Today’s shoppers are open to trying out new products and new brands. However, every customer faces a ton of apprehensions and questions before you can get the coveted click.

They’re gonna wonder if they can trust this brand; if the product can solve their problem?; has this worked for other people?

You can use professional photos or videos, trust symbols, and your 5-star reviews to instil a sense of trust. It’s pretty and it works, no doubt there. But…

They don’t have any proof it’s as good as the brand says it is. After all, you’re not gonna highlight your 1-star reviews.

Imagine seeing a raw, unedited, “ugly” video shot on a phone camera by a customer of the product, talking about how they use it in their lives, showing closeups of the product, describing its quality, etc.

This doesn’t look pretty, but it sells. It builds a ton of trust and social proof with the viewer.

UGC puts the customers’ story at the forefront, which makes it more compelling and trustworthy.

Why use UGC

Customers are more likely to trust other customers who have tried and tested a product, rather than the brand itself. Including UGC reviews in emails can build trust and credibility with your customers.

Also, WhatsApp messages have a higher open rate than emails, which means that customers are more likely to engage with messages. Including UGC reviews in messages can help increase your customer confidence level.

Using UGC in your marketing

UGC can be leveraged anywhere-be it ads, your website, or even the communication with your customers. We’ll limit the scope to email and WhatsApp marketing in this blog.

Include customer testimonials in promotional messages

Testimonials from happy customers can be included in promotional emails to encourage other customers to buy.

Send Product recommendations based on user preferences

Using UGC reviews to create personalized product recommendations can be a great way to showcase products that customers are likely to buy.

Use it in your automations

You could use reviews in almost all of your automated flows. Here is the list of some of the best sequences you can use reviews. 

• Welcome flows: Nurture your new customers by giving them confidence with your genuine reviews
• Abandoned carts: You could recover abandoned carts by having an additional fold with your customer testimonials
• Browse Abandonment flows: Boost confidence level of shoppers. 
• Win-back flows: Showcase how trustable your brand is and let your customers know that you’re supported by thousands of other customers.
• Up-sell/Cross-sell flows: Recommend products with UGCs

Go omnichannel with Forward

If you’re looking for a Shopify app to send campaigns and set up automation flows and make the best use of the reviews and UGC collected from your Reviewbit account, check out Forward. They’re an omni-channel marketing platform that’s built exclusively for Shopify brands.