Japanese Digital Marketing / PPC Strategy

Japanese Pay Per Click

Japan’s highly developed economy is the 3rd largest in the world. Its wealthy population is good for the tourism industry and other luxury segments. Japan is a great market for B2B and B2C companies targeting:

• Manufacturing, medical, energy, research and other industrial sectors.
• A sophisticated, upwardly mobile population that interfaces using mobile phones—especially the Apple iPhone.

PPC Strategy for Japan:

We have many years of experience creating targeted campaigns specifically for Japan. Our native Japanese speakers will write your campaigns taking cultural sensibilities into account. Our services include:

• PPC Advertising on both Yahoo and Google: Japanese split their use between Google and Yahoo (which is not the same company as Yahoo in the USA). Each search engine owns 50% of the market. You should use both as each one has significant traffic.
• Social Media: Behavior on social media sites in Japan is significantly different than in the West. For example, the Japanese use Facebook for professional purposes, much like we use LinkedIn in the West. In addition to international social media sites, Naver is also popular. The most important social media may be videos; in addition to Youtube, there are popular local video sites such as Nico Nico. If appropriate, we will also suggest and create Social Media campaigns for your business.
• Mobile: Your mobile traffic may be greater than desktop in Japan. If so, we will thoroughly test your website on the iPhone and optimize for mobile. However, for some B2B companies, mobile traffic may not be as significant.

Japanese Digital Marketing is Often Overlooked:

Language Barrier: Japanese is not an easy language for Westerners. It is also harder to find people who know Japanese as opposed to other languages.
Population Size: Although there are many Japanese, very few non-Japanese speak the language. Therefore when comparing to English, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese or Chinese, the target population is smaller. However, the socio-economic level compensates for that in many segments.
Distance: Japan is harder to get to if you are in Europe, Israel, or the East Coast of the USA.

Why You Should Consider Digital Marketing in Japan

Since it is more difficult to mount a campaign in Japanese you will have less competition.

Barriers of entry are low. There is no firewall, and Google and Yahoo are much easier to work with than Naver, Baidu, or Yandex.

Although the population is smaller than the number of people who speak Chinese or English, for many segments the number of clients is significant. Examples of this include software, B2B products, manufacturing instruments, medical devices, and mobile phone applications.

B2C products, like mobile phone apps, luxury items, tourism, and products that target mature age groups have a great market in Japan.