Capture Customer-Generated Content with Okendo

The Okendo app helps you utilise user-generated content

User-generated content. It’s a pretty important online marketing technique. Basically, it tells your not-yet-customers, “Don’t trust us, trust people who actually bought and used our products”. UGC is anything from ratings and reviews to photos and videos of real people using your product to comments, questions and answers your customers have left you in writing.

User-generated content has two major functions in marketing. It helps to build trust and credibility, as well as continuously improve your SEO. Search engines look for websites that have original content that’s written naturally and keeps coming - which is exactly what a steady stream of customer reviews does.

If you look at successful online brands, UGC is everywhere. You can see it in logos of companies who have talked about or used their services, you see it in scrolling testimonials or Instagram feeds, or even in social media reposts from customers.

Here’s an example of UGC that helps build trust in Madsen Cycles.

User-generated content is a crucial way to drive traffic to your online store because it helps create brand awareness through using visual social channels and by improving your search engine optimisation, resulting in more organic (unsponsored) traffic. Here's a great article on how embedded product reviews drive conversions.

Okendo’s main purpose is to help you generate and use content from your customers

What kind of content are we talking about?

Product ratings and reviews

These are all of the star ratings and reviews your customers submit, which can include specific types of ratings that work best for your industry. Rich Snippets are dynamic (changing) elements in a Google search result, such as star ratings -- these are great for bumping up your store in search engine optimisation.

Customer photos and videos

If you have a product that’s wearable or easy to take around, chances are you’re trying to get customers to use Instagram and #tag you. It’s not always easy. But having a feed of Instagrammers displayed on your website can help you encourage others to do the same and start trending.

Check out, for example, Cuppow’s landing-page Instagram feed showing real people who are using their (pretty awesome) mason jar-to-reusable mug converters.

Questions, Answers and Comments

Yes, you can say “it fits perfectly and is made out of durable materials” all you want, but why should your viewers believe you? Having users answer other users’ questions is a great way to build trust.

This is especially useful for merchants who have uncommon products, or ones that might work differently for different customers. You can set up specific questions about fit, usage and experience so your viewers are actually getting their questions answered.

How does it work?

We’ve already covered why Yotpo has taken off as a major UGC service that’s effective. How is Okendo any different? 

At the end of the day, both have a basic process of 1) soliciting reviews, ratings and content from recent customers through emails and 2) displaying and organising that content on your Shopify site in a way that is supposed to increase average order values and convert shoppers into new customers, by building trust and answering common questions.

If you'd like to know what the differences are between Okendo and other major review apps, you can read more here.

There are a couple of unique features in Okendo that we think make a difference.

Display reviews by category

You can create a Reviews and a Q&A Forum with Okendo that allows you to display all of your testimonials in one place. One of the things Okendo does that is quite useful is to organise reviews based on product category, so your viewers can discover similar products to the ones they are interested in on your site.

Choose what content actually goes up

Okendo lets you manually or automatically moderate what content is displayed. For example, you can set a filter so that reviews that are four stars and above get published at the end of the week, but the rest you take a look at first and decide if you want them to be displayed.

Go in-depth with customer profiles

Customer profiles are Okendo’s signature move. They first verify that the reviewer is in fact a customer and not just a troll. Then, they ask customers specific questions about their experience and encourage them to focus on photos and videos rather than one or two line text reviews.

While the Okendo platform requires more from your customer, the customer content is more in-depth and useful to other viewers. This can in turn play a role in developing more customer loyalty and brand awareness, because your reviewers have put more effort in and are therefore more likely to pay attention to your company.

“Grow With Us” pricing

Okendo tiered pricing (unlike Yotpo) which allows companies to spend less on generating user content. This is especially useful for small companies that cannot shell out hundreds of dollars a month for reviews and ratings, but might be able to afford $50 or $100. Okendo’s Grow With Us programme is especially targeted at the little guys. Plus there’s a free trial month, so you can test it to see what the return on investment is.

Integrated with Shopify

As a Shopify Partner, Okendo is made to easily fit into a Shopify store. That means you’ll be able to accurately measure its return on investment, and see how conversion rates are affected by UGC.

Bonus read: Learn how to analyse how your viewers interact with your website with Hotjar, including how they’re using ratings, reviews, and discussion boards in their purchasing decisions.

Does UGC make you go “Uggghhh”?

We know that online marketing can seem daunting. That’s why we’re here to help. Subscribe to our email list for more marketing tips, or talk to us today to design a strategy that puts your eCommerce store on the map.