Now you’re set up to reach overseas customers you need to attract them to your website and encourage them to buy from you. Thanks to social media marketing, this is now easier than ever.
Find out more about how Asendia's supports these brands with international shipping services
The basics
The beauty of social media is the data they hold about the people using their platforms. This includes gender, age, interests and (most importantly) location.
Targeting your social media marketing to your new audiences based on location means you’re only spending money with this audience and not wasting cash targeting people who are either already aware of you, or not relevant for the messages you’re promoting.
Each platform will have its own methods for doing this, and each will have its own costs per click or lead too. They are all roughly the same though and so long as you’ve done your research to make sure your messaging is appropriate, and it’s targeting the right people, you can sit back and watch as people come and see what you’re offering.
Best practice – Bali Body
Bali Body is a husband-and-wife team that had no experience of the beauty industry but has taken it by storm, with one of their products selling every 45 seconds.
As an example, a quick visit to the Bali Body Facebook page will show you how they’re working well with international markets.
The top points to notice are:
- All posts are in English, they’re an English-speaking company but there are also 1.5billion English speakers worldwide.
- They have people in other countries working on their pages to make sure local culture is correct and colloquial language is appropriate
- Content is colourful and it’s clear what they’re selling
- They post about media coverage they’ve received in publications locals will recognise
- When you click on their website it automatically directs you to a site based on location
When it comes to their advertising, they have not made too much work for themselves either. In June, Bali Body used three different pieces of content and ran this over 63 different ads targeting different audiences on various platforms.
The captions they used stayed similar too, so it resonated with the audience but didn’t add to their workload.
Another more recent benefit of social media is that you can also add your products to a shop within platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
As you can see by Bali Body’s shop, everything is listed, with product details and delivery and returns information. You’re then directed to their website which will display further information and pricing based on your location.
Best practice – Chilly’s
Chilly’s Bottles is a London based business, founded in 2010 by James Butterfield.
He started a small business distributing the bottles from home, since then the business has immensely grown and James acquired a partner, Tim Bouscarle, where they worked together to crowdfund and rebrand the product.
After achieving high volumes of orders with the bottles, they have extended their product range.
Asendia customer, Chilly’s are another great example of attracting international customers to their UK base.
- All posts are in English, they’re an English-speaking company but there are also 1.5billion English speakers worldwide.
- They only have people in the UK working on the page but with a team of 18 connected to their social presence they have a varied group to get things right.
- Content is colourful and it’s clear what they’re selling
- When you click on their website it asks you if you which country's store you wish to visit
Their ads too are making the most of their content. Looking at three that ran for a few days in June 2022, they used three images for six different ads.
Looking deeper into one of the ads, they targeted the US and reached an impressive 300,000 people based on the location and demographics they were targeting.
Both Bali Body and Chilly’s show that you don’t need to go far when it comes to marketing your products overseas, and in most cases you don’t need to ‘reinvent the wheel’ to reach new people in new territories.
The biggest lesson here is to do your research. If you’ve already explored the new markets you’re targeting, you should already know who you’re trying to reach. This data can then help make sure your social posts and ads are as engaging for them as they are your current customers.
Of course, once you have these customers, you’ll need to be sure you’re able to ship orders to them quickly and safely. To find out the best way to do that, drop Asendia a line to see how their global shipping solutions can grow your business overseas.
