Be Authentic

In my opinion, to be successful in a marketing campaign, you need to be authentic. You should avoid using jargon and really just say what you want to say to your customers simply and plainly. If you're marketing a product, don't be sneaky about it. Customers really want to hear it like it is. Straight up.

Even more compelling? Let your customers tell your story themselves.

Consumer-generated content (CGC) can be very effective. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 86% of businesses now use content marketing. Why? With so much content being created to capture consumers’ attention in a cross channel, social media and mobile world, your marketing needs to be on point. According to Nielson, 92% of customers trust online content from friends and family above all else (attention, marketer).

From a retail marketing perspective, how do you create an attention-grabbing, authentic, CGC campaign? One example is what John Lewis, a Great-Britain-based department store, did. John Lewis created a campaign around their customers sharing photos of their shoe purchases. They encouraged customers to share photos using the hashtag #myshoestory. Not only does this type of campaign create brand loyalty, it creates a community of people who connect with each other through the unifying brand.

L’Oreal is another good example. Their #DermaBlendPro campaign encouraged customers to share their makeup transformations. (Who doesn’t love a good “before and after” shot?) Thousands of customers across Instagram, Twitter and Facebook participated, effectively marketing L’Oreal’s brands for them.

Maybe you can’t utilize CGC for every marketing campaign, but if you can use it a few times a year, you have a huge opportunity for building brand loyalty.