Dear start-ups, remove your confusion between UGC and PGC, influencers and brand-created content strategy

With so many content formats and strategies to choose from and not having enough budget to experiment with, BuzzinContent.com has a little help to offer to start-ups. We caught up with founders of start-ups and digital agencies, that help start-ups with their content needs, to understand how to go about choosing the best-suited content format to market a start-up

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Akansha Srivastava
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According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing can triple the brands’ leads over businesses that use only outbound marketing, such as TV, radio, and print ads. Therefore, who doesn’t want to have a killer cost-effective content marketing strategy? 

For start-ups, having a content marketing strategy is even more important because unlike well-established legacy brands, leaving aside heavily-funded start-ups, not many of them have the privilege to burn money on marketing innovations, traditional ads, big sponsorships and experimentations. Even if a start-up has inherited wealth to spend on large scale ad campaigns, having a fool-proof content strategy with well-thought-out formats in place will only facilitate the marketing job. 

But in their journey of content marketing, start-ups face the dilemma of whether they should opt for influencer-created content or brand-created content? Should they go for user-generated content or professionally generated content? 

Therefore, BuzzInContent, caught up with founders of start-ups and digital agencies that help start-ups with their content needs to understand how to go about choosing the best-suited content format to market a start-up. 

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Ashish Duggal

Before even selecting the perfect content format, Ashish Duggal, Vice-President, Chimp&z Inc said that brands must answer the following questions: 

- Why are we curating the content? 

- Is it the right time to talk about it? 

- How much money should we spend on it? 

- Does the influencer hold the potential to deliver the message to the right audience? 

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Manesh Swamy

According to Manesh Swamy, Sr VP - Creative, Social, PR and Marcom, Logicserve Digital, one can’t really put segmentation basis UGC/PGC, influencer-led content versus branded created content. He said that as a start-up brand, mostly the first level KPI will be awareness and the next level will be advocacy. So accordingly, a fine balance between influencer-led content and brand-led content has to be maintained. 

“For awareness, influencer-led content will help garner good engagement while the specific product or brand-led content will additionally help in the consideration phase of the customer cycle. UGC helps in creating assurance that the product or service is tested, loved and hence recommended by people. Hence, content that is genuinely created with the intent of sharing good reviews mostly work for a brand. This kind of content will always have more credibility and attract more audiences to the brand,” explained Swamy. 

Before deciding on a content type, a start-up should first have a clear idea of the message they wish to convey to their prospective consumers, as per Duggal. Although, he thinks that influencer-led content brings more credibility than brand-created content. He said, “Once the people associated with the communication cycle are well acquainted with the intent, they should provide the influencer with the product or service to understand it better before curating content. The impact an influencer brings to the plate after going through a consumer cycle would weigh more than any well-scripted content. Regardless of whether it is brand-created or influencer-created content, if it is real, it will surely level up your game.” 

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Chaitanya Nallan

At the onset the goal of any brand especially a start-up brand is to create more and more awareness and trials, that comes easily if you work with a substantial marketing budget that includes all key media mixes, such as a celeb or category-A influencer. Chaitanya Nallan, Co-Founder and CEO, SkinKraft Labs, pointed out that what the communication might lack in today’s time is 'relatability'. “Hence, working via a network of nano-influencers and micro-influencers while building a lot of customer education content is a rather sustainable model. It also works to iterate and experiment, at a quick pace - while keeping it organic.” 

“This however should not come at the cost of quality. Your content should still speak your brand’s story and language, you should be able to invent, re-invent, unlearn all together and with agility,” Nallan added. 

When it comes to choosing between UGC (User-generated content) and PGC (Professionally-generated content), Duggal believes start-ups should prioritise user-generated content above professional content, particularly in the initial stages of operation. “While UGC might not have the power to amplify brand values or take a viral tour, it has a huge impact on prospective customers as it is bagged with authenticity,” he added. 

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Shuchita Wadhwa

Shuchita Wadhwa, Head of Marketing, toothsi, seconded this and added, “Users and influencer-generated content are more relatable to customers, which helps to establish trust. Because it is a narrative of a fellow customer’s first-hand experience, these forms are regarded to be unfiltered and more authentic, increasing shopper’s confidence. These formats are comparatively budget-friendly, making them a better option for start-ups, as they eliminate the process of developing such content professionally. Brand-created content, on the other hand, is necessary because it is an engaging approach to educating people about our products.”

On the other hand, another school of thought is that brands should first focus on creating content on their own and then think of doing influencer marketing. This section states that only when the tone of the brand communication is set in place, the brand can move ahead with influencer marketing. 

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Shreyansh Bhandari

Shreyansh Bhandari, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder, Lyxel&Flamingo, explained, “Content creation and formulation of a consistent story helps start-ups create brand recognition among their target group. In order for start-ups to get this piece right, they should first be focusing on brand-related content, which can help talk about their brand’s values and story, as well as help set the tone for the content to follow. This can be followed by influencer-created content and professionally-created content since these require additional investments and can be built based on the learnings from the first few pieces of content created by the brand itself.” 

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Prabhkiran Singh

According to Prabhkiran Singh, Founder CEO, Bewakoof, a good content marketing strategy would be a combination of UGC, PGC and influencer-led content, brand-led content. Explaining how Bewakoof comes up with a content strategy, Singh said, “The brand-created content is mostly for business-as-usual campaigns and influencer-created content is used as a part of our social media strategy for awareness and engagement. User-generated content is mainly used for social media buzz generation and for reviews and ratings of products on Bewakoof.”

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Sahil Chopra

Sahil Chopra, Founder and CEO- iCubesWire, concluded, “The biggest challenge in the way of a start-up is the fact that they are new in the market and already have a flock of competitors ahead of them. Therefore, to gain an edge, start-up brands need an efficient content strategy to help them meet objectives at breakneck speed. However, choosing the right strategy can often be a tough call to make. From influencer-created content to brand-created content, and all that falls in between, the choices are endless. A start-up brand must lay out a framework for understanding its goals, target audience, and competition analysis. Choosing distribution channels is another crucial step to pay heed to, and start-up brands must begin with top-of-the-funnel content.” 

UGC vs PGC