Bazaarvoice, Inc. , the network connecting brands and retailers to the authentic voices of consumers wherever they shop has launched the inaugural Bazaarvoice CGC Index.
It’s a first-of-its-kind deep-dive analysis of the business impact consumer-generated content (CGC) has on sales conversion, return on investment, and long-term customer loyalty across multiple industries.
Groundbreaking new research draws on data from 45.6 billion product page views to describe the next chapter of consumer-generated content and identify the five key traits of best-in-class CGC marketers
Do you know what it takes to become a best-in-class brand or retailer? Take a look at our groundbreaking CGC Index: https://t.co/r8QoTQ4oyf
— Bazaarvoice (@Bazaarvoice) April 19, 2016
The benchmarks in the CGC Index are drawn on client data from more than 2,000 Bazaarvoice global brand and retail sites and illustrate the business value of CGC. Brands and retailers have seen significant impacts to shopper conversion, average order value, and measurable influence of online content on in-store purchases.
The CGC Index shows that 50 percent of retailers and 91 percent of brands plan to increase their usage of CGC across the consumer journey in the next 12 months. Also detailed in the report: the massive explosion in visual content during 2015, how CGC influenced search, and how leading companies are leveraging CGC to improve products and customer service.
“Knowing that nothing like it exists, we created the CGC Index to serve as an incredibly valuable asset for businesses to see how leading brands and retailers use CGC so that they can better understand how to incorporate it in a meaningful way,” said Sara Spivey, Chief Marketing Officer at Bazaarvoice. “The research proves beyond a doubt that CGC has evolved beyond a marketing tool to a true business imperative for brands and retailers that are placing more focus – and consequently, marketing spend –on consumer content.”
Through detailed analysis, Bazaarvoice found that the CGC programs of the world’s leading brands and retailers include five key traits:
- Focus on the fundamentals – A powerful program establishes and executes against a proven set of tactics that ensures a healthy volume of content and coverage to drive shopper conversion, and is constantly measured and fine-tuned to optimize program performance.
- Play the long game – Best-in-class brands and retailers see beyond initial conversion and seek to identify ways to unlock CGC’s strength to drive long-term brand loyalty and customer value.
- Really listen to the customer – Industry leaders can pull insights from customer content and use it to improve the shopping experience, product performance, and customer service.
- Let customers tell their story – The best brands leverage CGC across their marketing mix, bringing the authentic voices of their advocates to a wide variety of digital and physical touchpoints, including the product detail page, category page, store signage, product packaging, and brand advertising.
- Everyone is a stakeholder – The most successful companies recognize that CGC is much more than an e-commerce tactic or even a marketing tool. It is a corporate imperative, with enduring bottom-line impacts across an entire organization.
“It can be difficult to develop a content program that stands out amongst competitors, particularly in an industry as competitive as retail, but the Bazaarvoice CGC Index gave us the knowledge and the toolkit to create a best-in-class CGC program that others envy,” said Ralph Percival, Director of Direct at Joules UK.
“The value of data insights this comprehensive cannot be understated, and by working closely with our partners at Bazaarvoice, we’ve been able to make changes to our CGC program that have resulted in more engagement from our most important stakeholder – our customers.”