Facebook & Instagram Advertising in Dubai: A Message to the Sceptics

We're often asked by both existing and potential customers whether they should have a presence on Facebook, after all, they may be a professional services or industrial b2b focused business and Facebook, in their opinion, is just a place where you go if you want to see what your friends and family are up to.  Right?

Wrong.  Very wrong.  In fact so wrong that they almost couldn't be any more wrong if they tried.  We're obviously (well some of my team are anyway), more diplomatic when explaining this to a client.

You see, there are a couple of things you should know as a marketer for these types of businesses.  The first is that Facebook is the most amazing, wonderful advertising or marketing channel available for businesses today.  In my opinion, it might even turn into the best marketing channel of all time.  Facebook's targeting capabilities are second to none.  They probably know more about you as an individual than your best friend, your spouse or your family.  They know what you like, who your friends are (almost all of them), what triggers your interest as a person, what you look like, where you grew up, your age, where you live, where you work, what you do and much, much more.  And yet via the mobile app, we continue to use the platform first thing in the morning, last thing at night and countless times during the day at well deserved downtimes.  Every day.  The second thing you should know about is that Instagram leverages these exact targeting capabilities for its own platform, where businesses can showcase adverts in a very different format.

While this is quite scary for most people, for marketers this is gold.  In fact it's better than gold.  It's like a whole new type of precious metal made up of gold and platinum with tiny pieces of priceless diamonds embedded within it.  

But naturally, there are some marketers who haven't quite realised the opportunities that this creates for their businesses.  It's for them that I write and dedicate this article.

So here goes.  

Why every business needs to advertise on Facebook and Instagram

Here are my top list of reasons:

1. You can reach almost everyone in your target audience.

   1. In 2013, the UAE has an estimated total population of 9.35 million people of all ages.  Today, in the UAE, there are 6.8 million people, aged between 18 and 65+ on Facebook.  Of these, 4.1 million people live in Dubai with 1.7 million living in Abu Dhabi.  If you discount the number of children aged 7 and under from the total population figure, you're probably hitting virtually everyone you would want to target for your business.You can reach your customers when they're least expecting you to communicate with them
   2. We touched upon this point a little earlier.  Most people use Facebook when they're not intensely busy with a specific duty or activity.  They won't go onto Facebook (nor Instagram for that matter) when they have an urgent deadline, or when they're tied up with the kids.  Most people will visit Facebook when they're in a more relaxed state than normal.  This presents an opportunity to interact, in a non-intrusive way, with someone who looks like a potential customers.  Those who aren't in a defensive, on-guard mindset are easier to sell to.

2. You can speak to those who have been on your website

   1. Facebook allows businesses to target those people who have visited your company's website.  These are people who know your business, would recognise your brand and therefore isn't a cold-marketing play.  You have the opportunity to speak to those that visited your site, or certain pages, and provide more information about your business so that they continue their private dialogue with your business.

3. You can speak to your email database

   1. The platform also allows businesses to upload their customer or prospect databases into Facebook, where they will attempt to match your database with theirs.  Once you have a match of at least 1,000 people, Facebook will allow you to place targeted adverts to these specific people.  Again, no cold marketing, these people know who you are and this format of advertising allows you to provide valuable touch points to those who are already in your sales pipeline.

4. Small Database?  No problem, Facebook is here to help.

   1. Facebook can take the smallest database or audience and magically turn this number into a larger number.  How?  By using the profiling data of people they know are interested in your business and then using this information or criteria to find more like-minded people who may also be interested in your business, products or services.

5. You can target people as close to 1km away from your business.

   1. Proximity marketing on Facebook is an incredible way to reach people who are located close to your business or within lose proximity of specific landmarks of importance to your business.  For example, if your business targets every company within Dubai Media City, Facebook can help you reach those located within this area.

6. You can generate leads for your business

   1. For businesses that we talk to, generating good quality sales leads is the biggest pain point for them.  Facebook actually has specific lead generation tools built into the advertising platform, where the process of generating leads is simplified for both a company and a prospect.

7. It's cheap, (errr, I mean cost-effective)

   1. At this moment in time, I don't think there is a more cost effective way of marketing than on Facebook.  I honestly laugh when I see double page newspaper spreads in newspapers here (Dubai's advertising agencies at their best).  These ads would typically cost anywhere between AED 40,000 to 65,000 for a single day (US$11,000 - 18,000).  1 Day.  24 hours.  Where you might have a small chance that your target audience see's the advert a single time.  Let's compare this to Facebook (and what you could have won) and if you're somebody who spends your firm's marketing budget in this way, you'd probably want to make sure that your CEO, doesn't see this article.  With a budget of AED 25,000 people, our analysts estimate that you could reach the entire population of Dubai.   A minimum of three times and drive traffic to a website or landing page that would allow you to track the ROI of the ads.

8. That brings me nicely onto ROI

   1. Return on investment. I love this and it's what gets me so excited about what I do.  Businesses can now easily track their exact ROI from adverts placed on Facebook and Instagram.  Take that to your advertising agency, newspaper publisher and watch the expression on their faces when you explain this to them.

To summarise

If you haven't bothered reading any of the above and wanted to to simply see the conclusion or outcome then this is for you.  The only thing you need to remember, embed into your mind and repeat at every board meeting starting from today is this (take a deep breath first):

"Facebook allows us to reach virtually all of our target audience (including customers and potential customers), when they're least expecting it, multiple times, in a variety of formats, whether they're on their laptops, iPads or mobile devices as well as target those in specific locations in a way that we can generate leads in a cost effective way.  Oh and we can track all of this and show exact return on investment."

Seriously, do it and make yourself a superstar within the company during the process.