Duke Marr, VP of Ecommerce and Product Management for 1-800-Flowers.com, shared examples of the company’s success with customer stories. As a brand selling an emotionally connected product, 1-800-Flowers seeks to connect their customers’ passion with their products and brand.

The company launched their “Spot a Mom” Stories campaign leading up to Mother’s Day, asking contributors to share their stories of different types of moms. The spotamom.com microsite spotlighted different types of mothers, tied to specially priced categories encouraging multi-item purchases based on “mom type.”

The results were huge, with 1-800-Flowers.com beating their projected Mother’s Day sales by 9%. The campaign, which collected hundreds of stories and garnered thousands of votes, coincided with an increase in total transactions, items per order, and new customers. Social engagement tools helped to “viralize” the content, and URL tracking codes allowed 1-800-Flowers track how story content tied directly to the purchase funnel.

We’ve discussed auto parts retailer JC Whitney’s many UGC successes in the past. Geoff Robertson, VP of Ecommerce and Technology, shared some key recommendations for ROI metrics:

• Determine your high-level objectives. What do you want your UGC to do? Drive revenue? Increase profit? Increase purchases per customer?
• Choose the metrics to measure these goals. Increased conversion, reduced returns, increased items per order, etc.
• Communicate these metrics to gain company-wide buy in. Publish results weekly and fuel the involvement of others.
• Do more with your UGC. Take your metrics a step further. If your goal is to increase customer satisfaction, follow up with negative reviewers. If your goal is to reduce return rates, build a skilled team to answer customer questions quickly and accurately.

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