According to a study by eMarketers, approximately 116 million US internet users were using some form of online content by the end of 2008. The number of online content users increased to 155 million in 2013. Basically, it means that people share their views about the product or service online, and other people keep it in their minds while shopping. Today, we’ll discuss what is consumer-generated marketing; its various types, advantages, disadvantages, and tips to improve it.
What is Consumer Generated Marketing?
The consumer-generated marketing (CGM) is a low-cost strategy that employs customer-created content like reviews and recommendations for the promotion of its brand, products, and service. The term CGM comprises various types of activities like photo-tagging, blog posts, articles, social media posts, podcasts, videos, product reviews, and other promotional activities.
Content is the key element of a consumer-generated marketing campaign. It could either be taking advantage of the content of others customers like reviews and feedback; or inviting customers on your platform to say something about your offers. Marketers are always finding innovative ways to make use of technology like comments and reviews on social media platforms.
Types of Consumer-Generated Marketing
Some of the main types of consumer-generated marketing campaigns are as follows;
Reviews & Feedback
Many businesses and companies have allocated a special section for comments and reviews, where customers could leave their feedback about the product or service. Their feedback could be in the form of pictures, videos, and written comments; companies share it on social media platforms. However, the reviews of customers play a significant role in influencing the minds of other customers.
Contest
Launching contests and competitions about products and services are a great way to create excitement among customers. For instance, you can launch a competition about product or brand slogan ideas and invite customers to share their thoughts. As soon as you launch the competition, it would create buzz about your product or brand on social media and make people start talking about it.
Share Grant Thoughts
As the name implies, it is a type of campaign that ask people to share their grant ideas. It is a highly beneficial campaign both for the company and society. The customers would share such funding ideas that are good for society.
Express Your Story
It is a very effective promotional campaign that asks people to share their store relevant to the company’s theme or its products and service. If their story is relevant and could make people relate to it, then the company offers them rewards for the winning story.
What You Want
It is a type of campaign that focuses on exploiting the inner desires of people and what type of profession and job they want to bring changes in their life. It encourages people to visualize their ideal job and the role they’re performing their role, and how it likes it.
Creativity Talent
As the name implies, it invites people to share their creative talent and ideas in the form of pictures and videos. The judges evaluate their creativity based on their aesthetic sense o beauty.
Advantages of Consumer-Generated Marketing
Some of the main advantages of CGM (consumer-generated marketing) are as follows;
Useful to Customers
CGM is changing the perception that how customers and companies are approaching each other. The CGM content heavily relies on customer service, product quality, and offering a great product or service experience.
Brand Credibility
Organic and genuine product reviews are highly beneficial to the company. Positive customer reviews would help the company to improve its credibility that the company is offering great service.
Data Access
The customers’ feedback offers you deep insight and value. When studying this insight, would help you in terms of marketing strategies, branding, customer experience, and product or service.
Profitable & Low Cost
It is a very low-cost strategy and they don’t have to spend millions of dollars on their marketing and promotional campaign. Customer feedback would help companies to attract other potential customers and make them buy it.
Brand Relevance
If you launch a new trend relevant to your brand in the market, it would create a buzz and attract the attention of customers. It would make your brand relevant and trending.
High Conversion Rate
The customers’ feedback and reviews attract the attention of other customers, conversion rate, and increase your revenue and profitability.
SEO Ranking
Positive feedback and reviews also play a significant role in SEO ranking, and the click-through rate is higher in Google Ads. When the brand has more credibility, it would increase its ranking in the searches.
Disadvantages of Consumer-Generated Marketing
Some of the main disadvantages of consumer-generated marketing are as follows;
Evaluation
Customers’ feedback is good, but companies should evaluate them regularly. It is because fake profiles and spammers could ruin your brand credibility and spoil the minds of potential customers. Therefore, you should consistently monitor the feedback and reviews of customers.
Negative Impact
In case of negative reviews, comments, and feedback; you should manage it patiently. If you make quick decisions based on negative reviews, then it would do more harm than good.
Limited Control
The thing about customer reviews is that they are out company’s control, if they go viral, then they ruin your reputation. On social media pages, you can’t remove and edit the negative feedback of customers.
Tips of Consumer Generated Marketing
Some of the main tips for implementing the CGM are as follows;
- Winners of the CGM contest should as brand ambassadors and participate in the promotional activities
- Developing and maintaining a pleasant atmosphere around the CGM campaign
- Making sure that the rewards should be relevant to the content quality
- Creating clear rules for participants
- Providing customers with clear goals and objectives
Conclusion: What is Consumer Generated Marketing? Types, Pros & Cons, Tips
After an in-depth study of what is consumer-generated marketing; its various types, advantages, and disadvantages; we have realized that CGM is highly beneficial for your brand. If you’re developing a CGM campaign, then you should keep in mind the abovementioned tips and guidelines.
Ahsan Ali Shaw is an accomplished Business Writer, Analyst, and Public Speaker. Other than that, he’s a fun loving person.
