Today, we are exploring how Trader Joe’s became a rapidly successfulldsports乐动体育 case study by virtue of its raving fans-authentic influencers who prolifically produce user-generated content that requires little to no content marketing spend on the part of the company itself. Many of our clients ask, “Why isldsports乐动体育 重要的？”我们今天探索了一家良好的杂货店的案例研究揭示了真正，自下而上的病毒内容营销的力量来发展品牌。在我们深入进入内容营销案例的研究之前，让我们回答一个重要的问题：什么是用户生成的内容？

What is User-Generated Content?

• User-generated content is any type of content (such as blog posts, social media posts, videos, podcast episodes, articles, and downloadables) created by users or consumers of a system, product, or service and distributed publicly for mass consumption.
• User-generated content is a powerful driver for positive brand promotion because people listen to those who they know, like, and trust. When fans create their own content to rave about a brand, the impact can be extraordinarily wide-reaching.
• 由于其可靠性和病毒含量营销效果，用户生成的内容可以保存数百万美元的传统广告和营销。
• 没有对销售的影响有限,user-generated content can inspire customer engagement as well as employee engagement. Customers want to feel like they can go onto a site, use it for how it’s needed and be able to do it all smoothly.

Trader Joe’s User-Generated Content: A Content Marketing Case Study

Since its founding, Trader Joe’s has been viewed by its patrons as a neighborhood grocery store. The uniquely cheerful and knowledgeable staff, and the variety of foods not found at typical grocery stores, create a unique shopping experience for a growing population of knowledge- and health-hungry clients. And although large organizations like Walmart and Kroger strive to create a similar experience in various ways (e.g., smaller stores, organic food sections, international food sections, etc.), it’s challenging to replicate the experience that has produced Trader Joe’s massive cult following. Today, we will explore how crowdsourced and branded content marketing contributed to the massive rise in Trader Joe’s popularity since 2013.

Trader Joe’s is a fascinating case study for content marketing because they do not use marketing campaigns traditional to the food and grocery sector (e.g., frequent shoppers cards, coupons, billboard ads, social media campaigns, etc.) to attract their customers. Their selection is much more limited than other grocers’, and their advertising spend is extraordinarily minimal. Instead of traditional approaches to customer growth, Trader Joe’s started building their fanbase through weekly, cheeky “fearless flyer” ads that feature their favorite recipes linked to products available at the store that week. Fearless flyers follow a straight-forward content “recipe” (forgive the pun), embedding product advertising within the highly utilitarian and practical format of cooking and baking recipes. The model of efficiency and suave evident in TJ’s limited marketing allows them to focus resources on maximizing their assets–two critical assets in particular: people and food. By building intimate, friendly experiences for customers and employees, and limiting their stock to high-quality products that don’t force the consumer into a state of overwhelmed decision-making, Trader Joe’s has cultivated a loyal base of fans who rave about the brand.

As a result, Trader Joe’s cult-like following of fans generate a significant amount of contentforthe company. For example, one Twitter user described the “yummy, healthy Trader Joe’s items” on her shopping list to her more than 39,000 followers. Do a quick search for “Trader Joe’s Haul” on YouTube, and you can spend hours watching massive influencers (some with 500k+ followers) walk you through their week’s grocery finds:

The Relationship Between User-Generated Content and the Net Promoter Score

Astonishingly, Trader Joe’s has no official social media accounts, relying instead on influencers to brag, share, and post their recipes, grocery hauls, and reviews. User-generated content like this enables TJ’s to harness the power of what Frederick F. Reichheld calls“你需要成长的一个号码”: the Net-Promoter Score. In his widely populararticle on this topic–the one reprinted inHBR’s 10 Must Reads on Strategic Marketing—Reichheld argues that “in most industries, there is a strong correlation between a company’s growth rate and the percentage of its customers who are ‘promoters’–that is, those who say they are extremely likely to recommend the company to a friend or colleague” (162). Public engagement drives promotion, which enables an organization to commit its resources to internal process improvement rather than external advertising. Content marketing, then, is in the hands of the consumers who believe in the brand and feel a genuine desire to promote it.

Increasing Value-Added Profit through User-Generated Content

When organizations gain genuine promotion from their users, they can more rapidly achieve value-added profit. Trader Joe’s reliance on user-generated content supports their commitment to Lean process improvement, which is a systems engineering methodology known originally as the Toyota Production System and focuses on increasing value-added profit by reducing waste. Numerous companies, hospitals and educators from around the world flock to Toyota locations every year to learn their secrets of manufacturing efficiency. Kaizen, a Japanese word that means “change for better,” is featured as a core value on Trader Joe’s website. The idea is to do more with less by eliminating waste (ormuda), not overburdening people and not creating uneven production levels. Lean-thinking is at the heart of much of the activities at Trader Joe’s, like SKU number reductions to eliminate overwhelming shoppers with too many similar products. Or like re-thinking advertising spend as more and more users become fans who rave… and rave and rave.

Even employees of Trader Joe’s add to the brand’s high level of engagement and bottom-up promotion. Employees seem to love Trader Joe’s thanks to fair wages, benefits, attitudes and a high level of respect for employees. TJ’s commitment to livable wages and respect for people allows them to attract a highly talented pool of artsy, creative and out-going young people who possess a wealth of intellectual talent, but may be struggling to establish long-term career positions directly out of college. Trader Joe’s builds upon the intellectual capacity of its workforce, encouraging their talented employees to develop an in-depth experiential knowledge of every product in the store. Joe Coulumbe, Founder of Trader Joe’s, frequently remarks on how SKU reduction efforts enable his staff to know more about their products than even those products’ vendors. Coulumbe’s vision requires a huge amount of mental capacity and investigative ability from employees. By building a brand that aligns with employees’ values of minimalism, creativity, health, and fair sourcing, TJ’s catalyzes brand promotion not only from its customers, but also from its internal stakeholders.

为了发展其员工的知识库，贸易商乔的历史性地强调培训和持续改进。乐动体育266但是，培训不会花费乐动体育266大量的基于技能学习的时间，而是在公司价值观迭代。大学教育的创造者能够相对容易地学习技能的能力，所以公司花更多的时间准备员工如何描绘品牌并为客户创造积极的经验。专注于软技能和公司视力激发了员工，以产生“友好的街区杂货店”的感觉。此外，Trader Joe的贸易商鼓励其员工参与他们销售的食物。因为许多员工都是创造者，他们找到了独特的实验方式来试验食物。这通常激励他们通过他们的学习和对客户的建议。投资在内部知识 - 换句话说，在提高客户体验方面发挥不可或缺的作用。Customers turn to TJ’s staff not only to perform the mundane tasks expected of any grocery store (i.e. scan and bag my items quickly), but also to engage them in menu preparation, produce selection, wine pairing, floral arrangements, and smart local beer recs. (To learn more about TJ’s inspired cultivation of brand experience–from hiding stuffed animals around the store to delighting customers with random acts of generosity, like handing out free chocolate bars to customers who seem to deserve a pick-me-up–read this article on14 Tasty Secrets of Trader Joe’s Employees).

So what are the keyldsports乐动体育 快餐的探索的乐趣,古怪的brand like Trader Joe’s? Here they are:

Key Take-Aways on the Potential of User-Generated Content

• An organization’s health and potential for growth can be measured by the authenticity and impact of its user-generated content.
• User-generated content drives brand promotion both internally through employee engagement as well as externally through customer engagement.
• Engagement is sparked by increases in knowledge. Organizations that prioritize the knowledgeability of their employees will create inspired fanbases who trust in the credibility and authenticity of the brand or organizational mission.
• Companies can collaborate with raving fans to sponsor user-generated content that positively promotes their brands from the artistic viewpoints of users.

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