3 Steps For An Effective Global Marketing Strategy
Effective global marketing is all about reaching people where they are. To accomplish that, you need a partner who adapts your company’s content for international audiences in a way that protects your brand and ensures success.
These three steps will help you get started.
1. Standardize your brand and localize your content
International marketing can start chipping away at even the most well-established brands if they aren’t solidified by a process called “standardization.” Global marketing standardization involves organizing the elements of your brand into a clear, concise guide which is used to safeguard your brand. Logo placement, images, tone of voice, and your key brand and campaign messages are all elements that go into this guide.
Once your brand is standardized, look for the right partner to localize your content. While it may seem as simple as translating your current materials into specific languages, proper localization is much more than that. The value of hiring a global content partner is that they know regional nuances, cultural idiosyncrasies, and other factors that can determine how well your product is received by your target audience.
Depending on the market you are targeting, something as subtle as colour choice can have a significant impact. Imagine what the wrong words in a foreign language can do to your brand. A localization expert can help safeguard your reputation and make your message resonate with everyone, no matter what language they speak or where they are.
All elements of your marketing campaign should be handled by native speakers of the target language. But above all, you should be advised by content experts who can speak to your targets, regardless of the language.
2. Choosing a global content partner
Once your campaign has been standardized, it’s time for localization. A translation vendor or a professional translator may find the right words, but a global content partner delivers the right message to everyone in their own language. This distinction is subtle, nevertheless important since it may mean the difference between the success or failure of a campaign.
You may be uncertain about where or how to launch your global marketing campaign, or you may have started your globalization journey but are not sure whether you have all the right pieces in your toolbox. A global content partner can understand your struggle, assess your current situation and create a roadmap for a successful ride.
After measuring your globalization maturity and calculating your localization ROI, they will help you choose the geography and the language pairs with which you have the highest chances of success. With all the data collected from this initial assessment, they will build a pool of resources that will deliver the right message to the audiences in the selected regions following your global marketing strategy.
3. Use professional, quality-controlled processes
A global content partner will engage the best assets from their internal team and partner network. These include linguists, project managers, content and SEO specialists, graphic design, desktop publishing and multimedia experts. To help these professionals work more efficiently and in a more automated manner, they will use translation management systems, computer-assisted tools, and the latest technology platforms.
Machine translation has been in use in the language industry for years, and has recently gained further traction when combined with large language models (LLMs). This combination helps speed up the process and reduce overall costs. However automated your processes, quality control is the final step where your content is fine-tuned and elevated. In this process humans will always play a major role.
To execute a successful global marketing strategy, you need to meet your audiences where they are and speak their language. For high visibility content, such as your marketing campaign assets, your content partner will ensure that your message is conveyed with the right tone and complies with local culture and regulations. This will ensure that your target audience feels seen and understood.