UGC Helping to Drive Engagement, Sales for Wisteria

Furniture and home décor brand Wisteria is leveraging user-generated content (UGC) to drive customer interactions and sales. Wisteria has partnered with Curalate, a social commerce platform, to request rights to UGC images and then uses Curalate's platform to deploy those images in galleries on the retailer's website (e.g., homepage, product detail pages) as well as its social pages. The results have been impressive:

• Curalate facilitated close to half a million interactions with lifestyle content on Wisteria.com.
• When customers interacted with lifestyle/social content on Wisteria.com, they converted at a 135 percent higher rate, spent 266 percent more time on site, and spent 28 percent more than customers who did not interact with this content.
• Eighty-eight percent of the revenue driven from lifestyle content on Wisteria's site can be attributed to interaction with this content on product detail pages.

In an exclusive interview with Total Retail, Emily Black, vice president of marketing at Wisteria, discusses the company's partnership with Curalate and why UGC is a critical component of the brand's marketing strategy.

Emily Black, Vice President of Marketing, Wisteria

Total Retail: Why has Wisteria decided to invest time and resources into acquiring UGC?
Emily Black: We’ve truly seen the value of investing in UGC. Numbers don’t lie! Our UGC reposts are our top-performing posts across social media channels, and they serve as a kind of visual recommendation of our products. When our customers see a product incorporated into real spaces, it allows them to envision it in their own homes.

TR: What are the types of UGC that Wisteria is acquiring, and how is the brand using that content?
EB: We acquire everything from photos and videos to boomerangs. We utilize that content in Curalate’s Fanreel, which allows us to spotlight UGC on our website through our homepage, corresponding product pages, and a dedicated page with a UGC gallery that serves as inspiration for our customers.

TR: How are consumers engaging with Wisteria's UGC?
EB: People are viewing and interacting with the UGC on product pages in order to make more informed purchases. They’re able to see how other customers and interior designers utilize the product in their own homes. Also, they’re going to our Fanreel gallery page and getting inspiration from people just like them, and then they’re able to easily shop the products from the posts in the gallery.

TR: What are the metrics that Wisteria is actively tracking to measure the effectiveness of its UGC?
EB: We focus primarily on engagement rates and purchases on the products featured. We also take into account the reach and impressions of the post, which far exceed the numbers we see on branded content.

TR: What are the business benefits that Wisteria has realized from partnering with Curalate and adding UGC to its website and social pages?
EB: We’ve found that discovery plays a critical role in the online shopping journey, and Curalate fosters the discovery for both Wisteria and our customers. For Wisteria, Curalate's platform allows us to step away from social media when needed without missing any updates. Curalate is filtering UGC into one place, allowing us to discover that content and use it quickly. We’re able to create a seamless shopping experience across channels for our customers where they discover our products, see how they’re used in real life, and purchase them more easily than ever before.

TR: Going forward, how can Wisteria improve upon its UGC efforts?
EB: UGC already plays an integral part of our social media strategy, but incorporating it more frequently into our email strategy is definitely high on our list.