3 Reasons Why WOM (Advocate) Marketing Should be in Your 2022 Budget

Are you creating your 2022 marketing budget now?

This blog post focuses on three reasons why Word of Mouth marketing (AKA “Advocate Marketing”) should be included in your marketing spending plans.

What is Word of Mouth (Advocate) Marketing?

“Word of Mouth marketing (AKA “Advocate Marketing”) is a marketing program designed to activate your highly-satisfied customers and others to spread positive Word of Mouth online about your brand and/or products.”

In short, Word of Mouth marketing is all about turning your customers and others into Advocates.

3 Reasons to include WOM/Advocate Marketing in Your 2022 Budget

Here are three reasons why Word of Mouth marketing (AKA “Advocate Marketing”) should be included in your 2022 marketing spending plans:

1. Word of Mouth is the #1 influencer of purchase decisions.

Up to half of all purchase decisions are driven by Word of Mouth, according to McKinsey.

Here’s more key data:

• 92% people trust Word of trust “recommendations from people I know” over any type of ads. (source: Nielsen)

Word of Mouth is the #1 purchase influencer for Millennials…

…and Word of Mouth also rules for Gen Z:

Thinking of hiring social media influencers to rep your brand in 2022? “Trusted friends or or family members” are much more influential than influencers or celebs among all age groups:

Lastly, let’s not forget about B2B where Word of Mouth also is “King of the Influencers.” Hubspot asked B2B software buyers what influenced their purchases. Word of Mouth was #1. Customer references, another form of WOM, was #2. See below:

2. Word of Mouth marketing is relatively inexpensive.

Here’s the data:

• Many mid-size to large companies are spending $100,000-$1 million per month on “traditional marketing",” i.e., online advertising, TV ads, paid search, website, online events, sales promotions, paid media marketing programs, etc.

• Companies continue spending on traditional marketing despite a mountain of evidence that buyers — especially social media-savvy Millennials — ignore, block, skip and don’t trust paid media.

• A Word of Mouth marketing program including software, services, and rewards costs about $5K-$7K per month, depending on the number of Advocates in your program, number of regions, and other factors.

3. Word of Mouth marketing delivers high ROI. (Yes, you can measure the value of Word of Mouth marketing!)

As mentioned above, our clients get a minimum 10X ROI as measured by media and sales value.

We measure the value of Word of Mouth marketing program by analyzing two factors:

1. Media value of Word of Mouth. We include in this the value of User-Generated Content (UGC) created by Advocates such as:

   • Positive reviews

   • Glowing customer testimonials

   • Videos

   • Photos

   • Social media posts

   We also include the value of Advocates posting and sharing this UGC on:

   • Their social media (their Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)

   • Shopping sites like Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, Target, etc.

   • Review sites like Gartner, TrustPilot, G2, Capterra, etc.

   We also include the value of Advocates sharing your content like your blog posts, influencer videos, etc. on their social media.

2. Sales value of Word of Mouth. This includes the value of:

   • Referred new customers

   • Sales that comes from Advocates sharing your promotional offers on their social media

   • Sales leads

We can track the sales value of Word of Mouth marketing via unique referral codes for Advocates and other tracking methods.

But this doesn’t fully capture the sales value of Word of Mouth. The fact is Word of Mouth’s impact on sales is hard to completely measure.

Numerous independent research studies have proven that Word of Mouth drives sales. (See charts above.)

Turn Word of Mouth into a Competitive Advantage

In summary, if you’re not including Word of Mouth marketing in your 2022 marketing budget, you’re missing a major opportunity to build your brand and business.

Here’s what McKinsey, the respected global consulting firm concludes:

Marketers may spend millions of dollars on elaborately conceived advertising campaigns, yet often what really makes up a consumer’s mind is not only simple but also free: a word-of-mouth recommendation from a trusted source. As consumers overwhelmed by product choices tune out the ever-growing barrage of traditional marketing, word of mouth cuts through the noise quickly and effectively.

Make sure to capture this opportunity by making Word of Mouth a marketing weapon in 2022.

Level up your Loyalty Program

Are you interested in getting more value and ROI from your loyalty program?

Here’s a killer idea:

Go beyond giving customers rewards for purchases.

Give them rewards for advocating (recommending) your brand and products on social media. This includes bringing in new customers for you.

Get Loyal Customers to Become Your Marketing Department

Encourage and reward your loyalty program members for recommending your brand and products by doing things like:

1. Creating and posting original stories, videos, photos, and more on their social media.

2. Referring friends to purchase from you.

3. Sharing your promotional offers and content on their social media.

4. Participating in customer research.

You can give Advocates loyalty rewards for completing these advocacy actions.

Where Zuberance Comes In

Zuberance provides scalable advocacy technology that enables you to take your loyalty program to the next level.

You have a couple options with Zuberance:

1. You can create an exclusive hub/portal for your loyal customers who serve as Advocates. This is like a “VIP” section for loyal customers. You can give Advocates loyalty points for recommending your brand and products.

2. You can integrate Zuberance’s advocacy technology within your existing loyalty platform.

With either option, you can use your existing loyal points program to reward Advocates for recommending your brand or product.

Go Beyond the Basics

Some brands have started doing what I’m suggesting. For example, they’re giving loyal customers points for following them on social.

That’s baby stuff with limited sales/marketing value.

You can get much more value from this approach by building and unleashing an “Advocate Army” that will serve as a powerful marketing force via recommendations and referrals.

Zuberance’s advocacy platform gives you what you need to do this. So what are you waiting for?

Final Note: Not all Loyal Customers are Advocates

You should not assume that all loyal customers are Advocates.

If you want to be sure to invite loyal customers to join an advocacy program, you may want to determine first that they are or would be Advocates. Contact us for details on how to do that.

3 Sure-Fire Ways to Kill an Advocacy Program

Thousands of B2C and B2B companies now have customer advocacy programs (AKA “Advocate marketing programs.”)

These programs are crazy popular because they work! They’re a proven, highly cost-effective way to drive awareness and sales — especially in an era when most people ignore and don’t trust ads.

However, not all companies succeed with advocacy programs. These companies often make three fatal mistakes that lead to the program’s downfall.

So with tongue firmly in cheek, we present three sure-fire ways to kill an advocacy program:

1. Don’t invite enough customers to join the program.

The more happy customers you have out there spreading positive Word of Mouth about your brand and products, the better.

Yet some companies only invite a fraction of their customers to join their advocacy programs, then wonder why they’re not getting enough value.

Best practice: Invite lots of customers.

Here’s a very simple and proven formula:

More Advocates = More Positive WOM = More Awareness & Sales

Most of our clients follow this formula. They’ve built thriving “Advocate Armies” of thousands — or even tens of thousands of Advocates.

They’re continually inviting customers to join the advocacy program. They’re inviting customers on multiple “touch points”:

• Dedicated emails and other emails

• On their social media

• On customer forums

• At the end of Net Promoter surveys

• Post-purchase or post-renewal

• On their website

• On their mobile apps (See example below.)

This brand has put a link to join the advocacy program on its mobile app. This is great!

2. Keep issuing the same kinds of challenges.

We get it. Nearly all brands crave more five-star reviews.

But if you issue too many reviews challenges, you’ll wear out your Advocates. Worse yet, they’ll start thinking that your advocacy program is a thinly-veiled “pay for review” scheme.

Best practice: vary the types of challenges. Mix in light or easy challenges like polls and simple surveys; trivia and quizzes; sharing challenges; and more.

Instead of constantly asking Advocates to do things for you, you should be thinking of this like a relationship. And like any relationship, it pays to engage in a little “small talk” with your Advocates.

3. Don’t promote participation in the advocacy program.

We agree that it’s important not to “over-email” customers.

But one brand took that idea too far: they sharply curtailed emails to Advocates.

As predicted, the program engagement and challenge completion rate tanked. A few months later, the brand folded the program.

Remember that marketing class you took on market segmentation?

Advocates are not the same as other customers.

They’re more enthusiastic, more loyal, and more engaged. They’re willing and eager to tell their friends and family about your brand and products. They’re doing it already and now you’re rewarding them for this!

Customer Advocates like Jfam82 aren’t like other customers. They love your brand and products!

Best practice: Don’t confuse Advocates with regular customers. Advocates love your brand and products. They welcome regular communications from you!

4. Bonus: Don’t make the advocacy program a priority.

Last sure-fire way to kill the program: Don’t give it much of your time or attention. Assign it to a junior person on your staff or, better-yet, a marketing intern.

Instead, focus your time, effort, and money on splashy ad campaigns or other tired marketing tactics that most people will block out, ignore, or forget.

After all, why should you make it a priority when so few customers have joined the advocacy program? (See above; sure-fire way to kill an advocacy program #1.)

Make sure your advocacy program is a rousing success! Contact the advocacy experts at Zuberance.

How Zuberance Helps You Boost Customer Loyalty

Is increasing loyalty a top priority for your organization in 2021? If not, it should be!

A famous study published in the Harvard Business Review found that increasing loyalty by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.

Here’s another fact:

Customers who engage with you regularly are less likely to churn than customers who don’t engage with you.

Put this another way: a warning sign that a customer is likely to leave is when they start showing decreased interest, i.e., they start cancelling or postponing meetings; they stop asking questions; their usage of your products or services starts to decline.

Drive Customer Engagement

Here’s a simple formula:

Increased Engagement = Increased Loyalty

Engaged customers — customers who interact with you regularly — are more loyal, spend more, and are more profitable than non-engaged customers.

So How Do You Increase Customer Engagement & Loyalty?

Create an exclusive online hub/portal for your customers especially your Customer Advocates.

To be clear, the #1 mission of this online hub is to get Advocates to spread the word about your brand and products. This drives positive Word of Mouth and sales.

However, an online hub also gives you a platform where you can enable and encourage ongoing customer engagement and boost loyalty.

When customers join the hub, they’ve immediately increased their engagement with you. They’re no longer just passive customers or anonymous buyers. They’re active and identifiable “stake-holders” in your company, brand, and mission.

You get to know who your customers are; how they want to engage with you; and what’s important to them.

Importantly, you get to engage with them regularly and on an ongoing basis, not just when and if they open an email you send them.

7 Ways to Engage Customers through the Zuberance Hub

Once your customers join the hub, here are seven ways you can increase engagement:

1. Ask customers for product ideas and feedback.

Asking customers for product ideas and feedback is an excellent way to increase engagement and get valuable input. The CTO of Hulu once said: “90% of what we learn comes AFTER we launch a new product.” You can do this easily through the Zuberance Hub using our poll and survey features.

2. Get customers to try under-used product features.

Do you have product features that are beneficial but many customers don’t use? With an online hub/program, you can entice customers to learn about and try these features and reward them for doing so. Create challenges that get customers to try under-used product features.

3. Get customers to provide marketing ideas and feedback.

One of our clients was changing its logo so it asked its Customer Advocates for their opinions. This feedback helped them refine the logo design. Another client asked Customer Advocates for feedback on a new product name it was considering. Getting Customer Advocates to participate in these ways improves engagement and gives you valuable feedback. Use our polls and surveys to solicit marketing ideas and feedback.

4. Get customers to participate in beta programs.

The Zuberance hub provides an easy, convenient way to recruit customers to participate in beta programs. You can manage the beta program through your Zuberance hub, granting rewards to customers as they participate in each phase of the beta.

5. Encourage dialog with customers.

The Zuberance hub enables you to create forums focused on particular topics. You can use these forums for many of the ideas above and for others. It’s like having a real-time customer panel you can tap into any time.

6. Get customers to post photos, videos of them using your product.

If your product is the kind that lends itself to customer photos and videos, then for sure you should create challenges that ask customers for these. Showing customers using your product is a proven way to drive advocacy and sales. But it also increases engagement by getting customers to be more involved with your products.

7. Give customers exclusive access to content, experiences, and leadership.

Here are three examples of how you can do this via the Zuberance hub.

1) Use our Discussions/Forums feature and hold a special event where your CEO or other senior executive replies in real-time to customer questions. This is a virtual version of a “fireside chat” with the CEO.

2) Post exclusive content to the Zuberance Hub that is available only to hub members. Example: give hub members a “sneak peek” at a new product or service.

3) Invite customers who are members of the hub to an exclusive live video event. This event could be most anything: an “inside look” at your product development process; a product demo; or sharing your company culture. You’ll need Facebook Live (or similar) to stage the video event but you can use the Zuberance hub to invite customers and follow up with them.

In summary, your customers are your most valuable asset. The Zuberance hub gives you the platform to increase engagement and advocacy plus deepen customer relationships.

Bonus! Idea # 8: Give customers opportunities to learn and have fun.

Here are a couple examples:

1) Get customers to participate in trivia contests, where they can learn about your brand and have fun.

2) Get customers to suggest names for new products. One of our clients — an enterprise software company — named one its products based on a suggestion by an Advocate.

Sidebar: What if they don’t complete Challenges?

Of course, you want members of the hub to help you get the word out about your brand and products by completing Word of Mouth challenges like posting reviews and stories on shopping sites and on their social media.

But even if they don’t, there’s still enormous value you get from having customers part of your hub:

1. Customers who have joined the hub are still seeing your content and messages much more frequently than customers who just purchase and don’t engage further.

2. They’ve opted-in to engage with you at a level that most customers don’t or never will.

3. They’re part of an exclusive group, which means they’re more connected to you than other customers.

Boost sales now with "People-Powered eCommerce"

This time of year, many companies are launching a barrage of sales promotions, discounts, and ads.

All of this is aimed at making their cash registers ring on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and throughout the holidays.

A Smart Approach to Driving Sales: “People-Powered eCommerce”

Smart companies are also getting their Customer Advocates (AKA “Brand Advocates” or “Brand Ambassadors”) to spread positive Word of Mouth about their brand and products.

This is enabling these companies to reach more buyers, drive more traffic, and increase sales — all at a fraction of the cost of paid media — during the critical holiday shopping season and throughout the year.

We call this “People-Powered eCommerce.” And it’s all about people (Advocates) telling other people (friends, family, and followers) about brands, products, and services, enabled by brands.

People-Powered eCommerce is:

• Authentic

• Very effective

• Inexpensive

Examples of People-Powered eCommerce

Check out these examples:

Ecovacs, which makes robot vacuums, is boosting sales by getting customer Advocates to post Ecovacs promotional offers on Advocates’ Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Cheekbone Beauty, a niche cosmetics brand serving Indigenous woman, is encouraging its Advocates to share an offer on social media for a limited-edition boxed collection.

Here’s an B2B People-Powered eCommerce: Ooma, the leading VoIP solution for consumers and small businesses, is driving sales by getting its Advocates to refer peers.

Here’s another example from Ecovacs:The company is driving sales and boosting ratings by getting Advocates to leave reviews on Costco.com

How You Can Tap into People-Powered eCommerce

It’s as simple as 1-2-3.

1. Create a customer advocacy program. Invite your highly-satisfied customers to join the advocacy program.

2. Make it easy and fun for Advocates to spread the word online about your brand and products. This includes things like:

   1. Sharing your promotional offers with friends, family, and followers.

   2. Posting reviews, photos, videos, stories on shopping sites, social networks, your website, and elsewhere.

   3. Referring friends and peers to try, download, and/or buy your products.

3. Thank your Advocates. Show your appreciation with eGift cards; brand swag; free or discounted products; plus other perks.

Immediate Results & ROI

The benefits of People-Powered eCommerce for your brand are compelling and immediate:

• Increased traffic and sales

• Higher average order size

• Reach more buyers

The results and ROI you get will, of course, depend on the size of your “Advocate Army”; how compelling your offers and rewards are; and other factors.

But thing is for sure: if you’re not tapping into People-Powered eCommerce, you’re missing an opportunity staring at you right in the face.

So I’ll end with one question:

Why are you waiting?

What are you doing with your Promoters?

Is your company running Net Promoter® surveys?

If so, you may be identifying hundreds to thousands of Promoters (customers who answer 9 or 10 in response to the question: “How likely is it that you would recommend our brand to others?”)

So here’s the question:

What are you doing with your Promoters?

If you said “nothing,” you’re missing a major marketing and customer engagement opportunity!

Your Promoters have “raised their hands.” They’re telling you they’re highly likely to recommend your brand to others. They want to engage more with your brand.

Why not take them up on their offer?

Start a “Promoter Mobilization Program”

Here are three simple steps:

Step 1: Invite Promoters to Join Your Customer Advocacy Program

Send Promoters an email inviting them to join your customer advocacy program. They’ll get access to an exclusive “hub” where they can participate in “challenges” and earn rewards like eGift cards. (more on this below.)

Data point: About 5% to 20% of Promoters will accept your invitation to join the customer advocacy program. If you invite 10,000 Promoters, between 500 to 2,000 Promoters will join your program. That’s the start of what we call an “Advocate Army.”

Step 2: Mobilize Promoters

Issue Promoters “challenges” (actions you would like them to complete.) Here are a few examples:

1. Post a review of our products on third-party sites and elsewhere. This is likely to boost your online ratings and rankings, which is proven to drive sales.

2. Create a story or testimonial about how our product is helping you and/or your company. This can be a written story, video, or photo

3. Refer friends or peers to buy our products, get a demo, or download our products

4. Test or try our products or product features. This boosts engagement, retention, or loyalty plus gives you valuable insights.

Data point: Between 20% to 40% of Promoters will complete challenges. Compare this to less than 2% of customers and prospects who complete requested actions. Promoters are indeed your most loyal, engaged customers.

Step 3: Reward Promoters

Say “thank you” to your Promoters for completing challenges via:

1. eGift cards

2. Brand merchandise like branded t-shirts, coffee mugs, hoodies

3. Product discounts or free products

4. Donations to charitable causes

What are the Key Metrics?

How do you measure success for a “Promoter Mobilization Program?” The answer depends on what your goals are.

However, here are three ways our customers measure success:

1. Amount of user-generated content (UGC) (reviews, stories, testimonials, videos, photos, etc.) created by Promoters. UGC is the most trusted, influential type of content. Studies show consumers trust UGC about 2X-3X more than content produced by brands. We use industry standards to place a value on UGC created by Promoters.

2. Reach/impressions. When your Promoters share the content they create — or links to your content or offers — this creates reach and impressions. We use industry standards to measure and value that reach.

3. Sales. As mentioned above, one of the challenges you can issue to Promoters is to ask them to refer friends to buy your products. You can also ask them to post your promotional offers on their social media accounts. We give Promoters unique codes so that when referred friends or peers buy, we can track this directly back to Promoters.

Need Some Inspiration?

Fred Reichheld, the Net Promoter guru, once said:

“The only path to profitable growth may lie in a company’s ability to get its loyal customers (i.e. “Promoters”) to become, in effect, its marketing department.”

So we ask again:

What are you doing with your Promoters?

®Net Promoter is a registered trademark of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld, and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.

Customer Loyalty: More Important than Ever

In this unprecedented situation, it’s more important than ever to retain existing customers. Here’s how the Zuberance Platform can help:

1. Reward Advocates for Loyalty

Via the Zuberance platform and our built-in rewards points system, you can give rewards to Advocates for:

• Making purchases

• Renewing subscriptions

• Buying additional products (encourage more purchases)

• Downloading your app

• Using your product or service

• Attending online meetings and events like webinars

Loyalty programs work. Check out this HubSpot post on the topic.

2. Issue Challenges that Help Foster Loyalty

Here are three examples of UGC (user-generated content) challenges that achieve this:

• How is our product or service helping you save money?

• How is our product or service helping you make money?

• What’s the primary benefit you’re getting from our product or service?

When Advocates create content like this it serves as a powerful reminder of the compelling benefits they’re getting from your products or services.

Of course, you want to encourage and reward Advocates to share the content they create on their social media.

3. Increase Engagement with Advocates

Use these features of the Zuberance Platform to boost Advocate engagement:

• Discussions

• Surveys

• Polls

• Posts

• Likes

• Comments

All of these features can be used to communicate with your Advocates and let them know you care.

4 Top Benefits You Can Get from an Advocacy Program

Thousands of B2C and B2B companies now have Brand Advocate programs (AKA “Brand Ambassador” or “Super Fan” programs).

Here are the benefits they’re getting — and how this type of program can benefit you:

1. Increase awareness and positive WOM (get a ton of valuable UGC)

Advocates help you increase awareness and positive Word of Mouth by posting User-Generated Content (UGC) like five-star reviews, stories, photos, videos, and more on their social media, shopping sites, review sites, etc. On average, a group of 1,000 Advocates can reach 5 million prospects with glowing recommendations like this five-star review on Amazon:

UGC is about three times more trusted than brand content, studies show. And 85% of users find UGC more influential than brand photos or videos (Adweek)

With a Brand Advocate program, you’ll get thousands of pieces of valuable UGC. You can re-purpose this content on your social, in your marketing emails, website, and elsewhere.

2. Increase sales; drive customer acquisition

Here’s how an Advocate marketing program will help you increase sales. Get Advocates to:

• Post your promotional offers on their social media

• Refer friends and family members

• Post 5-star reviews on shopping sites, which is proven to increase sales

You can measure exactly how many sales and how much revenues you’re getting from an advocacy program via integrated tracking.

Did you know?

• People are about 4X more likely to purchase a product or service when referred by a friend. (source: Nielsen)

• Customer referrals can drive stunning profits. A study published in the Harvard Business Review showed that referred customers are 18% more loyal, 16% more profitable, and that companies earned 60% on referral rewards. (source: “Why Customer Referrals Can Drive Stunning Profits,” Harvard Business Review.)

• Companies can acquire customers for about 50% less via referral programs compared to traditional marketing programs. (sources: multiple)

3. Increase engagement and loyalty

Customer churn is a big problem in nearly every industry and category. Study after study has shown that engaged customers are more loyal and less likely to leave.

Brand Advocate programs give you an opportunity to engage with your customers on a daily basis via two-way dialogue, feedback, and compelling Word of Mouth challenges like voting for your brand or products.

4. Get valuable consumer insights from your most engaged customers

Last, but certainly not least, a Brand Advocate program is like having an “always-on, real-time focus group” you can tap into anytime for:

• Ideas for new products and services

• Feedback on existing products and services

• Feedback on sales and marketing ideas before you launch

• Ideas for new ways to leverage Advocates

Why You Need a Referral Marketing Program, Now More than Ever

Growth is now the number one mission for nearly every company.

A majority (64%) of CMOs believe that one of their primary roles is delivering business growth.

Not only is delivering growth a priority for CMOs, but it is also the top challenge (of 10 identified) for more than one-third (37.9%) of the more than 320 marketing professionals surveyed.

Referrals: An Untapped Growth Engine

Since growth is such a high priority, referral marketing should a top priority for your 2020 marketing plan.

We define referral marketing as:

“An ongoing program that encourages and rewards customers and others to refer friends and peers to try and/or buy your products.”

3 Major Benefits of Referral Marketing

Referral marketing programs are proven to deliver compelling marketing benefits:

1. Get new customers

Dropbox is one of the most famous examples of how referral marketing programs can help you acquire lots of new customers. DropBox grew from 100,000 registered users to four million users in about one year, thanks largely to a referral program. DropBox gave free storage space in the cloud to Advocates (customers who referred) and their referred friends. This is called a “double-sided reward” and is one of the best practices of referral marketing.

Did you know?

Referrals bring in very warm leads. So it’s no wonder that referrals convert at about a 3X higher rate than any other B2B marketing channel and 22X higher than email. B2B marketers said the average conversion rate (lead to opportunity) was 11% for referrals, followed by partner-generated leads (4.5%), inbound leads (3.8%) and paid marketing (about 3%.) The lowest-converting channel was email (.55%.) (Source: Marketo.)

2. Cut customer acquisition costs

Marketing costs of acquiring customers via referral marketing is dramatically lower than traditional marketing programs. This is because there are no ads to buy with referral marketing programs. Instead, you’re tapping into the most cost-effective customer acquisition channel: word of mouth.

Did you know?

B2B marketers rated “referral/advocate marketing” as the third lowest-cost lead gen tactic, behind only social media and email marketing (house list.) (source: “Cost-per-Lead by Channel, according to B2B Marketers”, Software Advice.)

3. Increase customer loyalty

Referred customers stay longer, spend more, and are much more likely to become Advocates themselves!

Did you know?

Referred customers have a 37% higher retention rate and are 4 times more likely to refer more customers to your brand. (source: Deloitte)

Referral Marketing FOMO

If you don’t have a referral marketing program, you should get started now! You’re missing one of the most powerful ways to drive growth for your company.

What's the Value of UGC?

How do you value user-generated content (UGC) created by Advocates like five-star reviews, glowing testimonials, videos, photos, etc.?

Wait…Before You Answer

Before you answer the question of how much you value UGC, consider these facts:

1. Consumers say UGC is 2.4X more authentic than content created by brands or paid influencers (source: Stackla)

2. 79% consumers say UGC highly impacts their purchase decisions (source: Stackla)

3. 70% consumers say UGC is more influential than brand-created content (source: Reevo)

4. Millennials say recommendations from friends and family are more than 2X more influential in their purchase decisions than influencer posts on social media. (See chart below, source: YouGov)

5. 89% of B2B marketers consider customer testimonials and case studies as the most effective kinds of content in converting buyers.  (Content Marketing Institute)

“Saved our Organization Millions of Dollars”

How much would you value a customer testimonial like this one, created by an actual customer of a security software company?

What do you think this testimonial is worth? $100 $500 $1,000

Still unsure? Let’s take a look at another example:

“Amazing!” 5-Stars

This is an actual product review written by a customer advocate for Marseille, a start-up that makes a cool little device called mClassic that gamers plug into consoles to make images and graphics look dramatically better.

Now, keep in mind, that studies have shown that positive reviews by users like these carry a ton of clout with buyers. Here’s the five-star review written by an actual user:

“I LOVE AND WOULD RECOMMEND THIS WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM TO EVERYONE”

Here’s one final UGC example. This testimonial was written by an actual member of Jenny Craig, the weight loss program. By the way, Jenny Craig knows the power of customer testimonials. They use them all the time in their ads.

Don’t Confuse Reach with Value

Some marketers downplay the value of UGC because they point out that consumers who create this content lack the reach of paid social media influencers.

It’s true that paid social media influencers have more followers than average consumers. However:

1. Smart brands often showcase UGC on their social media and elsewhere in their marketing, amplifying the voice of these consumers and driving sales.

2. Just because more people see a post by a paid influencer does not mean that the post is more trusted or influential than a five-star review or glowing testimonial by an actual customer. (See the stats at the top of this post.)