The first email marketing campaign was in 1978. It went out to 400 people and generated $13 million in sales, according to TowerData. Decades later, email marketing still generates the best ROI of any channel. Our culture has changed a lot since that first email blast, and it’s important to evolve your email marketing tactics to keep up with new consumer expectations. The best way to break through your audience's content fatigue and aversion to sales-y marketing is to feature user-generated content in your emails. Customers who view UGC are twice as likely to convert compared to prospects who don’t get exposed to real customer images or videos. Why? Because user-generated content resonates with customers in a way that traditional marketing images never will.

Knowing UGC is hugely effective is the first step in leveling up your email marketing. The next step is actually integrating this content into your emails. It’s a daunting task if you go it alone. Pixlee can make the transition to high-performing UGC emails straightforward and stress-free.

Quickly Curate The Best Content For Each Email Type

You’ve probably spent countless hours racking your brain for new content ideas. It’s an ongoing need that you can’t ignore, but it can be a real struggle. Featuring user-generated images in your emails means you have a steady supply of fresh content that’s more effective than in-house marketing visuals. And with Pixlee, you don’t have to personally sift through thousands of UGC images to find great options. Pixlee’s platform helps you easily discover and curate high-quality content to include in your email marketing. On average, Pixlee users see a 2.9% increase in click-through rates when they use UGC.

Maternity apparel brand BLANQI features an inspiration gallery of “real moms.”

Put Products In Context To Increase Conversions

Contextualizing products is especially important now with many brick and mortar stores closed because of the pandemic. Customers are more hesitant to buy items based solely on a brand’s product photos, which are sometimes misleading. Seeing products in action from real customer photos removes any lingering doubts about an item’s quality or effectiveness. Kirkland’s, a popular housewares retailer, collects images that display their products in real customers’ homes. This collection provides a gallery of authentic images that connect with customers and inspires their own interior design ideas. After Kirkland’s shifted their marketing focus to user-generated content, they saw a 14% increase in their average order value.

“With photoshoots canceled, we've been relying very heavily on UGC and Pixlee – it has become the main thing we post on all our channels. To see growth, engagement, and reach just going through the roof on all of our channels has been great.”  Stephanie Schiraldi, Social & Local Store Marketing Specialist

Build A Stronger Community

User-generated content in emails is essential for brands looking to incorporate their communities better. By using customer photos, videos, and reviews, you’re centering your marketing around people rather than products. You aren’t trying to sell a new lipstick; you’re trying to make your customers look and feel their best. Focusing your email content around your community makes them more engaged and creates a personal connection to your brand. Nurture these personal connections as they grow, and you’ll see a positive impact on your sales. Plus, an enthusiastic community produces more free UGC and creates free advocates for your brand.

Take Personalization To The Next Level

Pixlee helps you take email personalization even further. In a saturated marketplace, this is your key to success because personalized email marketing generates a median ROI of 122%. With Pixlee, brands can use tagged user-generated content to create dynamic, personalized emails at scale. You can geotarget your emails and use images that feature people from that area. Adding this local connection is a powerful way to let customers know you understand who they are and where they’re from. You “get” them, and this understanding is an important building block for earning a prospect’s loyalty.

You can also personalize your emails by demographic segmentation. If you sell outdoor gear and your customer loves camping supplies, you can send them an email highlighting your new camping products. Bonus points for including customer reviews or UGC featuring those items. Adding user-generated content into the personalization mix makes your emails stand out from your prospect’s inbox clutter. It’s also more likely to connect with the reader, making them want to buy from your brand. Customers that engage with Pixlee-powered UGC are 2x as likely to convert.

Japanese beauty brand NatureLab Tokyo features UGC front and center to catch the email recipient’s eye.

Emails that use traditional brand-created visuals are among the most cost-effective marketing methods, but there’s still untapped revenue that user-generated content can capture for your brand. UGC marketing sways 90% of consumers, solidly outperforming promotional emails. Pixlee can help you maximize your ROI by making it simple to curate quality UGC and create attractive emails that you can send to prospects at any stage of the buyer journey.

Melissa Whitten is an experienced content writer with a BA in English. Her writing niches include digital marketing, food & restaurants, and pets. When she’s not working, you can find her hiking in the woods and saying hello to every dog she sees. You can contact her at melissa@writtenbywhitten.com or find more of her work here.