakes kills at consistent messaging. The company posts drool-worthy images on Instagram carousels along with engaging questions that earn hundreds — sometimes thousands — of comments and likes.

The company also repurposes those images on its website. If you click on the website image, you land on the IG profile. Boom. Consistent experience throughout.

Encourage engagement with gamification and discussion panels

After launching your product, encourage users to continue engaging with marketing, even when it isn’t directly geared toward driving sales. Gamified marketing captures attention, grows brand awareness, and drives conversions. Plus, it’s a way to show off your brand’s personality and provide something of value for free — a fun experience.

Even Apple, the world’s most valuable company, uses the gamification technique. A few months after releasing the iPhone 13, Apple invited users to participate in a photography challenge.

Participants shared their own photos taken on iPhone 13 Pro or iPhone 13 Pro Max on social media with the hashtags #ShotoniPhone and #iPhonemacrochallenge. Apple promises to celebrate the winning photos on Apple’s website and social channels, and maybe even physical stores or billboards.

You can also engage customers by hosting a discussion panel via webinars or podcasts. This tactic helps non-customer-facing teams like marketing to hear the voice of the customer directly. Discussion panels can inspire future product features or marketing strategies.

It’s also a great way to humanize your brand. By meeting customers face to face, you reinforce the idea that you want to connect with and help your customers.

Panel discussions could be centered on something important in your industry, constructive feedback about a new product, or a way to connect customers together in a community. Peloton accomplished this beautifully with its Homecoming 2021 Community Chat, which consisted of 88 classes and 13 panel discussions.

Prior to the virtual event, the company collected questions from members and then hosted discussions to address those questions, grouped by topic. Panelists included Peloton instructors, active members on social media, and frequent leaderboard leaders. The content created from this event was later repurposed on its blog and YouTube channel.

Expand through upselling, referrals, and UGC

Once customers have adopted your product, the next step is to expand by increasing the value you get from customers — i.e., upselling. A common way to upsell customers is to encourage them to upgrade from a free to a premium plan, as Grammarly does in this promotional email:

Upselling can also mean showing customers how to use the product they already bought — by buying another product. Clothing retailer Express does this by sending post-purchase emails with examples of items that would pair well with a customer’s previous purchase.

You can also expand your customer base through referral marketing. For example, Get Back Necklaces used Friendbuy’s referral program to offer customers and referrals 50% off their purchase, which increased its referral revenue by 700%.

Another way to expand your customer base is with viral UGC, which makes marketing more meaningful and authentic to customers. A prime example of this is Applebee’s using TikTok videos of Walker Hayes’ hit song “Fancy Like.”

After Hayes’ TikTok video went viral on social media, fans took it upon themselves to reenact the dance on their own social media channels (sometimes even filmed at Applebee’s). Applebee’s took advantage of the free publicity and created some TV ads and social media campaigns using these videos. The song became the top country song in the U.S., and store sales increased while competitors’ sales fell.

To get started with UGC, you can partner with an influencer to create personalized testimonials that feel more authentic and use their ideas to help shape future features. I.e., your product roadmap. (Here’s more ideas on how to find a TikTok influencer that makes sense for your brand.)

Land your launch

No one is promising your product will be the next iPhone, but with a bit of strategy and investment, you can ensure that it’s not the next Segway.

Ready to craft your go-to-market strategy? Learn more about how starting with UGC can help you find fans, collect reviews, and gain traction before, during, and after launch.

Best practice guide: 5 ways to launch your product with a bang

LEARN MORE

Click here to read

More and more brands today are using product sampling campaigns to generate user-generated content (UGC) in the form of ratings and reviews. Why? To boost awareness and increase conversions. Bazaarvoice found that for every 50 samples we send, we get about 45 reviews back. Even if a product has just five reviews, purchase likelihood is 270% greater than for a product with no reviews.

T2 is a brand that aims to turn the traditional art of brewing tea on its head and create a community of tea lovers. They knew they needed to get creative to get shoppers to fill their cups. So, they recently launched product sampling campaigns to put their products right in front of customers. This way they can try before they buy.

The brand sells over 100 teas, and employees travel the earth to find the best quality ingredients for their products. While T2 is a global brand with physical stores in five countries, it’s had to rely on its e-commerce presence and product sampling during the COVID-19 pandemic because brick-and-mortar stores were closed. 

T2: Launching a new tea 

UGC is a brand’s greatest asset. The majority of shoppers (92%) trust peer recommendations more than brands or retailers. Plus, one Bazaarvoice study found that 77% of U.S. online shoppers read reviews before purchasing for more than half the products they buy. When customers understand more about products, they buy more. It’s really that simple.

T2 understands the power of UGC. The brand was set to launch a new tea in 2020 but knew that customers would be hesitant to buy a product they couldn’t actually taste. That’s why they partnered with Bazaarvoice to send samples to their most loyal customers and our Influenster community to gather UGC for the new product. 

In our brand new case study, we detail how T2 executed this product sampling strategy to help customers overcome purchase hesitation. T2 then uses the actionable insights they gain from UGC to inform business decisions. Like which discontinued products should be brought back. 

We also showcase how T2 took advantage of their increase in UGC to upgrade their marketing materials, like in-store displays, website banners, and email campaigns. 

Read the full case study here to discover exactly how the global tea brand increased conversion by 174%. Not to mention a significant increase in revenue per visitor. Read the full success story here. 

Featured resource

Building sampling into a successful brand strategy

Read now!

“We turned from being a brand that was of less importance to some retailers; we became of greater importance to them.”

Launching a brand that’s loved in one market into a new territory where it’s not known at all is a huge hill to climb. As a product or brand manager, you’ll need to convince new retailers that your brand is of good value and worth stocking to drive sales, strengthen retail partnerships, and increase distribution. You’ll also need to create new brand advocates and increase lifetime customer value. 

Beko ANZ was trying to navigate this exact situation, and with Bazaarvoice’s help, they managed to figure it out in just eight months. See how they:

• Saved more than $100,000 a year on insights and analysis 
• Placed products into more stores and strengthened retail partnerships 
• Syndicated and distributed product reviews that elevated their brand and drove sales 
• Built and solidified connections with customers

Chatting with Amanda Hart, Marketing Manager at Beko ANZ

Beko is a leader in domestic home appliances, active in more than 140 countries, and Amanda’s worked for them for just over four years. 

“Beko is quite a small and new subsidiary in Australia and New Zealand. So, I looked at some of the bigger subsidiaries around the world for inspiration. I went to our Beko UK website and I noticed straight away on their homepage that it talked about how 96% of consumers recommend our products and I thought, well, that’s pretty powerful; I want that too! Without reviews, no one in our part of the world and America too would know who we were.”

Amanda’s search to find the right ratings and review solution was kickstarted by a website relaunch. 

“We were rebuilding our website and researching review platforms. We needed something affordable with a global reach and found that Bazaarvoice offered both.”

What was the biggest obstacle?

“Finding a review platform solution with a global reach. A customer and our digital team recommended Bazaarvoice. Armed with feedback and research, I said I already know what I want, I’ve done the research, let’s go.” 

Let your customers do the work

In order to introduce its brand name and products to the Australian market, Beko used what works best: User-generated content. By letting customers do the talking, they’ve been able to sell more online during the pandemic and get their products into more stores as the COVID-19 situation has improved in Australia. 

The result? A whopping 30,000 product reviews on retail sites. 

Beko now has more than 30,000 reviews on retail sites from syndication—mostly gathered from post-interaction emails sent to customers after registering their appliance—which accounts for more than half of all Beko product reviews on those sites. Increasing review volume has also helped Beko become retailers’ favorite vendor.  

And they achieved all this in a mere eight months.

“Retailers that we were only just starting to really talk to in New Zealand that have not really done work with us in the past, are looking at the numbers going ‘Holy wow.’ They’re quite blown away with all the reviews that we’ve gotten and that they can get access to. We turned from being a brand that was of less importance to some retailers to one of greater importance.”

Also not to be underestimated has been the power of reviews in nudging new customers towards clicking add to cart. 

“Beko consumers have a very high loyalty rate once our products are in their home. So, that’s where reviews become important to me because I want to give that first time consumer a bit more reason to buy us. The average amount of reviews on a washing machine is probably about 200 reviews. Our customers trust the word of 200 other individuals out there before they’d trust an ad.” 

$100,000 saved in consumer research

Beko have also saved $100,000 a year on consumer research using Bazaarvoice Insights & Reports. 

“If you have 15 reviews and they all talk about the same product flaw then it needs to be looked into. Once we notice a pattern from our reviews we can take it back to the team. They’re engineers and they want to do things right. Once they’ve got that data, they’re able to implement changes,” says Murat Doram, Product Manager at Beko. 

Ask any brand or product manager and they’ll tell you the same thing: Launching a well-known brand into a completely new territory is hard. Really hard. But, it doesn’t have to be. Utilising the right global product reviews platform will drive your customer ratings and reviews, in turn increasing distribution, strengthening your retail partnerships, and boosting your sales. Just ask Beko! Read the full Beko success story now.

Featured resource

Webinar: How to respond to negative reviews like a pro

Watch now!