In our last three blogs, we’ve talked about how to implement an international strategy using website translation in an effort to reach new, multilingual audience. We outlined the importance of localizing digital B2C tools to make the customer journey more enjoyable, and we’ve also given you some crucial tips for global websites.
The next stage in going global for you will likely be advertising your products and services to these new markets. With an international strategy, you aren’t required to integrate physically into a new location, but you still need to ensure that your brand and messaging are reaching local buyers, and preferably in their preferred languages. Beyond website translation, effectively engaging international audiences involves implementing a well-crafted marketing localization strategy.
Marketing localization is the process of customizing content to suit a specific region and culture, ensuring that messages resonate with local audiences. This article will explore the importance of translation and localization in social media, video assets, ads, and more, and discuss why working with a translation company can lead to the best quality and results for your campaign.
Understanding Marketing Localization
Marketing localization goes beyond mere language translation; it involves adapting messaging, promotion channels, and even product portfolios to suit the preferences of a target market. A successful localization strategy creates an emotional connection with audiences, driving engagement, and increasing sales across various markets. It enables brands to maintain global consistency while still catering to local cultural nuances and preferences.
One of the key challenges in advertising localization is avoiding misunderstandings or offense due to certain phrases, slogans, or cultural references not translating well across languages and cultures. For example, the Finnish technology company Nokia faced a setback when introducing its Lumia phone in Spanish-speaking regions, as the product’s name was colloquially associated with a term that had negative connotations in Spanish.
This process isn’t just important in product marketing: it is going to impact many factors of your company’s digital marketing plan. If you create things like email campaigns, social posts, videos, and social and search ads, these will also be extremely useful for your international audience. You just have to make sure the content is relevant and readable for them. Here are our recommendations for how to optimize your multilingual marketing content:
Customize Promotional Emails
Email marketing is a powerful tool for building relationships with potential customers. To be effective, emails must resonate with local recipients from the start. Personalization plays a significant role here, as adapting email campaigns to reflect local values and preferences will lead to higher conversion rates and improved engagement.
It goes beyond simply addressing the recipient by their name in the subject line or body content, though. True personalization tailors almost the entire email based on the data a business holds about each customer. This can include using dynamic fields to insert the recipient’s name, company, location, age, or gender, ensuring that the email content feels like it was created just for them.
One key advantage of email personalization is its impact on open rates and engagement levels. Personalized emails have been shown to have an open rate that is more than 20% higher than those with generic or static subject lines. Additionally, personalized emails produce a 139% increase in click-through rates compared to static one-time sends. By providing relevant content and tailored suggestions at the right moment, personalized emails create meaningful connections with subscribers and make them feel important, strengthening the customer-brand relationship.
Create Local Social Media Pages
Your social media presence is crucial for attracting and interacting with certain demographics in your customer base. A strong social strategy includes multiple platforms with customized content on each to resonate with different targets. If you’ve built a good following on your pages, it can very beneficial to carry that over into a new market. Rather than using one social media page for multiple countries, create separate local pages for each target market. This allows you to customize content to resonate with specific audiences, enhancing engagement and connection.
If you do happen to offer different products or services in different countries, this is also a great way to showcase those to the people who would be interested. This also allows you to run different giveaways, campaigns, or engage different influencers for your unique audiences. With localized pages, customers are more likely to engage with content that feels personalized to their region, leading to better results.
Localize Advertising Copy
When running ads in different regions, it is crucial to adapt the ad copy for maximum impact. Certain phrases, slogans, or cultural references may not translate well across languages and cultures, leading to misunderstandings or even offense. Especially since ad copy tends to be short and concise, direct translations may not fit character requirements and they may not hold the same meaning in a new language. Localized advertising copy ensures that the message effectively resonates with the target audience, increasing the chances of successful campaigns.
Provide Multilingual Video Content
Video content performs extremely well, especially vertical oriented videos, on social media and in ads. This includes imbedded videos on websites, TikToks or Reels, Instagram Stories, video ads, and more.
Short-form video brings marketers the highest ROI of any other aspect of a social media marketing strategy, and over half of social media users prefer video over other types of content. That means making your videos accessible to multiple languages important. There are two great ways you can do this:
- Choose Subtitling or Voiceover: Depending on the preferences and habits of the viewers, you can opt for subtitling or voiceover for video translation. Subtitles are convenient for viewers who may prefer to read the content, while voiceover with a skilled native speaker helps build an impactful connection with the audience.
- Tailor Your Speech and Leave Room for Subtitles: Ensure that the translation process considers the original video content and provides a tailored transcript. Properly positioned closed captions in videos allow viewers to read transcripts in synchronization with the audio, enhancing comprehension. Avoid overwhelming the audience with on-screen titles and leave sufficient space for subtitles, ensuring a clear and immersive viewing experience.
Utilize Professional Translation and Localization Services:
If all of this talk of marketing material translation has your head spinning, that’s ok! That’s exactly what MotionPoint is for. We’re not just the experts of website translation. We understand the importance of translating and localizing all of your marketing material.
When it comes to going global, we know how to use localization to adapt content to a new culture. We have the expertise and language proficiency required to create captivating and authentic content that resonates with the target audience. From videos to offline documents to other omnichannel assets, we provide expert translation with a beyond words service to help your business thrive.
Start Marketing to New Audiences
Global digital marketing goes beyond website translation and offers immense opportunities for businesses, but successfully reaching multilingual audiences requires a well-executed marketing localization strategy. By understanding the significance of translation and localization across various marketing channels, such as emails, blogs, and ads, brands can create an emotional connection with international audiences.
Not equipped to handle this level of localization? Collaborating with a translation company ensures the best quality and results, enabling you to navigate linguistic and cultural barriers and achieve success in global markets. Marketing localization, when done right, strikes the perfect balance between global brand consistency and localized relevance, driving engagement and fostering trust among diverse audiences worldwide.
For a limited time, you can even test TWO new markets for the price of ONE! Our BOGO offer means you get a free second language when you buy one, just to see if your business could thrive in that market. Thinking of buying Spanish for the U.S.? Why not also try Spanish for Mexico? Drop us line today to get your 14-day free trial.
Last updated on August 01, 2023
