The Power of Reviews - Part 1 with Crossmark’s Stephen G. Koven

The CPG Guys Sri & PVSB are joined in this 2 part episode by digital experience maven Stephen G. Koven VP of Omnichannel & eCommerce at Crossmark. Most recently, Stephen was VP of Digital Experience at Hormel Foods and had previously worked at Henkel and The Clorox Company.

Stephen speaks to how brands can leverage user-generated content like product ratings & reviews up and don the marketing funnel to drive commercial success.

Questions Stephen addresses:

1. My first question is: would you please define what user generated content is and whether it is measurably important on the path to purchase.
2. Can you speak to how UGC can and should be applied in eCommerce, particularly the digital shelf? Any innovative examples?
3. Does the impact of UGC matter based upon the product category? I mean, is it really important to collect reviews for a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi or some asparagus? What other factors may influence the importance of UGC in the path to purchase?
4. There are a great number of brands, particularly in food & beverage, who prior to the pandemic, had not invested in UGC. Now, by all accounts, they are scrambling to get started. Can you walk our audience through exactly how to get up and running and what needs to be considered in developing a UGC program?
5. Once you have designed a program and have selected the vendors, you’ll need to actually implement it. Can you speak to specific concerns that brands should address during the implementation phase?
6. OK, now you have your program established and you want to start collecting content. The million dollar question that I know Peter gets asked all the time: how many reviews do I need? And a follow up: once I hit the threshold, am I golden, have I reached my destination?
7. Does quality come into consideration? In other words, does only the start rating matter or are there other factors? (recently, length, sentiment, assortment coverage, supplementary product-relevant questions)
8. What are some major ways to generate the content?

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