Consumer Generated Marketing is a type of User Generated Content.
Are you familiar with the User Generated Content marketing trend?
What is the difference between Consumer Generated Marketing and User Generated Content?
User Generated Content is a popular strategy that involves consumers making content. With Consumer Generated Marketing, you take what users make and use it to market your products and services.
Does this mean Consumer Generated Marketing is for other people? No.
As a marketer, you need to organize the marketing campaign by incorporating into your marketing what consumers’ make.
Who are the consumers involved in consumer generated marketing?
Your fans include:
- Your social media followers
- Your contest winners
- Your website readers
- Your interviewers
- Your positive reviewers
- Your previous customers
Any of your fans can make your consumer generated marketing material.
Clearly, capitalizing on consumers’ time and creativity helps save you time and thought.
This post explains the Consumer Generated Marketing Strategy and shows you seven examples you can replicate in your own marketing campaigns.
Let’s dive in and learn how to use consumer generated marketing and see examples you can integrate into your own marketing campaigns.
What is Consumer Generated Marketing?
Consumer Generated Marketing (CGM) is a free or low-cost marketing strategy that consists of two parts. First, brands invite consumers to create material for an advertising campaign. Then, the companies find ways to integrate those materials into their marketing plans.
Consumer Generated Marketing is an effective strategy for several important reasons.
First, you save time by letting other people create your content for you.
Next, by involving the consumers, they have a vested interest, a built-in interest in your brand. They become a part of your brand when they construct content for you.
The member of the Reddit Social Media Marketing subreddit offered thoughts on the advantages of consumer generated marketing:
“I have used it for UGC [consumer generated marketing] (asking our fans for tips, quotes, advice etc.) and product feedback.”
These are powerful ideas for consumer generated marketing.
I asked the members of the Content Marketing subreddit for consumer generated marketing ideas as well. These were their strategies:
“Testimonials, shout-out, story, videos made, sometimes even questions can be seen as UGC because questions can be picked up by you to make a new video to answer.
Testimonials can also be shared and used as social proof.
Other than that, we did have a meme contest, which contributed significantly to UGC as they made memes around our brand.”
The Digital Marketing subreddit provided consumer generated marketing methods as well:
“Before you approach your content marketing objective and propose an elaborate UGC (User Generated Content) strategy, do your homework:
Audit existing fan photos.
Identify consumer trends.
Adopt a selfless hashtag strategy.
Promote strong CTAs (Calls to Action) in lead locations.
Add signage in your stores.
Host an event.
Tap into influencers.
Design a contest.”
This post explains how to follow these consumer generated marketing strategies.
User Generated Content Testimonial
Consumer Generated Marketing is a type of User Generated Content.
Here is a testimonial as to the value of User Generated Content:
“The primary reasons behind online content marketers integrating UGC in their marketing strategies are that it helps people build trust in the brand and saves much time in curating unique and engaging content” (Source).
Examples of Consumer Generated Marketing
Fan Photos
Consumer Generated Marketing Example 1
A photo of Bernie Sanders wearing his casual, warm outfit and gloves at the Presidential Inauguration went viral. The Sanders campaign team took the photo, put it on a sweatshirt, and began a new marketing campaign with the proceeds from the sale of the sweatshirt going to charity.
Do you see how the merchandise extended his brand? This physical advertising tactic extended the Sanders brand by donating to charity. More information about the incident can be found in this Mostly Blogging article about physical advertising.
If you are interested in this form of Consumer Generated Marketing, the Designhill Company makes merchandise. Here is more information about Designhill.
Consumer Generated Marketing Example 2
Heinz Ketchup asked consumers to design the new label on their ketchup bottle. Users were able to design the ketchup bottle from memory when they came up with a new label.
This consumer generated content idea wasn’t thought of by Heinz. A global experiment was conducted. The experiment asked people to draw ketchup.
The result: The participants drew Heinz ketchup bottles from memory. Heinz incorporated the resulting user generated content into their marketing campaign.
Testimonials
Consumer Generated Marketing Example 3
Notice how Clive Roach made this testimonial about my best bio for Instagram to get followers post which he put on Twitter.
You can use consumer generated marketing testimonials across social media sites; for instance, you can use them on your Facebook Business Page or in your Instagram Stories as a form of lead generation.
Also, you don’t have to limit the use of testimonials on social media sites.
You can, and should, put them on your website. Some people have testimonials in their sidebar. I feature them on my About Me page.
Consumer Generated Marketing Example 4
Look:
The About Me page is usually the first place new visitors to your site look to find out about you and determine if they want to follow your blog.
When your fans make you testimonials, they are seen as signs of endorsement, support, approval of your brand.
When people make you testimonials, your brand perception is positive.
Therefore, this form of consumer generated marketing is a powerful lead generation strategy.
Interviews
Consumer Generated Marketing Example 5
Interviews can take the form of blog posts, videos, and podcasts.
Ebony Hardwood posted a clip from a video interview of me on Instagram.
You can see the video in its entirety:
This user generated video is a form of audio marketing.
Testimonials can also be in the form of videos. They go a long way in convincing people your brand is trustworthy since people trust your customers more when they can see them in the video.
Although people can’t see the speaker in a podcast interview, they can hear them. This form of audio marketing is getting more popular thanks to the Clubhouse app that is all speech. People offer testimonials in Clubhouse Rooms regularly.
Related Reading: 13 Inspiring Ideas to Make Videos People Actually Watch
Questions
Consumer Generated Marketing Example 6
When I saw this question on Quora, I decided to do some keyword research and decided to write a blog post about the topic.
What are the advantages & disadvantages of both Reddit or Quora, and which would you pick overall?
Questions are a form user generated content since other people are devising your content marketing ideas for you.
Reviews
Consumer Generated Marketing Example 7
This screenshot is from my About Me page. I included the links to reviews people posted on their websites.
This form of User Generated Marketing sells ebooks for me as well as serves as brand promotion. People posting positive reviews about my brand is a powerful form of lead generation for me.
How is a review different than a testimonial?
In simplistic terms, a testimonial states the consumer likes your brand.
The review explains why the consumer likes or dislikes your brand depending on the nature of the review.
Did you know brands pay bloggers to review their products in order to use reviews in their consumer generated marketing strategies?
The Need for Creativity
Updated Information:
Creativity is definitely necessary for CGM. However, is it your creativity or your audience’s creativity that needed?
Let’s look at an example:
Let’s say you market solar panels.
What would your marketing campaign entail?
Aren’t you busy? Why not let the consumers make your marketing materials for you?
Consumer generated marketing is an effective B2C strategy. Consumers feel involved and more likely to purchase. You save time on thought and creation. Win-win.
How to Make a Consumer Generated Marketing Plan
You’ve got to plan in advance in order to have the consumer generated marketing materials in hand when you need them.
For example, if you plan to host a contest and the consumer that makes the best content for you wins, you need to announce the contest ahead of time and come up with the rules before you need the marketing materials.
How much time will you allow?
Also, if you plan on awarding a prize to the winner of your Consumer Generated Marketing contest, you need time to get the prize.
Will you contact an author about giving away an ebook? Will you have a list of authors in case the first you ask to help say “no?”
I hosted a contest in which I gave away a year of Agorapulse’s Instagram Story Viewer Online. I needed the company’s approval, and they needed a superior’s approval. All of these prior arrangements take time.
Consumer Generated Marketing: FAQ
What are user-generated marketing examples?
Testimonials, reviews, and contests.
What is user-generated marketing?
User generated marketing entails using content your fans create to market your products and services.
What is a consumer marketing strategy?
Your consumer-generated marketing campaign requires prior planning. For instance, if you host a contest for best Instagram Story promoting your brand, you need time to get the prize and announce the contest.
Consumer Generated Marketing: Wrapping Up
As you can see, there are many ways to take advantage of User Generated Content in your marketing.
In conclusion, this post shared the definition of Consumer Generated Marketing, the difference between Consumer Generated Marketing and User Generated Content, seven examples of consumer generated marketing you can use in your own campaigns, and strategies for making a consumer generated marketing plan.
Furthermore, other than the idea of making merchandise, these marketing strategies are free.
Content marketing is a powerful marketing strategy. This post proves you can take advantage of the power of content marketing with the content other people make for you.
User Generated Marketing saves time and thought on your part while capitalizing on other people’s time and creativity.
It gets better: Consumer Generated Marketing also helps the consumer. People love to be included in a marketing campaign. This B2C (Business to Consumer) technique helps consumers feel involved.
Readers, please share so content marketers discover the advantages of Consumer Generated Marketing.
I look forward to your views in the comments section. Are there additional examples of User Generated Marketing you can suggest?
Janice Wald is the founder of MostlyBlogging.com and co-founder of the Mostly Blogging Academy. She is an ebook author, blogger, blogging coach, blogging judge, freelance writer, and speaker. She won the Best Internet Marketer Award and the Best Blogger Award at the 2021 Infinity Blog Awards. Wald was also nominated as 2019 Best Internet Marketer by the Infinity Blog Awards and in 2017 as the Most Informative Blogger by the London Bloggers Bash. She’s been featured on Small Business Trends, the Huffington Post, and Lifehack.
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