If you’re a founder, chances are that one of the goals of your business is to scale regionally and later globally. However, scalability challenges sometimes include adapting your marketing strategy to different markets and cultures. This means that to reach target audiences, content must be part of a larger and multilingual marketing strategy.
According to a report published by Cloudwords, around 60% of respondents don’t use global strategy for their business marketing. But in an increasingly globalized world, incorporating each market’s own culture is crucial when scoping a successful marketing strategy.
Today, we are going to explore how to plan and implement a multilingual content marketing strategy to expand the reach of your business.
What Is Multilingual Marketing Exactly?
Multilingual content marketing is the practice of creating and sharing valuable content with communities in different countries and regions.
By reworking different versions of your content (or creating new pieces based on the needs of local communities) you can increase brand awareness and boost engagement while increasing revenue.
Most importantly, you can connect with your clients and create a feeling of closeness and trust with your brand community.
Multilingual marketing is just one of the strategies to be used as part of an international marketing plan. Among the numerous benefits of using a multilingual content marketing strategy, we can highlight:
- It will help you tap into new markets.
- It will improve your brand image.
- It will help you build trust with your target audiences.
- It will improve your SEO rankings.
The Importance of Multilingual Marketing in Content Creation for Local Audiences
Delivering timely and relevant multilingual content campaigns in local vocabularies is crucial to the success of your marketing efforts. Because to have an impact in new markets, your target audiences need to understand your brand message. This can only can be achieved by using the right language, tone, and style.
However, when trying to engage with a new audience, always keep in mind that language is not the only cultural aspect to be aware of.
That’s when localization comes in. While many would consider a literal translation to be the goal, often literal translation doesn’t include many other elements such as social norms, values, traditions, and topics of interest for each culture. This will lead your “perfectly constructed message” to hit the wrong note.
By employing localization, you’re ensuring that your message will be pitch-perfect for each region and culture the moment you hit a new global market. Also, by localizing content you’ll be tailoring it to the culture, trends, current events, and target audience in each country or region where you’re building a presence.
For example, SEMrush has different blogs for the six languages they target. If we compare the English and Spanish versions, we can see content covering different topics of interest for the local audience.
Another example is Factorial, a process automation platform for HR teams and professionals. Aside from the fact that the product’s website is adapted to +5 languages, the content published on each blog is also reformulated according to each country. You might find the same topic in different versions of the blog with content adapted to the local laws and culture.
When you’re in charge of planning a multilingual content strategy, it’s critical to stay updated with local laws and policies. Especially if you are going to explore topics related to business, HR, or finances. It’s possible to adapt content to be shared in different languages, but translating isn’t just enough. You’ll need to manually update your content to make sure it’s compliant with local laws and aligned with the local audience’s needs.
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How to Plan a Multilingual Content Strategy
As we mentioned earlier in this post, multilingual content is a big topic that can be hard to tackle. But it’s also an essential part of any modern content marketing strategy. So if you don’t have a localized content strategy, there’s a good chance you’re missing out on significant revenue opportunities.
According to a survey issued by Cloudwords, 30% of the respondents considered the high costs involved in localization to be one of the biggest challenges to facing a global marketing strategy.
Also, plenty of respondents (20%) mentioned the difficulties in keeping a company’s message consistent on a global level.
Localization automation can help companies expand into global markets. pic.twitter.com/5tL9l3aot6
— Cloudwords, Inc. (@cloudwordsinc) October 7, 2022
To help entrepreneurs and managers overcome these challenges, here are some tips for creating a multilingual content strategy that will help you target customers around the world 👇
Identify the markets you want to target
The first step for every multilingual content marketing strategy is to identify the markets you want to target. This can be done by analyzing your existing client base. Or by looking at other indicators like search engine results and/or bounce rates from certain countries or regions.
Have a consistent message
Having a consistent message is part of a larger process called brand compliance. This ensures that all of the brand elements (in this case, content) adhere to the brand’s guidelines. These elements need to work together to support brand identity and the long-term goal of a successful brand positioning.
Apart from consistency, there are a few key elements present in the process of brand compliance. These include having a set of guidelines, a clear mission, and values. Also, maintaining a cohesive visual and verbal identity over time. And lastly focusing on customer experience.
Keep localization in mind when creating content
When creating market-specific and localized content, always think about how you can make it relevant to specific cultures. The goal is to make your target audience feel like the content was created just for them.
This can be achieved by adding regional references and idioms and addressing local issues. A good way to localize the content is to explore the keywords searched in each region or country. This will help you optimize the content for it to rank better in the search engines.
Another good alternative is to use tools like Google Trends to search for topics or events that are happening in your markets and create content based on them.
One last pro tip is to hire local copywriters to write content for each of the markets you want to target. They’ll know best what information is relevant and useful to their respective audience!
Use the right software & automation tools
Creating a global presence through content doesn’t have to be a headache. Nowadays, there are many software programs and automation tools. These will help you save time and scale your multilingual content marketing strategy.
Computer-assisted translation (CAT) is a great example of such technology. This type of software uses a form of AI to streamline the entire translation process. CAT tools can also suggest translations for certain terms and phrases, which can help you reduce the need for human intervention.
Cloudwords is a great example of a CAT localization automation tool. The platform was designed to optimize the speed and scale at which you can reach your global audiences.
With its unique features, Cloudwords significantly improves asset localization by removing time-consuming tasks and streamlining project management.
Authoring tools can also be very helpful in the multilingual content creation process. These tools help you create and manage content in multiple languages from a single platform!
Evaluate market research & feedback
If you want to make sure you are getting the most out of your multilingual content marketing strategy, it’s best to constantly evaluate the results you are getting. This includes understanding what works and what does not.
One way to do this is to use market research and customer feedback to improve your content strategy. There are many different types of market research. But customer surveys are a great way to gather customer feedback and learn about their needs and wants.
Also, take advantage of the data you already have. If you are already seeing traffic to your website or app from international markets, you can identify where demand has increased. That’s a good sign. And an early indicator that further investment in that market could pay off.
Test some markets with local language content campaigns
It’s always a good idea to test some markets with localized content campaigns. Then you can compare response rates and web traffic analytics to see what’s working and what needs to be improved.
You can use Google Analytics to track traffic from different countries and regions to your site. This will give you an idea of which markets are responding best to your content. Then you can start planning your long-term content strategy around these findings.
The need to drive strategies globally is not a trend. It’s a requirement. Companies that build multilingual content marketing strategies will find new revenue opportunities in previously untapped markets.
Today, U.S. companies do almost as much business overseas as they do in the United States. Nearly 50% of production, sales, and profits come from overseas operations. This is a movement worth sustaining, continuing to invest in, and capitalizing on!
