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Customer experience and brand design have a strong influence on each other and should be thought of as uniform. In order to be successful in the market, it is important to create a consistent user experience.

Successful product developers do not ignore the human component. The diverse experiences and the user experience of customers are crucial in developing a successful product. Products that aim at a modern customer experience appear livelier than classic brands and combine contemporary technology with design.

Customer experience and brand design influence each other

In order to develop an all-round strong product, individual elements of the product should not be viewed separately from one another, but rather understood and connected as a whole. Customer experience and brand design influence each other so strongly that developers have to work particularly closely in these two areas. Extracting knowledge of how customers behave, how they feel using the product and how they then talk about the brand experience is the key to developing a product that will have a long-term impact on the market.

This knowledge helps in brand and product design to continuously learn from customers, but also to question one’s own views. Many companies think they know customers better than they do themselves. But do they really know what makes customers’ lives easier? Only a detailed insight makes it possible to adapt a product precisely to the needs of the user.

Classic companies lack a human touch

“Traditional companies” in particular often have difficulties merging outdated IT infrastructures with new technology standards. In many industries, for example, the traditional local branch business no longer exists. The entire service – including customer support – is provided in digital form.

Accordingly, the products must also be developed in such a way that there is no reason for users to panic if problems arise.

Building this bridge poses great challenges for product developers. Product teams often work in isolation from one another and with different project methodologies on suitable solutions and cannot always guarantee a uniform customer experience and congruent features. At the same time, this creates an inconsistency in the design language of individual applications, which can be perceived as very technical and complex.

Customer experience and brand design should be thought of “end-to-end” in order to offer a uniform product experience. UX / UI and brand design / tone of voice are directly linked. Simplicity is, for example, an experienced added value that is created through intuitive operation of the features and readable / informative content. This content is supported at the same time by illustrative design and direct address.

Successful brands need customer trust

In recent years, startups have brought a breath of fresh air to the various industrial sectors. The advantage of many startups is that they open up a new perspective on established structures and work with work and business models that established companies simply cannot see or cannot implement due to their business model.

As a rule, startups are very much oriented towards a digital way of working – both internally and in terms of their products and services. Reliability, a uniform customer experience and the right brand design can be a key to better customer understanding. This largely sets them apart from many traditional companies that were only able to partially implement modern product development and marketing strategies.

Good brand design is human

A human-centered design process is based on learning directly from the customer in his or her environment and thus leads to targeted product iteration. Companies that follow this approach keep pace with constantly changing customer needs and integrate new technologies into the customer experience to develop a comprehensive solution. Through empathy, human-centered design creates a feeling of belonging and enables a close relationship with the customer. By putting themselves in the shoes of their customers, companies gain a deeper understanding of how customers use new technologies, how they pay for products and services, and can ultimately adapt the customer experience and brand design accordingly.

Another advantage: The customer gets the feeling of being heard by the company. This creates permanently increased product acceptance and closer customer loyalty.

Brand design: speaking the language of the user

Customers associate certain aspects of the customer experience with a brand – when it comes to Apple , a lot of people think of usability, intuitiveness or simplicity. These experienced advantages must flow into the brand elements, illustrative designs and brand communication so that the customer can see an effective whole and the product experience can be perceived in a differentiated manner.

A brand gives the product a face and creates expectations among customers that are based on the interplay of product and brand identity.

User-generated content is more than just a background for your own advertising. Ratings, comments and photos from users are considered far more influential than any other form of media.

The idea behind it is quite simple: users create content for a brand, a product, a company themselves and distribute it via the social web. The result: more reach, better customer loyalty, new fans. User-generated content is therefore far too important to be left out by marketers.

Why user-generated content shouldn’t be ignored

The influence of user-generated content on the behavior of (potential) customers has already been the subject of numerous studies and investigations. According to Mavrck, this generates 6.9 times more engagements than brand content on Facebook .

A study by Olapec on consumer confidence also shows that users place much more trust in user-generated content and that the willingness to buy increases when user-generated content with positive connotations is seen about a product.

The advantages of user-generated content are therefore clear:

• It’s virtually free or at least cheaper than other content.
• Customer loyalty is strengthened.
• He is authentic and creates trust.
• Users identify more with a brand / company.
• UGC achieves higher reach and interactions.

What types of user-generated content are there?

The phenomenon is not new: reviews, ratings or comments on social media platforms are commonplace. Such user-generated content is primarily used by companies to receive honest feedback from their customers. In turn, such contributions help other users with their purchase decision. This content is usually very text-heavy and is therefore not really suitable for targeted campaigns with user-generated content. Anyone who wants to use a campaign to specifically encourage their customers to become active themselves should rely on photo and video contributions. Unboxing videos or photo competitions are effective formats here.

How companies can use user-generated content for themselves

Not every product immediately offers enough user-generated content to make it usable for your own advertising strategies. Emotional products, so-called high involvement products, such as luxury goods or premium food, are much more affine for user-generated content, so that companies can often fall back on a real cornucopia of such content without much effort. Low-involvement products, such as food and other everyday goods, have a harder time. Here companies have to actively encourage their customers to generate their own content.

In order for such a campaign to be a success, a few points must be observed:

1. Weighing up the risks beforehand: Making users the mouthpiece of your own brand can quickly backfire on controversial issues. Think of # FragNestlé . Make sure that your customers have had mostly positive experiences with your brand or company so far.
2. Prepare crisis strategies: User-generated content has the disadvantage that it is never possible to predict exactly how the users’ reactions will be. A crisis strategy is therefore indispensable even for less controversial issues. The content must be moderated: Clear rules on netiquette are required and negative reactions must be responded to quickly, but above all transparently and politely.
3. Whet your appetite: A UGC campaign that runs over several weeks or months carries the risk that interest will quickly decline and ultimately fizzle out. In order to still motivate as many users as possible to participate, the campaign should therefore be attractively announced in advance and arouse users’ anticipation. Once they are fed, companies can look forward to a flood of content once the go-ahead has been given.
4. Take your customers by the hand: In order to receive valuable user-generated content, don’t leave your users alone, but be a kind of co-marketer for them. For example, provide them with a hashtag or photo filter. Show them how they can create, distribute and interact with content or select targeted brand ambassadors from your user group with whom you then implement a campaign.
5. Clear, simple rules: It is important to keep the threshold for participation for your users as low as possible. After all, your users want to have fun and share their experiences with your brand with others with as little effort as possible.
6. Interact and moderate: If you are calling on your customers to produce content for you, you should value this “work”. React to the content of your users, comment or share it. Your users have to notice that they are being noticed and taken seriously so that they don’t lose interest. This does not only apply to UGC campaigns, but to any content from your users. Regular monitoring of how users interact with your brand, for example using your hashtags, helps you to get in touch with your users.
7. Evaluate successes: The success of a UGC campaign can be measured using various key figures: click rate, length of stay, sales, new leads. Thorough monitoring is the basis for a successful evaluation. After such a campaign, you should also draw a conclusion on the content: How was the engagement of the users? How was the quality of the contributions? How much negative feedback was there? With this knowledge, you can plan new UGC campaigns even better.

User-generated content from an SEO perspective

In a video from the # AskGoogleWebmasters series, John Mueller explains how Google treats user-generated content on websites, just like other page content. Regardless of whether these are comments, discussions or entire pages that are written by users. Google assumes that this is content that webmasters want on their site and that therefore meets their own requirements. In order to simplify the moderation of such content and to prevent bad UCG from harming the ranking of the page, Mueller recommends excluding these pages from indexing until a quality check can be carried out. If user-generated content include links, they should also with the UGC attribute rel = “ugc” be provided

Conclusion

User-generated content is a powerful tool for strengthening your own marketing activities. Customers build a much stronger and more personal bond with a brand and thus represent the lifestyle behind a product. And although consumers recognize the advertising intent behind a UGC campaign, they trust its content more than pure brand content. In order for such a campaign to work, however, here are the most important questions that you should ask yourself in advance:

1. What content should be produced? (Photos, videos, texts)
2. Who should produce content? (all or selected users)
3. Where should the content appear? (social networks, company website, separate homepage for the campaign, offline …)
4. How long should the campaign run?
5. What time and human resources are available?
6. Which overarching goal should be achieved?

And last but not least: Listen to your customers, take them seriously and give them a platform. This is how you can turn them into authentic ambassadors for your brand.

Is everything still digital? Corona changes brand experiences, but customers want real closeness and goose bumps. The tech agency reddo is breaking new ground in live communication and offering free webinars.

The exit and contact restrictions in the corona crisis have allowed many digital offers to blossom. But now users want to take their eyes off the screen again and establish proximity to their preferred brands in the real world.

The tech agency reddo INTERACTIVE , a specialist in digital and analogue experiences, has published a fire letter on the current situation under the title “Uns enough …” . The approach: times of restriction need more courage and creativity. Maintain the deceleration you have just gained. Bringing people back to the fore. It is a manifesto for a living departure, a call for a collective outlook.

“Countless digital formats have emerged during the time of restrictions. Brands have missed their social media cannon fodder in the form of active films or posts, ”writes Hendrik Grohmann, Creative Director of reddo INTERACTIVE. “For this time it is definitely a good, no, the right measure to reach consumers, to stay in contact and memory, to enrich everyday life a little. But should it go on like this? Are digital offers replacing real goosebumps? Right now, when summer is coming and life is pulsing outside? ”

Webinars for new brand communication

Every crisis has always prepared the ground for something new. And it is precisely in this young field that reddo wants to sow ideas, paths and approaches. The tech agency will be offering free webinars on brand experiences in the current situation in the coming period. The goal: to give agencies, companies, marketing decision-makers and all interested parties the opportunity to sharpen their own mindset for the future after and with Corona. The webinars provide input on how live communication can look for people and brands in a still unclear “new normal”. In addition, it will be discussed whether budgets that are currently frozen or that are mainly spent in the digital sector should not be better returned to analog measures. In this way holistic moments between brands and people can arise,

You can register for the webinars free of charge on the reddo website. The 90-minute sessions are intended to be the first steps in which reddo INTERACTIVE presents an inventory of the changed present and then makes specific new suggestions for successful live communication.

Don’t leave anyone alone in a crisis

“Corona causes justified uncertainty among companies and agencies,” says Johann Thiem, Key Account Manager at reddo INTERACTIVE. He outlines the mood in the run-up to the publication of the fire letter and the hopes for the future: “We have therefore decided to break new ground in live communication with and for our customers. Simply to face the future with new solutions and not to leave anyone alone. It is a challenging situation for everyone, but we are convinced that together we will find ways to expand the offerings that have migrated heavily into the digital again, create values ​​and experiences for people and still take into account the requirements of the federal government. ”

When researching the webinar content, reddo was inspired by the Zukunftsinstitut and Trendone . Surveys by pilot and the new study by Grabarz JMP and Point Blank “How Corona changes our everyday life and our consumption” were also taken into account. “So everything has a hand and foot,” says Hendrik Grohmann. “And of course our own experiences and observations were also incorporated.”

Increase the common good and sales

The webinars do not convey a purely sales-oriented approach. Instead, a future is thought that is marked by a more attitude and commitment to the common good. Regional aspects and sustainable action are packed into the equation together with profitability.

“Our fire letter and the webinars are intended to provide food for thought, but also concrete suggestions on how we can understand the changed normality of people and jointly implement innovative campaigns in live communication,” says Hendrik Grohmann. “Studies show that, especially in crises, people reward when companies stand up for them. Therefore, we want to focus even more on user-centered, authentic and cool actions for the future and encourage agencies and companies to catch up. With all of this, we just have to show the same courage and the same commitment as the many small restaurateurs and retailers who are currently facing the crisis with their creative and unconventional solutions. For us, that’s live communication. This is how you open horizons for the future.