How to Get Your Customers to Create UGC Videos for Your Brand (7 Practical Methods)

There is a type of content that no brief can fully replicate, no creator can entirely imitate, and no amount of production budget can manufacture. It is the video a genuine customer makes because they are so pleased with what they bought that they want to tell people about it. No script. No brief. No payment. Just a real person, with a real experience, sharing it because it felt worth sharing.

That kind of content is the most powerful marketing asset a brand can have. And the brands that figure out how to generate it consistently, not by luck, but by design, have an enormous advantage. The challenge is that most customers who love your product will never post about it unless something prompts them. Your job is to create those prompts.

Method 1: Post-purchase email with a clear, simple ask

Timing is everything with post-purchase UGC requests. Ask too early and the customer has not had time to form a genuine opinion. Ask too late and the excitement of receiving something new has faded.

The sweet spot is 7 to 10 days after delivery for most product categories. At that point, the customer has had time to use the product, form a real impression, and is still within the window where the experience feels recent and worth talking about. The email itself does not need to be elaborate. A short, personal-feeling message that thanks them for their purchase and asks how they are finding the product. Then in a follow-up email a few days later you make a direct ask: 'Would you be willing to film a quick 30-second video about your experience? It does not need to be long or polished, just honest.' That last part matters. Most customers assume they need professional equipment. Explicitly telling them that a casual phone video is exactly what you want removes that barrier entirely.

Method 2: Offer a small incentive in exchange

A meaningful but modest incentive dramatically increases the number of customers who follow through. A 10% to 15% discount on their next order is one of the most effective incentives because it rewards the customer for their time and gives them a reason to purchase again simultaneously. A £10 to £20 gift card is similarly effective and feels like a fair exchange for a 60-second video.

What does not work as well is making the incentive feel transactional or conditional. If the email reads like 'we will only give you the discount if we approve the video', customers will either not bother or will deliver something generic. Frame it as a thank-you for their time, not a payment for specific content.

Method 3: Run a social media contest

A well-structured contest can generate a significant volume of customer UGC in a short period. The entry mechanic is simple: customers post a video featuring your product on TikTok or Instagram with a specific branded hashtag, and one or more winners receive a meaningful prize.

The prize does not need to be expensive. A product bundle worth £50 to £100, or a gift card of similar value, is typically enough to motivate genuine participation. What matters more than the prize value is how clearly you communicate the contest and how many times you remind your audience about it. A single announcement rarely generates meaningful participation. A countdown, regular reminders, and featuring early entries publicly all increase the volume of submissions.

Method 4: Add a physical insert card to your packaging

The moment a customer opens your product is the moment their excitement is at its absolute peak. A physical insert card inside the packaging captures that moment in a way that no email can. The card should be simple, well-designed, and direct. Something like: 'Loving your order? Film a quick 30-second video and get 15% off your next purchase.' Include a QR code that takes them directly to a submission form. Keep the process to three steps maximum. If submitting requires navigating multiple pages or filling in a long form, most customers will abandon the process before completing it.

Method 5: Feature customer videos on your own channels

Many people who would never post a video review unprompted would absolutely film one if they knew there was a chance their content could appear on the brand's official channels with their name attached. Make this genuinely visible. Regularly repost customer videos on your brand account, tag the creator, and show your audience that featuring real customers is something you actively do. Over time this creates a culture where submitting content feels like participation in a community rather than doing a favour for a brand.

Method 6: Ask your most loyal customers directly

Your best source of high-quality customer UGC is the small percentage of customers who have already shown that they love your product, those who have bought multiple times, left a positive written review, or tagged you on social media unprompted.

A short, personalized email or direct message that says something like 'We noticed you have ordered from us a few times, we really appreciate that, and we would love to feature a real customer story, we wondered if you might be interested in sharing yours' converts dramatically better than any mass campaign.

Method 7: Use AI UGC to maintain momentum while you build your pipeline

Building a reliable pipeline of genuine customer UGC takes months. You will not go from zero to a steady stream of high-quality customer submissions overnight, no matter how good your strategy is. In the meantime, your paid advertising still needs fresh creative.

Tools like Anivision AI can produce UGC-style video content quickly and at low cost, giving you a continuous supply of testable creative while your real customer content pipeline develops. Think of it as the bridge, not the destination. AI UGC keeps your ads running and your creative testing active while you build the thing that will ultimately perform the best: genuine content from people who genuinely love what you make.

Case Study: Fenty Beauty

When Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty in September 2017, the campaign strategy was built almost entirely around customer-generated content rather than traditional advertising. Three specific tactics drove the UGC engine: every product shipped with a physical insert encouraging customers to share with the hashtag #FentyFace; the packaging itself was designed to be worth filming; and the brand's email sequence after purchase made a direct, personal-feeling ask for customers to share their honest experience.

In the first 40 days after launch, Fenty Beauty generated over 132 million impressions from organic customer UGC, content the brand did not pay to produce. Revenue reached $100 million in those same 40 days. A significant part of that momentum came from customers filming themselves trying the foundation's 40-shade range and sharing their genuine reactions, with content that was more convincing to potential buyers than any advertisement could have been.