Consumer content supercharges launch of the EGO brand

Bazaarvoice platform helps charge launch of the EGO brand with multi-dimensional consumer content

When EGO cordless outdoor power equipment launched in 2013, the marketers behind the brand knew that customer reviews and other consumer content would play a powerful part in EGO’s ultimate success. As a new brand, the company had no content online, brand awareness or any meaningful way to showcase the quality of EGO products to retail partners or consumers.

They turned to Bazaarvoice for the technology platform they needed — not just to collect and publish ratings and reviews, but to do everything possible to maximize the impact of consumer content.

Today, EGO relies on a suite of Bazaarvoice solutions, including Ratings & Reviews for a robust ratings and reviews program, including the syndication of reviews to key retailers. Bazaarvoice Curations takes EGO beyond reviews to include customer photos and videos in consumer content. Finally, Bazaarvoice Advertising helps the brand reach in-market shoppers with targeted ads for EGO products.

The Bazaarvoice platform has helped to build a brand that now dominates the competition in sales, and often finds it challenging to keep enough inventory on-hand to meet demand.

Building a more powerful brand presence through content syndication

The EGO brand has a passionate base of customers who are writing thousands of reviews to share their experience and inform potential purchasers, especially on the high power and performance of the products. These reviews have contributed significantly to a major lift in online conversion year-over-year, according to Joe Turoff, VP of Sales and Marketing for Chervon, the company that manufactures EGO.

But it’s not just the ability to collect and publish reviews on the EGO website that has been so instrumental to the brand’s success; it’s the ability to syndicate that content to websites of major retailers and on multiple international sites.

Being able to feature large numbers of reviews on retailer sites accomplishes two things, says Turoff. First, it enables EGO to reach more potential customers where they are likely to buy, and second, it enhances our position with retailers by demonstrating that consumers are rallying around our products.

Along with high review volume, the brand’s line of lawn and garden equipment has the highest overall average rating at a national home improvement retailer.

Connecting directly with retail customers about their questions and concerns

It’s normally not possible for brands that sell through retailers to respond directly to consumers who have issues with or questions about products, since the retailers control the customer interactions. But when the brand and retailer are both on the Bazaarvoice platform, there’s an interface for the brand to participate in responses to consumers.

With the direct-response capability, EGO is able to engage with its retail partners’ customers by answering questions and responding to reviews on the retailer’s website.

Telling the EGO story visually

After three years using the Bazaarvoice platform, EGO is continuing to explore more ways to use it to increase the impact of consumer content. The brand recently started using Bazaarvoice Curations to add more customer photos and videos to the consumer content on its website, including images posted on social channels.

We recognize the importance of Curations for showcasing pride of ownership, says Turoff, and we’re looking forward to doing more of that.

Company-wide adoption of consumer content

Other parts of the business are benefiting from their Bazaarvoice program as well, including all teams that want actionable insights into the customers or products.

The product team scours review content and picks up on what people are saying, says Turoff. They’ve been able to make great products even better using the information they receive.