Building an foreign direct investment (FDI) marketing strategy can be overwhelming, with a wide range of media channels and platforms available to showcase your brand. So where do you begin? Here are C Studio’s top options for getting started: 

LinkedIn 

No surprise here. This social platform is easily the most powerful B2B advertising channel, given the highly granular targeting options available. Most IPAs are heavily active here for organic social, but fewer are utilizing the advertising capabilities. 

While organic posts are excellent for engaging audiences. However, to truly scale your marketing program for the recruitment of foreign firms, we advise layering an “always on” advertising campaign designed to target executives in your key industries. Short sprints of 2-3 months are not as effective as longer, consistent campaigns that deliver multiple brand impressions to the same individuals.

• Best for: Promoting awareness. The lead capture campaigns can also be a viable lead generation tool if done right. 

• Targeting Capabilities: LinkedIn allows marketers to target users based on demographics such as job title or job function, industry, company, skills, geographic location, groups and more. You can even upload account lists and target executives at specific firms, an important feature that enables C Studios’ account-based marketing campaigns. 

• Types of Ads: The two most effective types of advertising on this platform are: 

1. Sponsored Content – appears as a post in the organic news feed 

2. Lead Gen Forms – an in-app lead form, typically offering a relevant piece of content or method of contacting the company 

• Things to Consider: Given the precise targeting capabilities of this platform, the cost-per-click tend to be significantly higher than other platforms, particularly on lead form campaigns. But in our view, that exchange of quality over quantity is worth it. Just be sure to stand out by using the right messaging in your ads.

• User Tip: Remember that business attraction is a niche subject matter, so larger audience sizes do not always result in higher performance. You may consider keeping your audience sizes narrow, focusing on quality & relevance over quantity. Also, don’t forget about translation and localisation in foreign markets. As a core service of C Studios, our team can help.

Search Ads  

Like most of us searching for something we need or want, company executives and decision makers looking for information on where to expand their business also begin their research on Google. Google Search Ads target individuals who are searching for a specific keyword or phrase. When triggered, these ads will populate on the search engine results page (SERP), which will drive users to a relevant landing page on your site. Search ads tend to be the highest-converting as they are attracting intent-driven users actively searching for information related to key industries or your region. 

• Best for: Capturing users during the research phase as they are searching on Google. From our Winning Strategies in Investment Promotion report, less than three executives out of 10 are contacting EDOs and IPAs during the screening phase, meaning their doing a lot of online research prior to initiating contact. Search plays a vital role throughout various stages of the decision-making process, from the initial awareness phase straight through to short-listing. 

• Targeting Capabilities: In addition to targeting keywords, users can be targeted based on location, interests and demographics. 

• Extensions: In addition to the ad headline and title, adding ad extensions can improve how users interact with ads. Extensions include: 

• Sitelink Extensions: Link to specific pages of your website to help decision-makers find the best page for what they are looking for 

• Call Extensions: Add a clickable phone number for users to call your business directly 

• Callout Extensions: Incorporate additional text highlighting unique benefits like “#1 Region for Fintech” 

• Things to Consider: Cost-per-click varies depending on the competition of the keywords being bid on. The more long-tail the keywords, the more relevant, and likely less competitive, they will be. 

• User Tip: Use keyword tools to gather insight about keyword data like search volume, competition and forecasts. Some tools, like Google Keyword Planner and UberSuggest, are free to use, while others like Moz, SEMRush (our favorite) and SpyFu require a paid subscription. Also be aware that volume in foreign countries with a different language can be challenging, as search volume is lower and phrasing it likely to be very different.

Display Ads 

Display ads are graphic-based ads that are served across publisher advertising networks. Without strategic targeting and messaging, this type of ad can potentially result in very low ROI due to the sheer size of the audience and a lack of niche targeting capabilities. 

• Best For: Reaching new decision-makers on a large scale to promote awareness. However, if you’re looking for an efficient campaign on a small budget, the best way to utilize this type of ad is through a retargeting campaign. With retargeting, your advertising dollars are going towards those who have previously interacted with your website or ad campaigns, inferring that they have already shown interest in your brand. 

• Targeting Capabilities: Language, Interests & Habits (Affinity & Custom Affinity), What Users are Actively Searching and Planning (In-Market & Custom Intent) and How They Have Interacted with Your Business (Retargeting & Similar Audiences) 

• Things to Consider: Be sure to exclude irrelevant or unsafe content placements in the campaign’s settings. Monitoring exactly where the ads are being shown ensures brand safety and the quality of your ad’s delivery.  

• User Tip: Did you know that most visitors to your website are likely NOT company decision-makers? In monitoring investment promotion traffic habits for years, we estimate that 90% or more of most traffic to an average IPA’s website are not the most coveted audiences interested in new operations; instead; they’re often academic or political partners, local institutions, media and other local audiences. So when retargeting, keep that in mind and try to retarget based on behavior that suggests your are marketing to the right individuals.  

With the proper audience & campaign goals defined, advertising your company on these major digital channels will propel your brand past the competition. Oh, and another great thing about advertising on digital? Robust tracking, reporting and analytics data. Be sure to check our Insights section regularly for tips on implementing and analyzing reporting data.