3 Creative Ways to Use UGC in Your Email Marketing

‍This article is brought to you by Zembula.              

UGC is a pillar to successful content strategies for many brands, and it’s no surprise why. UGC helps brands tell their stories through someone else’s eyes. As a brand, you have the opportunity to lean on your customer’s unique creative perspective and the content they create organically. On top of that, it also works really well. UGC results in 29% higher web conversions than campaigns or websites without it. (EveryoneSocial)     

However, UGC is not one size fits all. There are many ways to utilize this powerful content tool. One thing is true, though – UGC is perfect for email marketing and it’s used often. You’ve probably seen some companies add photos from their tagged instagram photos at the bottom of emails.     

Some brands have even taken their UGC email marketing a step further and have stood out against the sea of similar emails in our inboxes. We can learn some things from these brands and take these lessons into our next campaigns. 

Let’s go over 3 creative ways you can use UGC in your email marketing.      

1. Feature testimonials in a fun way    

Testimonials about your brand or products are some of the most powerful tools you have when it comes to helping a buyer reach their decision. Consumers are 12 times more likely to buy a product if the company has added customer reviews to their product page. (BigCommerce) And when you get a good one, you are going to want to use it over and over again to extend the life of these powerful words. 

Take a look at this Glossier example that features customer testimonials. They use quotes from their customers to create a memorable email experience. This GIF that was used in one of their emails is eye-catching and gives the reader important information they need about Glossier’s products. These testimonials can be used and reused again for similar campaigns or on the website product pages themselves.    

2. Add social proof to abandoned cart emails    

Your triggered messages are a great fit for UGC content, especially when it comes to ratings and reviews as a last ditch effort to convert an abandoning buyer. 

Your abandoned cart emails probably already account for a good portion of your sales if you are sending them. Studies show that sending more of these emails is even better. In fact, sending three abandoned cart emails results in 69% more orders than a single email (Omnisend).     

Adding ratings and reviews to abandoned products can make these emails even better! It can help you move the buyer towards purchase because, like I stated in the first tip, buyers trust their peers more than they trust you, the brand. 

Adding ratings and reviews to products can be hard to do automatically. So to accomplish this one, you will need a solution to help you get your reviews from your database into your triggered email campaigns.     

Check out this example from Adidas. They do a great job of not only including reviews of the product left in this shoppers cart, but also they included lifestyle images of the shoe in use.    

3. Give your buyers a guide on how to use their products with real-life photos    

We all know that many people follow certain brands for more than just products. Brands provide people with inspiration! Knowing this and using it to create content is important, especially if you are a lifestyle brand. You are the subject matter expert after all! 

Unfortunately, creating style guides and how-tos can be really time-consuming. On top of that, lifestyle images can be a huge expense. You can solve a lot of these hang-ups by using high-quality UGC from real buyers using your products. There are solutions out there that can help you gather photos from buyers whether it’s from social media or another place and create sophisticated-looking content that you can use in your email marketing.     

Take a look at the bottom of this Madewell email. Here they prompt email openers to look at how others that have purchased their item style it. They use real images from real people. This can also give users the sense that they are part of something as well.      

Overall, UGC is a great way to squeeze out even more ROI from your email campaigns and help you create more content in less time. You might be sitting on a gold mine of content that was created by your customers. Utilizing all this data and content is the tricky part, but luckily there are solutions out there to help. And the effort is worth the results! The brands that have figured out how to tap into this resource and move past just the basics are reaping the benefits of UGC the most.    

Read more about how to effectively repurpose your UGC here.

At Zembula, our mission is to help you engage and convert every potential customer with hyper-personalized email content that is dynamic and easy to create. We believe every marketer should be able to use their own data to create sophisticated and personalized email content in minutes.