Digital Marketing and Localisation - Creative Word

Digital marketing has become essential for most businesses operating within today’s global economy. Whether this is through search engines, websites, social media, mobile apps, or emails, it is essential that these marketing techniques are localised to suit the targeted audience.

If these forms of marketing communications aren’t correctly adapted for a localised audience there can be huge problems for the company that releases them; as the U.S hotel chain, Marriott discovered when they sent out a customer survey in which they referred to Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong and Macau as separate countries. The problem forced them to close down their website – not a good marketing strategy to attract more customers!

The following considerations will help you to avoid any embarrassing faux-pas in your marketing campaigns, and ensure you remain on target to capture your customers’ attention.

Essential Email Localisation

At present, email forms the foundation for customer communications with over 2.5billion emails sent each day around the globe. For a company attempting to attract a customer’s attention it is vital that the email clearly conveys their message so that it makes sense to a global audience, incorporates brand voice, and appeals to both the customer’s sense of logic, and their emotions.

Localising content for global audiences can be a slow, painful experience without professional help, however, we wouldn’t risk uploading a blog post without ensuring that the content is inoffensive to our audience, and the same attitude should be applied to emails. It is surprising how many companies still send emails that have not been culturally checked for relevance, or are not localised for their target audience.

In the future, we are likely to see more businesses incorporating email into their content strategy, and managing the email content through use of technologies similar to those used for other types of content. Management systems, such as those we use today to manage our blog posts, and websites will be utilised to create, store, and optimise our email marketing campaigns, making it easier to create email templates for multiple locations.

However, until this point, it vital that email communications are localised for the target audience to ensure success.

Is Translation Enough for Emails?

Translation works with purely the words on the page (or screen, in the case of emails), giving a literal interpretation of the text. This is suitable in some instances, however, it does not give consideration to deeper elements such as cultural difference, local dialects, or appropriate content.

Managing multiple email communications for many different markets can be time consuming, frustrating, and laborious. Nevertheless, it is a vital component of a successful email marketing campaign, and while it may seem easier to translate an English based email into multiple languages you are likely to fall short of your objectives if you follow this route without effective localisation.

Rather than sending the same translated English email to global customers, consider localising content for different locales based upon cultural, and linguistic differences.

Localisation is More Than Language

As stated above, localisation is more than simply translating words. It involves cultural considerations that are specific to places, and people. For instance, if you are creating an email campaign for Spain, you might assume an English to Spanish translation would be all that is required, however, an email sent to customers in Madrid should use Castilian Spanish, while one sent to a customer in Barcelona should be in Catalan.

Localisation takes account of all differences, and targets key variants to ensure precision. Idioms, phrases, local dialects, and so on, are carefully considered with localisation, and tuned to be appropriate for the target audience.

Branding is another area where localisation comes into its own; logos, colours, symbols, taglines, and so on, should be validated for their appropriate use in each market. For example, if targeting Arab nations, the colour green should be used with caution, as in the Islamic faith it is associated with Mohammed, and has religious connotations.

To maintain brand voice across global markets it may be necessary to tweak company branding, or update it for specific areas. Localisation will assist with these matters – ensuring global brand consistency.

Time zones, currency, numbers, right-to-left scripts, and date formats all change depending upon location in the world, so localisation is an essential tool in safeguarding accuracy, and validity, in each region.

Localisation Partner

When selecting a localisation partner to work with on a project it is vital you engage with a team who can accommodate your requirements, provide native speakers, and who are qualified to cope with any specialist translations you might require.

Ideally, the localisation team you use should remain constant each time, as this helps maintain branding, minimises costs, and ensures consistency of translations. The people creating your localisation projects should be familiar with your aims, and objectives, while also, having a complete understanding of your target market, and particulars that relate to that locale.

The right email campaign, properly localised, will make the difference between success and failure, so investing in a translation (and localisation) team that are highly knowledgeable will help you to get it right each time.

Localisation should ensure the best possible customer experience, with relevant language, and informed cultural awareness.
Your customers will notice the difference, and it will pay dividends in the long term.