As customers are expecting a holistic and authentic experience across all points of interactions with a brand, the ultimate goal of a marketing team is to create a unified brand experience. At the same time, when working on a global marketing strategy, it is essential to consider regional markets and find ways to engage with different audiences.
Global content creation is destined to grow in the next years. More than 3 billion people are using the internet making it crucial, for any business, to provide online targeted content. As written in this article posted in the 1986’s May edition of the Harvard Business Review, “the big issue today is not whether to go global but how to tailor the global marketing concept to fit each business and how to make it work”.
Culturally adapting and translating content is one of the main and most difficult tasks of high-level marketing strategists. Multiple processes need to effectively be managed together across the entire journey of going global: translation, multilingual SEO, localization testing and transcreation.
The process of creating and adapting content into the target language while maintaining the style, tone of voice and context of the source language is called transcreation. This process allows to deliver content that will be relatable and to evoke emotional response in target audiences.
Global Content Transcreation – 5 Things to Do in Order to Run a Successful Transcreation Project!
1. Have a Transcreation Brief
There are a lot of people who take part in the transcreation process. For this reason, having a creative brief ready prior the beginning of the project is essential. It will allow everyone involved to work in an effective and timely manner, avoiding avoidable mistakes and time loss. Ultimately it is important to ensure good communication and improve collaboration among them.
A useful creative brief should include:
- Goals and communication objectives of the content; what product are you selling? What’s its purpose?
- Information about the target audience; who are we talking to? What’s their age? In which language do we talk to them?
- Consumer insights for the target; What motivates them to be your customers?
- Brand guidelines and background; who are you, what are your core values, what is your brand image?SEO and visual guidelines, what are the key words that must be present in the copy, which should be avided?
2. Choose Native Language Writers
The goal is to reach at an emotional level a new target audience located in a different country therefore working with native language writers will make the process easier and more effective. This because they will be able to take into account cultural nuances and have a better knowledge of the language and its expressions, references, colloquialisms.
3. Perform a Research on Local Keywords
SEO is a fundamental part of content creation and is also key when transcreating content for targeted markets. This will help your content not only rank higher but also connect better with local audiences. When optimizing your content, it’s important to consider factors such as which search engine a country uses the most, Baidu, for example, is the leading search engine in China while Yandex is the leading search engine in Russia.
4. Choose the Right Images and Colors
Creative agencies often use graphics and images to convey a message. Don’t underestimate the importance of selecting appropriate imagery to support your content – this process, called image localization, helps selecting images that will evoke the right feelings and won’t come across as inappropriate. Pictures need to speak to local target audience. The same concept applies to the use of color as colors have different meanings in different cultures.
Read here to know more about the importance of high quality photos!
5. Select the Appropriate Content
This means selecting the most performing, relevant and appropriate content.
For instance, regulatory content like technical, legal or compliance information do not need to be transcreated as they should remain true to the source language. Translation, in this case, is enough.
The focus should be on material that will have an impact in a specific market or the other. This will optimize your initial investment, generating a stronger impact.
Also, some content might not be appropriate for a specific country so it might be good to research what to include and what to exclude.
There you go, now you are all set, are you ready to go global? Get in touch, find out how Webzlab can help!