erlich textil is a small brand from Cologne that sells lingerie, loungewear and home-textiles. This case study shows how erlich textil embraces diversity and body positivity through User Generated Content and has managed to build up a strong customer community through this.
The Situation
»Underwear should be comfortable in all respects.«
Starting from this premise, Sarah and Benjamin began working on a label for lingerie in 2015. The result is erlich textil, a young brand for underwear, swimwear, yoga fashion and home textiles, which draws on almost 100 years of experience. erlich textil digitalizes traditional textile production from the Swabian Alb, while putting the focus on sustainability, feel-good character and honesty. In order to be able to offer all products at an affordable price, erlich textil goes without physical stores and exclusively offers their products online.
The biggest incentive for the creative minds behind the Cologne-based brand is to create an honest, sustainable alternative to the conventional underwear market, accessible to as many people as possible – in order to actively shape and drive change in the fashion industry.
The Challenge
Sustainability is easy to explain. The website of erlich textil provides countless pages filled with well-researched and comprehensibly processed information from the ecological cultivation of cotton, to the history behind recycled nylon fibers used in the swimwear of erlich textil and detailed explanations of all certificates the brand has been awarded with.
Describing the self-proclaimed erlich-feel-good-feeling, however, is not that easy. The feel-good factor of erlich textil can be described best by customers who actually wear the products. Lingerie, however, is quite a personal and sensitive topic – which makes dealing with customer pictures is especially tricky. In order to still highlight the beauty and diversity of their customer community, erlich textil decided to curate and manage User Generated Content via squarelovin.
The Solution
Since 2017, erlich textil has been collecting User Generated Content under the branded hashtag #seierlich. Images and videos shared by customers are now being prominently placed on the erlich textil website in form of a teaser gallery. A click on individual photos refers directly to the respective products, as well as the original post on Instagram.
Most of all, however, the brand is sharing User Generated Content on its own Instagram account. On a regular basis, pictures of customers are shared as feed posts or stories. In the brand’s story highlights, the category »from you!« prominently stands first, and each feed-post is published together with an individual and appreciative caption, also mentioning the person who originally uploaded the picture. Further, erlich textil incorporates UGC in Social Ads.
The Result
With the use of User Generated Content, erlich textil clearly places the spotlight on their customers and proves that beauty is just as diverse as every single person in their customer-community. Instead of relying on only a handful of models, erlich textil proudly presents authentic diversity and imperfection. The appreciation that customers of erlich textil experience through this is particularly big, as lingerie is a very sensitive and personal topic. Nonetheless, erlich textil’s customers are happy to present themselves – as the astounding 98.2% approval rate for rights requests via the squarelovin UGC Management Tool shows.
Above all, however, the body positivity and plurality of beauty that erlich textil has been promoting through User Generated Content, encourages others and appeals to new customers. Since the beginning of integrating UGC, the brand has seen a 8.6x Conversion Rate increase.
The imagery of the User Generated Content that piles up under #seierlich perfectly resembles the brand image of erlich textil and thereby closes the circle between honest sustainability and a sense of an all-round feel-good-feeling. This makes the brand appear as approachable, authentic and personal.
Q&A
Why did you decide to work with User Generated Content?
erlich is for everyone – and the best way for us to express that is through UGC. Incorporating User Generated Content in our marketing allows us to build proximity to our customers and to convey direct appreciation to them. In addition, UGC is very authentic and allows us to showcase our products in a great variety of ways.
What is your main use for User Generated Content?
We use UGC for organic social on Facebook, in Instagram Stories and the Feed, place Social Ads with it and feature it in a teaser gallery on our homepage.
What is the biggest benefit of User Generated Content for you?
The content of our customers showcases erlich textil products in a real everyday environment with the most diverse people who have the most diverse characteristics. As a result, we have significantly more incredibly authentic content available for our marketing than we could possibly produce ourselves. Users actively tag us in their posts, knowing that everyone has the chance to get featured, which also creates proximity to our brand.
Which tasks is squarelovin taking care of for you?
squarelovin helps us to quickly place the constantly created content on our website and social media channels, while also bringing it into connection with our products.
How happy are you with the squarelovin tool?
The handling of the tool is quite simple and very intuitive. Whenever questions or problems come up, a well-qualified and nice support team is easy to reach and quickly available to us.
Katharina Gassen | Social Media Marketing Manager | erlich textil
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