Companies are increasingly replacing traditional advertising by a focused digital marketing strategy to find new customers, effectively take care of existing clients fostering loyalty and to improve reach to international prospects via a better targeting and tailored message.

Digital marketing is very cost effective and measureable allowing companies to continue developing even better strategies and to boost their sales.

ODL (Office du Ducroire) is a government agency supporting Luxembourg companies in their international prospection efforts. They offer financial incentives in the form of a partial contribution for companies to promote their products and services abroad.

In recent years, support given for digital marketing has grown strongly as companies of all sizes, particularly SMEs, are recognising and reaping the benefits of increased sales and lower costs.

ODL digital marketing support extends to tools for marketing automation, online advertising, SEO, prospect database and digital marketing consultancy.

Take advantage of the financial support packages for digital marketing available of up to 50% with an annual ceiling of € 20.000.

Visit ODL’s website for full details and to apply and watch our video summarizing all the services available to you.

https://odl.lu/en/financial-support/

Get in touch now. ODL is there to help!

Online Customer Review Management

In 2023, managing online customer reviews is critical to the success of any business. A crucial element, but one that is still under-valued in many sectors. This may seem surprising at a time when we all use the Internet and reviews to confirm the legitimacy of a product or a service. Who hasn’t looked at reviews the last time you wanted to book a hotel, go to a new restaurant or buy a new product? It’s perfectly normal and you’re not alone. It’s called social proof.

That’s why we trust critics, influencers or experts, because we trust their judgment. And when unfortunately we don’t have access to these experts, nor to a trusted person to share their experience with us, we trade quality for quantity. We start from a simple observation: if a certain number of people say it is good, it must be good. Or at least we minimize the risk that the product or service ordered is different from the one we get.

Marketing aspect

Now that we understand the psychological importance of reviews, we can also talk about the marketing aspect. On some platforms, such as Google, Amazon or app stores, very good ratings and a high number of ratings promote SEO very strongly. This is normal, these platforms want their users (us) to find what they want quickly, so that we continue to use these platforms.

Succeeding with online customer review management

Let’s focus now on the keys to effective customer review management in 2023:

1. Monitor them regularly. Always have alert messages or emails as soon as you receive a review on the platforms you care about (Google, TripAdvisor, Amazon, Etsy, PlayStore, App Store, etc.).

2. Respond to reviews promptly, whether they are positive to thank your customers to show your gratitude or negative to start a conversation with your unhappy customers and find solutions to their problems.

3. Respond in a courteous and professional manner. You are a business, with a brand image. Your responses impact the image your customers and prospects will have of you. Do you want to appear as a company that doesn’t listen to its customers or that reacts quickly or as a company with strong values that is open to dialogue with its customers?

4. Encourage customers to leave online reviews. Companies can send follow-up emails after the purchase to ask customers for their opinion and give them the opportunity to leave a review. Companies can also use social media to encourage customers to leave reviews.

5. Use reviews to improve your products and services. Understanding constructive feedback helps you improve the quality of your products or services.

6. Use reviews on your site or in your communication to create social proof. Reviews are an integral part of your brand identity. Keep this in mind when responding and interacting. It can be a liability as well as your greatest asset.

Sign up for our workshop to learn more

If you want to learn more, take advantage of a workshop on the subject organized by the House of Entrepreneurship in May 2023

https://www.cc.lu/agenda/house-of-entrepreneurship

Tap into YouTube’s enormous viewer base

• YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine and the 3rd most visited website worldwide, behind only Google and Facebook respectively.
• 1 billion people visit YouTube each month globally. 100 hours of video are uploaded every 60 seconds to YouTube. Video-streaming platforms like YouTube have become so big companies are guaranteed to find a group of people who will become regular viewers and customers, as long as they are educated, entertained and are provided with solutions to their problems.
• Marketing On YouTube Will Help You Get Found On Google:

You can write high-quality articles on your site and create complementary videos on YouTube. Doing this will build backlinks to your site, meaning you get found on Google more often by people searching.

By utilising YouTube as part of a marketing strategy for your business, you also increase the authority of your website. The more authoritative your website is in Google’s eyes, the higher all your pages will rank in the search

Growing Your Audience Worldwide

This is one of the biggest benefits of using YouTube for business.

Consistently creating video content opens the door to new visitors who would never come across your business any other way. Through YouTube, you can reach a worldwide audience even if you only speak one language. In addition to this, if you include closed-captions on your videos, you can also reach new audiences as you are catering to people with different needs. Research now shows that videos with closed-captions receive 4% more views and subscribers than those without.

It is also crucial to include several call-to-actions inside your videos, with annotations that link to:

• Other videos
• Content on your website
• Email auto-responder series
• Products and services on offer

Building Trust

Videos with a personal touch help to increase conversions. People buy from those they trust, and that trust is built by you relating to them on an emotional level.

Research now shows that, for professional services and companies, if you are driving traffic to a landing page with a video of a person in the company speaking about the product or service, it can dramatically increase your list of leads and sales.

Targeting your audience with Adwords for Video

With Google AdWords for Video, you can get laser-focused access to your audience by advertising on videos your audience are more likely to watch and search for. The biggest advantage of AdWords for Video is that you only pay for engaged views i.e. when a viewer watches your ad for at least 30 seconds. The biggest benefit of AdWords for Video is the potential to grow your audience through ‘earned views’. These views are free and are earned when someone who chooses to watch your video ad, then goes on to watch one or more videos on your YouTube channel within a 7-day period.

Tips for effectively updating your existing YouTube channel if you have one:

• Organise your videos into groups / playlists.
• Include up to 5 links in the channel (website, social media profiles etc)
• Hide many of the old videos (put in private mode). For the ones you decide to keep, check all have a clear and strong title and description with links to subscribe and including appropriate hashtags
• Look at channel tabs and keywords and optimise
• Create attractive thumbnail
• Add CTAs for engagement  – cards up to 5 per video
• Remind viewers to like, share, subscribe
• Have a look at competitive sites (design, content, popularity and keywords used) and optimise
• Set up monthly analytics to measure ongoing views, shares and subscribers etc

For more details about setting up a YouTube channel including a 10 step guide read Hootsuite’s Complete Guide to YouTube Marketing  in 2023.

Digital marketing is evolving at a quick pace with an ever growing focus on the significance of inbound marketing and personalisation.

Readers expect content they receive to be tailormade to their needs. Long gone are the days of generic messages of little interest, often promptly deleted with some recipients even opting for the unsubscribe button.

Metrics and data tracking allow matching of content to buyer personas.

Ad and message personalisation optimise ROI, customer loyalty and engagement.

Personalisation is made possible using marketing automation software and using methods such as crafting the customer journey and using dynamic retargeting.

Read more

https://blog.stackadapt.com/personalizing-your-digital-marketing-strategy

https://devseg.com/what-is-personalized-marketing/