0:18 Alrighty. Hi, everyone. 0:28 Thank you for joining us today for our quick start guide event. I'm Mackenzie Wayne, sales director here at Bazaarvoice, and we launched this new series to provide an opportunity of reengagement with brands that we may have lost touch with. 0:43 And this is really your opportunity to better understand the capabilities of Bazaarvoice and how we can become your strategic partner in ecommerce solution. 0:51 So today, you're gonna see an overview of our capabilities as well as a live demonstration of the customer journey. And we'll have about five minutes at the end of the discussion for q and a, so don't worry. 1:00 But feel free to use the chat function and input any questions along the way. It's a quick housekeeping because there always is some. You can submit your questions in the Q and A module on your right, where you'll also see that chat function. 1:11 We'll resurface those questions, and we'll also include there a few polls throughout the session and welcome your participation. It's really a pop quiz to make sure you're still paying attention, right? 1:21 So, stay till the end though, and we'll announce the winners of our gift card, just I know what you're all here for, don't lie. So with that, we'll do some quick introductions and then get rolling. 1:31 So I'm Mackenzie, like I said, sales director here. I've been been with the company about three years now in a number of roles, so I'm pumped to talk all of Vivi on the whole with you guys today and get to key geek out with you a little bit as well. 1:42 So let me pass it over though to my cohost, Bhavik. Hey, everyone. My name is Bhavik Kandecha. I manage our solutions consulting team here at Bazaarvoice and super excited to be joining Mackenzie on this customer journey walk through. 1:55 I'll be leading some of the demo in a few minutes, but, I know Mackenzie has some cool stats and information before that that will help set up my demo, and then we can chat through q and a. 2:06 Perfect. Yeah. I got all the stats. I'm here to geek out, like I said. So let's go ahead and jump in. Let's start with the hot topic that's bringing us all together today, content. 2:18 The type of content we're talking about is consumer content or user generated content. And this can come in myriad forms. Right? Reviews, questions and answers, photos, videos, and even that social content that we all crave. 2:32 And our research and our own shopper preferences are telling us that the consumer content is more important than it's ever been in that buyer journey. Right? 2:40 Ecommerce continues to become more and more competitive. The number of channels you can shop at has exploded, d to c, social, retail, etcetera. 2:50 And the amount of content a marketer needs to create is extremely vast. And every day I meet with marketers, and I'm hearing their challenges and where they're prioritizing their time to improve their business. 3:01 And I'm sure many of us can relate to those same goals of improving that brand awareness and discoverability and search, driving traffic to your pages, increasing that time on-site and average order value once they decide to purchase, the successful launching of new products and innovations, and then, of course, bridging that gap between social and ecom. 3:22 We're gonna touch on all of that today. And I know it's a lot to take on. It can be overwhelming, but but that's why we're here to help. And if it was easy, we wouldn't be in business after all. 3:31 So let's dive in with a bold stat. So we just launched the seventeenth edition of our shopper index report. 3:40 We're gonna drop a link in the chat. And I wanna double click on one of the key takeaways from the study that truly highlights how shopper content drives consumer confidence in sales. 3:50 So what do we say when we what do we mean when we say that that social is the new search? We're highlighting the growing influence of social media in that shopper journey. 4:00 Right? From product discovery and research to decision making about brand loyalty, social media platforms are playing a pivotal role. 4:08 And that's especially true for that eighteen to twenty four demographic as you can kinda see here from the stat. Social media has become a one stop shop for consumers, much like a search engine, and it's not limited to those eighteen to twenty four year olds. 4:21 I have to add I am guilty of this myself. And I thought I've always felt like I was immune being in this industry, but none of us are immune. And in today's digital shopping landscape, there's an evolving shift in what drives those consumer decisions. 4:35 Right? It's less about what brands say and more about what those fellow shoppers are saying. And these statistics really hit on how UGC appeals to that rational, but also emotional side of the brain when consumers are exploring new brands and pursuing a purchase. 4:50 So word-of-mouth in the form of reviews and questions and answers can help convince shoppers that they can trust the brand based on testimony from other shoppers just like them. 5:00 And then those images and videos inspire new shoppers on what's possible with your products and appeals to that emotional side of the brain, which drives conversion. 5:09 And I'm sure many of you as a shopper have noticed categories like health and beauty, food and bev, apparel, home decor have all really accelerated the integration of photo and video into their contact content mix. 5:24 So getting into these these stats again, imagine this. Nearly three out of every four consumers of seventy four percent place more trust in content created by fellow shoppers than what's provided by the brand itself on that product page. 5:38 This speaks volumes about the power of authenticity in today's market. Plus, we see that seventy eight percent of consumers emphasize that reviews play a pivotal role in their purchase decisions. 5:49 And closely following, seventy seven percent highlight the significance of q and days, those valuable back and forth between customers and brands, or even the the shoppers themselves giving each other advice. 6:01 And then visual testimonials are another big player. Right? Sixty nine percent of shoppers said that photos from real customers influence their purchase. 6:10 It's all about seeing the product in real relatable settings. Me as a shopper, I care more about what my buddy, Bobick, says about the new turntable he bought, how he set it up, how he designed it, then I care how the brand is presenting the product. 6:25 I need to know that he likes it, not that the brand thinks it's great. Right? And the bottom line is as you strategize your future marketing initiatives, the message is clear. 6:34 The voice of the customer reviews q and a's and especially shopper photos aren't just enhancements to your product pages. They're fundamental pillars. 6:43 So that modern shopper craves authenticity, and it's evident in how they rely on that pure content. Our platform enables brands to generate and collect valuable UGC at scale, right, from post sale outreach, sweepstakes, sampling, social campaigns, by sourcing those high fit social creators as well to support new and existing product lines. 7:11 We then take it a step further. We moderate that content for you to ensure that authenticity and compliance piece. For example, is it authentic UGC, or is it fake from bots? 7:20 Is it clean, or does it contain profanity? Does it comply with the FTC or GDPR regulations? Or was it written by your competition? 7:28 That's a lot for a brand to manage on their own, so we take that off your plate. Right? But once we've collected it, we've moderated it for you and curated that, you now have the task of getting this content distributed to all those places that your customers are, whether that's on social and search on your site and at retailers. 7:47 Our network can syndicate over seven seventeen fifty retailers globally. Right? And that's not even including our visual syndication network, which can syndicate images as well. 7:59 And we power the analytics that you all need to clearly show the performance of your program and the opportunities for that improvement. What influencers are driving the most revenue? 8:08 What are your best performing pieces of content? And track the boost in performance metrics between shoppers that engage with UGC versus those that don't. 8:16 Bob has heard me say this a million times. None of these gadgets and gizmos aplenty matter if you don't know if it's working. Right? So you need those critical insights to tell. 8:26 In short, we can help you reach consumers with content that inspires discovery, creates enjoyable experiences, as well as content that then gives the consumer the confidence to buy, which is the ultimate goal. 8:37 Right? And with that moderation in place that your retailers will also choice, trust, avoiding brand and reputation risks, you have a holistic strategy. 8:49 We wanna use a quick success story here as well. This is a brand we like to share, one of our faves. This is a water bottle company called TKEA that scaled the use of their visual UGC by syndicating their content to retailer sites like target dot com. 9:04 So you may have seen this when you're shopping there. Right? From syndication, they were able to increase revenue per visitor by forty percent and saw a fifty eight percent lift in conversion. 9:14 That's huge. Right? And Target themselves reports that enabling this visual syndication can result in a four x lift in conversion from user generated content. 9:25 And of the forty million plus pieces of content on the Target website, over ninety five percent of that comes from brands just like you, distributing that content to their PDPs via our bizarre voice network. 9:39 Okay. So that's all the fun stuff. I geeked out hard on you. I understand you need a breather on some stats. So I'm gonna pause and pass it over to Bhavik, and he's gonna show you this in action. 9:50 Awesome. Thanks, Mackenzie. For sure. Let me switch over to my screen. Awesome. 10:02 So as Mackenzie mentioned, she started off the presentation with a stat. Right? Seventy six percent of Gen zers now start on social for their search. 10:11 Right? And so if, you know, I count myself as a millennial, so I actually still use Google. And so I've started, as you see see on the screen now, an example where I would start on Google. 10:21 Right? Everyone take off your day job hats and put hats on of a consumer. Those individuals, everyday shoppers that buy your products that come on your website, let's see how they would think. 10:33 Right? So if you're their millennial, if they're maybe in the boomer category, they may use Google. Right? They'll come in. They'll type something like chic summer clothing. 10:41 They'll get a lot of information. Right? So it's very hard to figure out, do I wanna shop at Anthropologie? Do I wanna shop at Madewell? If I keep scrolling down, obviously, I know all of you know the value of SEO. 10:51 You have Reddit posts. Right? So it can be sometimes cumbersome for a shopper to start on Google or Bing or some of these search engines. And so tying back to Mackenzie's stat, a lot of those individuals, especially in Gen z, are now searching on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat for their next product. 11:10 I typed that same chic summer clothing in TikTok, and now you'll see all these different brands are showcasing their products live. So instead of me having to go through search engine results and find a specific product that might look good on me, I can now scroll through and already look at individuals that are wearing that clothing. 11:25 Now if I scroll down, I'll see, oh, I saw Ann Taylor. I'm interested in Ann Taylor. I might then go to their TikTok home page. Right? So I'll see their profile there. 11:34 Obviously, you know, they have a lot of followings. They have a lot of different posts. And I might see one of those posts that I really liked and wanna learn more. Now this is where that disconnect comes into play. 11:42 Right? If I see this specific product, how do I purchase it? Right? The individual or the content creator might tag the product or they might reference it, but sometimes there's always that disconnect of how do I actually buy this specific product. 11:54 And so that's where Bizarro Place can start to come into play as part of that full funnel solution. If you're on TikTok, if you're on Instagram, you'll notice that each of your favorite brands has this link in bio available to them. 12:06 And this this is where Bazaarvoice can power what we call our like to buy solution. And so if I like a specific item on and Taylor's like to buy, you'll notice all those posts that are on their TikTok are now on a Bazaarvoice dedicated page where if I click on one of those items that I really liked, you know, off of TikTok, I look at this item, now I can see all the different products tagged through Bazaarvoice that this individual wore. 12:28 So it's not only, like, you know, this pinstripe outfit, but if there's a purse or if there's shoes. And, again, I'm just talking about apparel, but think about this in grocery, food and bath, electronics. 12:40 Right? You can tag multiple products together. So that when I click this individual product, now that consumer is taken to your PDP. And, of course, I have Rakuten, so it's gonna show me all these pop ups. 12:50 But, again, I'm taking to the PDP where now I can actually buy that product that I was interested in. Now I mentioned TikTok. We also power this on Instagram as well. 12:59 And so this is a like to buy for Ann Taylor's Instagram. We're here. Again, you know, they have a higher presence in Instagram. And so, again, that same experience, I can go to like to buy here. 13:10 And now here with Instagram, you can have different areas that you may wanna push your consumers to, whether it's new arrivals, following you on TikTok. Right? Again, making sure that your presence is on social everywhere and anywhere. 13:21 And then, ultimately, instead of that image dying on Instagram and TikTok, again, I bring that same experience where I started on Instagram. I can see all these different products that are tagged and then ultimately be taken to that PDP to make that purchase. 13:34 Now, of course, this is starting on social, but sometimes, like I mentioned, you start from Google, you start from Bing, and you're taken to your brand's home page. 13:43 Here, again, as we know, our websites, and we're all guilty of this, are really good at showcasing some search functionality. When I actually want to connect and help individuals shop, that's where we kind of miss the mark. 13:55 Right? I can come in here and look at, you know, a toy for my nephew. I'll see maybe by age or maybe by specific product, but sometimes it's difficult to make that decision. 14:03 And so, again, continuing that bizarre voice journey, as I go through these different products on the homepage, sometimes I might need inspiration. And so this is where Bazaarvoice, again, can power your social commerce presence. 14:14 And now all those images that people are tagging you on Instagram or on Facebook or on TikTok, I can now bring them to life on my home page. And so individuals that may like your product can tag you on, you know, hashtag Melissa and Doug. 14:27 Those individual posts will then come to this carousel here. And so now I can look for inspiration where I might be confused as to what product I want. But if I look and I see this cute kid, I'm like, oh, I have a you know, I would love this this toy for my nephew as well. 14:40 I'm now inspired, again, going to Mackenzie's aspect of that emotional connection, when I'm inspired to go ahead, go to this specific product, learn more, and then make that purchase. 14:50 Now, again, I'm gonna switch industries so everyone gets a little love. We can now also go into the the beauty space as well. So once you're taken to that product page, again, Mackenzie mentioned there's that emotional connection, and then there's that logical connection. 15:03 So that emotional connection is all the social content that brings you to the PDP, that brings you to purchase. But now you want that logical connection. Right? Once you're taking the PDP, I'm gonna look at this beauty blender sponge. 15:14 I wanna make sure that it's a good product, and that's where ratings and reviews from Bazaarvoice comes in. I can see that there's four point seven rating for nine hundred and thirty one reviews. 15:23 And so I can click down to the reviews and learn more and then, again, get that logical side of my brain aligned to making that purchase. So here, I'll be able to see that distribution of reviews. 15:33 The quality is good. The value is good. And then I can look at all these different images that are gonna be posted with those reviews to make sure that this product is right for me. 15:42 And so this is our photo first display where each of those images are then tied to a specific review, and then you can see how that individual liked it, whether they liked it or not, what they liked about it. 15:52 And then, of course, if you're using any of Bazaarvoice's sampling campaigns, you can then incentivize those reviews and ensure that you have the right tagging through Bazaarvoice's display. 16:01 Now, of course, as consumers, we wanna find the best deal. Right? So this might be Beautyblender's website where it's twenty dollars. Right? But maybe you wanna check at retail. Right? We're a Target shopper or Walmart shopper. 16:12 To ensure that we maintain that continued experience, now all those reviews, I think there was about nine hundred reviews, can also be shared to your retail peer to peers as well. 16:20 So you notice Target has about twelve hundred. So take those nine hundred from the brands. They also collected their own on target dot com. And so now that same experience where I like that product on the PDP, again, in this case, Target is sharing the same price. 16:33 So we're not gonna save money, but I can at least solidify my understanding and my love for the product by, again, looking at more reviews at the retailer lens. So, again, you'll get that same experience at these major retailers, Walmart, Lowe's, but basically any of those one thousand seven hundred fifty that Mackenzie mentioned. 16:49 And now I can, again, continue that story where, you know, someone was disappointed. Why were they disappointed? It looks like it became freight. Right? Maybe that might apply. Maybe that won't. 16:57 But the idea is I can then continue that same story where now I see those reviews that I saw on the PDP, but now I can see it at retail. Now Mackenzie brought up the idea of TKEA and their social syndication. 17:09 And so not only can we share those reviews from retailer or from brands to retailer, but we can now also share the social content. So you look at Takeda again. 17:17 They have awesome stock images of the actual water bottle. But now when I scroll down to the PDP of Target, I'm actually gonna see social content right on those stock images. 17:26 So the last five spots for all of your products will are saved by Target to then showcase individual content from Instagram. And so now you can see that individual liked the product. 17:35 You'll see the tag that they mentioned on Instagram. And so that, as Mackenzie mentioned, has seen almost a four x lift in conversion when we see individuals interact with that content. 17:45 Now what's interesting what Target is also testing out is if you scroll down and you may wanna go check out Target's PDP for your individual products, but they also are showing what they call hashtag target style. 17:56 And so this is where they showcase categorical products. So in this case, I'm on a Tequayah page, but you notice most of the spots here are taken by the likes of Stanley, LO, all these under individual competitors. 18:07 And so, again, if you're not capitalizing on your social content at Target and these other retailers, you're gonna get left behind to the competition. Because now if I'm going down and I see Stanley, that might sway me to go to this specific brand than my own brand. 18:19 So something to think about when you're looking at that shows social presence. Now before I pass it to Mackenzie, the last thing I wanna leave you with is this is all good and great. 18:28 Right? We're gonna start from social. We're gonna go to your PDP. We're gonna showcase reviews. We're gonna syndicate to retail. But a common question that Mackenzie, I'm sure, gets every day on our call is, how do we find this content? 18:39 How do we source this content? Again, you know, if you're on a sales call with us, this could take up to an hour to demo, so we're more than happy to have that follow-up conversation. 18:47 But I wanna leave you with a quick demo of what we call our influencer marketing solution. And so here is what you're looking at here is our dashboard, everything having to do with influencers. 18:58 So you can help find those influencers. You can run campaigns through our portal. You can build your own community, and you can also look at how your competition is tracking. 19:06 Why I wanted to showcase this is because I'm sure all of you are on the buzzword or on the train of AI. Right? But we've looked to implement AI in all of our solutions to make your lives easier. 19:17 And so when I come in here, again, just a quick demo, I can find influencers using our platform, connected directly with Instagram and TikTok's APIs. And so we're able to get that content real time. And I can use what we call our magic search, which is amazing because, again, when we look at AI, we wanna make your lives easier. 19:34 So here, I'm just gonna show you a quick demo is maybe I have a specific item or image in mind that I want my content creators to create content for. So I can come in here. 19:42 I can search similar how to you you do on ChatGPT, but I can also upload images. And so I found this on Anne Taylor's Instagram, and I want individual content creators that post content like this. 19:53 And so our AI engine will now look in the back end, find these different influencers, and find content similar to that image I posted. So this is the image. 20:02 And now I'm here shared hundreds of influencers depending on the engagement I'm looking at, the followers I'm looking at, of kind of types of content that is similar to that individual. 20:11 Again, I can fine tune it by age, demographic, things like that. But now I can look at these different individuals and these influencers get more information on the content they're posting. 20:21 So, again, I'll see the type of content, which is, again, similar to that image I posted. I can see how much they may charge per post, and I can look at all the different individual items that, you know, are important to me in terms of distribution, location, things like that. 20:34 So, again, I know that was a a quick and dirty demo of our back end. We'd love to chat more on how we can help you from an influencer marketing standpoint. But just know that bizarre voice is gonna help from that full customer journey. 20:44 And as Mackenzie mentioned, you'll sell those stats. We wanna ensure that your customers are converting at higher rates starting from social, ending on your PDP, or ending at your retailer locations. 20:58 Awesome. Thank you, Babik. So this is the story that you just saw in his live demo. We're just gonna hit on a couple more points here. So, you know, you want to see what telling that authentic brand story that connects and converts can look like from the consumer perspective for your brand. 21:15 Right? So we want to amplify the authentic content that converts everywhere to increase impact and ROI for every single campaign. 21:24 And by fueling that customer journey with shoppable content from your campaign. So we wanna transform those lurkers into lookers, the shoppable social posts featuring that creator content, and turn those lookers into social shoppers. 21:39 Right? Shoppable affiliate posts. We wanna flip those social shoppers into on-site browsers. Right? Shopper and creator content fueled by that like to buy social storefront that we mentioned. 21:52 And we wanna convert those browsers into bigger spenders when they decide to buy. So those galleries features with ratings and reviews and PDP PDPs featuring those creators and that social user generated content coupled with ratings and reviews content from your campaigns are gonna be the the optimal mix to increase that spend per customer. 22:15 We don't wanna upgrade that spender to potential content creator and brand loyalists loyalists. How can creators apply to become a brand advocate with that affable functionality? 22:27 We have a community feature that will let your brand fans become the voice of your brand in the future. Right? Visitors can create creator shops, and anyone can share their own UGC as a result. 22:39 Right? So, you know, bonus, all of that's gonna be shoppable. It can then be measurable. Right? So this can lead to things like a three hundred and eight percent increase in time on-site with those storefronts, hundred and seventy two percent increase per ecommerce session with those storefronts, and a forty six percent of showroom visits that convert into an ecommerce session. 23:03 So following those link to links to purchase, getting somebody to your site, and getting them to convert. Now we wanna look at, you know, active campaigns in those communities. 23:15 Those campaigns are the driving force behind your brand's growth. Our goal is to help you streamline those efforts. We wanna minimize the need to switch between different tools and platforms for all your campaigns so we can focus more on achieving your campaign objectives and developing new strategies rather than remembering twelve passwords to twelve different platforms. 23:35 Right? And we want to be your central content creation hub, enable you to achieve that optimal mix that we're talking about. And that's gonna include that content from everyday shoppers, content creators, influencers, and, of course, your own brand generated content. 23:51 But then enjoy that complete automation of those time consuming tasks like content management and distribution. This is gonna allow your content to have multiple lives work harder for you, increasing that ROI from your creators and your campaigns, and ensure that your consumers can easily access this content wherever they are, whether it's on search engines like BAVIC, social media like me, or ecommerce platforms like most of us. 24:18 And let's be honest. Shoppers are lazy. We need to make it as easy as possible for myself included. Right? And our focus is to enrich your experiences with those pieces of content, drive those conversions throughout the funnel. 24:31 And by creating that compelling brand experience fueled by the authentic content that you need, we help strengthen your brand story, drive traffic, fuel consideration, and ultimately boost your sales, which is what we all want. 24:45 So this leads to those loyal customers as an end result who love your products and love your company. 24:55 Alright. Well, that was our show for the fun part and the geek part and the stats and all that, but now we got questions. So I'd love to open up the conversation now. 25:05 Do we have any questions come in during the discussion, or do we have any questions that anybody wants to pop in now? Feel free to jump in with anything. 25:16 We do also have a live poll that you're more than welcome to participate in. We'd love to hear from you. Out of these tactics we just covered, where are you at in your UGC journey? 25:26 Are you brand new? It's okay. You need a strategy. Here to help. You have content. You just need to get it places. 25:35 Mackenzie, I have a question for you because I know you're you live and breathe social on a regular basis. What would you say is a good, mix of branded content versus creator content versus UGC? 25:46 Like, what does that look like for the brands that are on today? Yeah. I think it's, you know, it's easier said than done to say that there's an a single solution to the mix. 25:57 What I would say is kind of the hack there is that it really depends on your brand. Right? How what is the product that you're presenting? What is your community that we're tapping into? 26:07 And what are your goals? Right? So you as a brand, we wanna talk through what are your challenges? What are your gaps? And where are you seeing success? 26:15 And I think that's where our our insights, as we've talked about, that are, you know, our bread and butter help you understand as a brand, where do we pivot? Where do we scale? Where do you need more content that you don't already have? 26:26 I think it is fair to say that you always want a healthy mix of UGC as well as that branded content to kinda tell the whole story And then, of course, those reviews, like we said. 26:37 So on a brand by brand basis, we would look at where are your specific gaps and what is gonna resonate with your customers. 26:45 So, again, I think we'd encourage a a next conversation on a brand by brand basis to be able to tell you what your kinda optimal mix might be. Good question. 26:58 Anybody else in the chat have anything for us? No worries. If not okay. Well, if you're here this long, it means that you would like a gift card. 27:07 So I completely understand. I would also like a gift card, but, we'll see if we can work that out later. We have a couple winners here. So, hopefully, you, are still online to hear. 27:17 We have Mia Weber from Kathy Kulholm. And, Mia, I think we've met before, so I'm so happy to hear that you won. 27:25 Congratulations. And then we have Darlene Riesabala from Delta Children's Products. So we will be reaching out to you guys with your your winnings. 27:36 Yay, Mia. I'm so glad you're here. Congratulations. Alright. Well, feel free to reach out to us as well if you have questions after the fact, and we'd love to, like we said, have conversations with you guys on a one to one basis about your brands and better understand your goals. 27:52 Awesome. Thank you guys for coming. Thanks, Bobic. Appreciate your help today. Right back at you. 28:01 Alright, y'all. Thank you. Bye bye.