Too often Americans think with tunnel vision about the web and its marketing potential. It is all too easy to imagine everyone else to be exactly like ourselves; however, if you fall into this trap, you won’t be able to reach everyone else out there. One way that this is extremely relevant is in the world of Facebook advertising. Facebook truly is a global network these days, and its marketing power is still growing. With its ability to narrowly target exact customers, Facebook can go after extremely niche targets.
If you’ve used Facebook advertising, you have probably thought about your average customer, and tried to attract more people like them. This is the easy customer to reach, and you are right about doing it, as those people should not be ignored. However, you should consider branching out and targeting other countries on Facebook and their Facebook users. You can first attempt this with another country that also speaks English and compare and contrast with your American ad campaign. Don’t forget to look at your analytics and use them going forward to make advertising placement decisions. There are millions and millions of global customers out there, and Facebook is continuing to prove to be a platform that attracts eyeballs.
After playing around with English speaking ad placements, try translating your ad into other languages. This can be done using a free online translation service, but you may want to have someone to proof your copy for you. However, since Facebook ads are generally so short on copy, this might not be so important.
Remember, just as any American ad campaign, you need to figure out the purpose of the campaign. Are you just trying to get more people to “like” your page? Are you trying to get them to turn over their email address? Are you trying to promote a specific event or a sale? Keep your goal in mind as you craft the campaign, even if it is in another country.
Take advantage of Facebook’s continually updating analytics, and don’t be afraid of changing courses in the middle of the campaign. One reason that you may want to change your keywords, targeted customers, or countries is that your campaign has been successful enough that you have already captured your target audience. Another reason you may want to change is that your campaign is not successful enough. Perhaps your copy was not engaging enough. This unique voice that you use for country specific campaigns may have to be developed over time as you start advertising in other countries, as what works in America does not always works in other countries.
The most important thing to remember is that these options of advertising to other countries are out there and that Facebook is a relatively inexpensive entry to the world of advertising to these foreign customers. You can always cap your campaign at a relatively low maximum dollar amount. It doesn’t hurt to try and see what happens, and what might happen is that your formerly domestic company becomes a global powerhouse.
