How Retailers Can Improve Their Customer Retention Rates Through UGC

With the spring shopping season coming up, most brands are focusing their marketing strategies on customer acquisition and sales revenue for the busy shopping months, when in reality, spring purchases should be the beginning of the customer lifecycle, not the end. In fact, if companies were to emphasize customer retention by just 5 percent, they could see a 25 percent increase in profit.

One way brands can increase their customer retention this season is by turning to user-generated content (UGC), which is an authentic and sustainable approach to gathering brand-approved content to publish across marketing platforms. UGC allows companies to not only build their brand awareness, but also create a community that's full of engaged, loyal customers that will continue to return to a brand and encourage others to follow suit long after peak shopping months are over. To help keep brands growing and revenue increasing beyond a customer’s initial experience, here are some concrete steps brands can take to engage their customers this spring season after they’ve purchased a product:

Offer Authentic Experiences to Generate Trusted Content

Customers are more likely to return if brands provide them opportunities to showcase their experiences with their products. In fact, a new study found ​​over 60 percent of consumers say they would be more loyal to and likely to buy from a brand that invited them to join a customer advocacy community to actively help it create more UGC for the brand. This spring season, companies can have their customers video themselves unboxing their items, giving one of their products to a friend as a gift for any spring holidays, or even using their product for the first time. Brands can then have customers share these experiences for the brand to publish and use for larger marketing initiatives, establishing longevity and a sense of partnership between creators and companies.

To activate this partnership, brands can encourage their customers to share their experiences directly with the brand via an upload widget through incentives such as offering brand swag or providing a discount code for their next purchase. Through these actions, brands are able to give consumers a voice, cultivating a great sense of trust, as consumers are more likely to feel respected when their content is being shared and valued. Feeling respected and heard, consumers will not only return to a brand in the future, but also encourage their friends and family to follow suit.

Capitalize on Friends and Family  

It’s been reported that 92 percent of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than they do brand advertising. To help gather user experiences during spring sales, brands can encourage consumers to leave reviews or provide feedback. This can help retain and attract customers, considering 72 percent of consumers said that real customer photos and videos are the content they most want to see on e-commerce sites, and 80 percent said they would be more likely to purchase a product from an online store if its website had photos and videos from real customers. To help keep experiences positive, brands can stay ahead of the curve by providing answers and information that potential customers may have about the product/service or examples of the product/service in action. 

Turn to a Management Platform to Organize Content for Future Use

To keep customers around after peak time is over, brands will need to continue pushing out authentic content for the entire year. That means having the ability to archive, organize and manage the content that was received. One of the best ways brands can achieve this is by turning to a UGC platform that allows companies to easily store and search for specific content, retain the rights to publish said content, and reward the creator who provided the content. UGC platforms also provide brands the ability to facilitate creator relationships with one-to-one communication, keeping relationships alive.

As more brands start to emphasize their customer retention rates, companies will need to evolve their marketing strategies to keep up with consumer preferences — which starts with developing UGC. This time of year provide companies with the perfect framework for capturing the most authentic experiences that a consumer will showcase when using a product.

Adam Dornbusch is the founder and CEO of EnTribe, one of the first SaaS platforms helping build a community of creators for brands.