You Can’t Build a Brand with UGC
User-generated content (UGC) is working really well right now and has for a while.
In fact, Meta is actively promoting that brands should be doing more low-fidelity, UGC content on their platform. If your only goal is sales, then they’re not wrong. UGC is efficient to produce and can drive conversions when curated correctly.
Why not just create UGC ads and nothing else?
You can’t build a brand with UGC.
What Meta is completely missing is the power of a brand. Brand is what sets apart great businesses.
It is true that building a brand is much harder and more expensive than simply running UGC ads. And, I’m not saying you shouldn’t do UGC. You should. It works.
I’m saying that you need to think bigger than just cost per acquisition (CPA) when deciding on your creative mix and business goals.
Think of the companies you love and aspire to be like. What do they all have in common? Brand.
At Raindrop, we have seen firsthand the power of combining brand advertising with performance marketing. We have worked with Dr. Squatch to take them from a $3M natural soap company to a $350M+ men’s personal care juggernaut. The difference maker for their company was brand.
Getting brand right is hard. It’s complicated. It’s expensive. But, it will have potentially the greatest positive impact on your business over anything else you do.
We understand that CPA matters and to scale a profitable business, you need to be as efficient as possible. That’s why, at Raindrop, we believe in the power of combining brand and performance marketing. Your brand-forward creative can and should perform as well as your UGC and your static content.
I’m not saying that brand will always outperform creative from a pure CPA or ROAS perspective, but I am saying it should be at least comparable.
This then allows you to scale just as efficiently while also building a brand people love.
The creative production will cost more, but in the end, it will be one of the best decisions you’ve ever made.
It’s never too late or too early to start building your brand.
If you are sacrificing performance to develop brand creative, then you are doing it wrong or your agency doesn’t know what they’re doing.
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