How to Drive Conversions by Displaying User Generated Content

Sep 28, 2022 | Reviews and Ratings

As an ecommerce business, it’s important to stay up-to-date with the latest marketing trends. And right now, that means incorporating more visuals into your marketing strategy. Let us show you how to drive conversions by displaying user generated content.

Gone are the days when a few well-written testimonials and reviews could convince prospective customers to make a purchase. In today’s online landscape, words alone just don’t carry as much weight. That’s why it’s essential to supplement your text with engaging visuals.

That’s why in this article, we will show you why visual marketing is important for your business. We’ll also highlight a few tips on how you can use visuals to further drive your conversions and revenue figures.

Why should you bother with visuals?

Using visual content in your ecommerce business has lots of advantages. In fact, if you look them up online, you would probably get a whole list of reasons why visuals are important for businesses.

Let’s summarize them into 2 reasons:

1. Visuals are easier and quicker to understand.

A picture can say a lot more than a thousand words ever could. Just think about how much easier it is to understand something when you can see it, rather than just reading about it.

For example, our client Gunner Kennels uses pictures and videos to show off their products with our Visual Gallery:

gunner kennels visual ugc
Gunner Kennels Visual Gallery with Filterable photos and Videos

Showing the kennels in action through pictures and videos helps potential customers understand what it can do far better than just reading a description of it.

Customers don’t just see how an item looks. With photos and videos, they can imagine how it feels to use the product.

MIT says that people can identify images in just 13 milliseconds. It takes about 60 seconds to read 200-250 words.

Here’s another fact: visual information sticks 6 times more than information received through hearing or reading.

By using visual information, customers are able to remember your brand and get attached to it.

2. Visuals bring more engagement and attention.

In the ecommerce world, engagement and attention are key. That’s why business owners and managers spend fortunes on marketing and advertising.

Images and videos can elicit emotions faster than words. Using the right image or video in your marketing efforts could influence how a viewer takes actions like visiting your website or purchasing.

hiker on mountaintop in high contrast image
via Unsplash

Adding visuals to posts on social media platforms can significantly increase engagement. For example, BuzzSumo found that adding images to Facebook posts can multiply engagement by 2-3 times, and Twitter posts with images are shared 78% more.

More engagement leads to more subscribers and followers, which are potential customers. With a little extra effort, you can convert many of them into sales.

How does visual content mix with reviews?

There is no denying that online customer reviews are important, especially for businesses that operate locally. They provide social proof and can help increase customer trust.

A 2017 study conducted by Podium found that 93% of consumers say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions. This figure alone highlights the value of positive reviews and the cost of negative ones.

As businesses increasingly move online, the importance of customer reviews and visual content becomes more pronounced. While many companies focus only on the former, neglecting the latter can have a detrimental effect on conversions and revenue.

Visual marketing allows customers to see the product in use, rather than simply as an image or stock photo. This helps them to imagine using the product themselves, and ultimately drives up sales figures.

As such, businesses need to pay attention to both customer reviews and visual marketing in order to succeed in the modern marketplace.

As customers submit photos and videos of your products, they become major marketing assets. User generated visual content makes your products seem more personal and realistic, which is an even better scenario.

Here’s a great example of user generated content from Seek Outside:

user generated content gallery
Product Review Widget on Seek Outside website displaying user generated content

How to drive conversions by displaying user generated content

As promised, here we will provide tips on how to use visuals to how to drive conversions by displaying user generated content.

1. Take great product photos

First, using visuals the right away is, of course, to take excellent visuals. No amount of editing would be able to beautify poorly-shot pictures of your products.

Some of the best practices for taking great product photos for e-commerce include:

  • Considering the right equipment
  • Preparing the product(s)
  • Use the best lighting positions
  • Taking shots from different angles
  • Applying post-production retouch

See how Seek Outside applies these practices:

product imagery for an outdoor brand
Product visuals example by Seek Outside

Humans are visual creatures who often judge something out of the visuals. Your prospective customers will judge your product’s value and worth based on what they see.

2. Encourage customers to add photos and videos in the reviews

Most review management software programs have a great feature that is often underrated and underutilized- the ability for customers to submit photos and videos along with their reviews.

With a little encouragement, customers will usually be happy to add visuals to their reviews. This can be a great way to get an accurate depiction of customer satisfaction.

3. Don’t forget about social media

As a business owner, you know that visuals are important. But did you know that they can be even more impactful on social media? Posts with images tend to get more engagement than those without, so it’s worth taking the time to integrate social media into your marketing efforts.

Here are a few ideas:

  • Add social media buttons to your visuals
  • Share all your images and videos on all your social media channels
  • Develop a cross-posting or cross-promotion plan on social media
  • Give shout-outs to customers who make excellent reviews. Publish those with images, and tag the customer if possible to give photo credit.

You never know – someone may see one of your positive reviews and leave another one in return. By taking advantage of social media, you’re increasing your chances of making a lasting impression on potential customers.

4. Optimize your visuals for SEO

Lastly, by optimizing your visuals for SEO you can ensure that your hard work in using visuals in your business pays off.

Visual search is becoming increasingly important, especially with Google’s vision for the future of search. Utilizing your images for SEO could bring you more traffic, which could turn into leads, and then into sales.

  • Choosing the right file name and format
  • Reducing image size
  • Captions and ‘alt’ (alternative) text

Here’s a great illustration of image SEO by Seobility. Traffic will get you more leads. It makes sense to optimize your images for SEO especially with Google getting better at image recognition every day.

Wrapping things up…

Using visuals in your marketing is an excellent way to increase conversions and revenue. Written reviews from customers are great, but user-generated visuals can have an even bigger impact.

Since humans are naturally drawn to visuals, it makes sense to use them in your marketing. We tend to believe what we see more than what we hear, so using visual elements is a great way to boost your business. We hope this helps you know how to drive conversions by displaying user generated content.