A realistic UGC roadmap for beginners who don’t know where to start
I’m doing UGC for a while now and, at the beginning I was doing everything in the most random way possible. I was messaging brands, filming random samples and changing my portfolio every few days without really knowing what I was doing. This is the roadmap I’d follow now:
1- Make a few decent sample videos You don’t need 30 videos or a perfect portfolio. I’d make 8 samples with different formats: testimonial, product demo, problem/solution, voiceover and maybe an unboxing. The main thing is showing that you can make content that feels natural and not like a bad TV commercial.
2- Don’t stay only in the beauty niche Beauty is probably the easiest niche to start with because everyone has products at home, but it’s also insanely crowded. Apps, fitness, food, education, ecommerce and SaaS are worth testing too.
3- Put together a simple portfolio Don’t overthink the design. Brands mostly want to quickly see your videos, your style and whether you can communicate clearly on camera.
4- Still do outreach, but make it specific I wouldn’t completely stop cold outreach, but I’d avoid sending the same message to 100 brands. Even mentioning one actual video idea or hook makes the pitch feel way less generic.
5- Check if the brand is already running ads The Meta Ad Library helps a lot here. If they’re already using UGC-style videos, there’s a much better chance they understand the value and actually have a budget.
6- Learn usage rights before accepting deals This is something I didn’t understand at first. A brand using your video organically is different from them running it as an ad for six months. Same with raw footage, extra hooks and multiple revisions.
7- Track everything and follow up I’d keep a basic spreadsheet with brands, applications, replies and follow-ups. A lot of people don’t reply to the first message, so following up once or twice is normal. That’s basically the roadmap I’m trying to follow now: improve the portfolio, send better outreach and stop wasting time on brands that only want free content