Since its conception, the Internet has taken the world by storm, becoming the zeitgeist of a digital generation. As a result, organizational processes, e-commerce, marketing and more have all become increasingly virtual. Advantages to this include the instantaneous sharing of materials and data, as well as the opportunity to market products and services to people all over the globe. To succeed in this expansive marketplace, the challenge then lies in a company’s ability to transmit messages, create content, and market products to a global audience. Seemingly small missteps, careless oversights, or casual innocent ignorance can put any organization at risk of losing credibility, reputation, and ultimately customers.
While it is important to focus on creating content that is representative of your organization’s values and character and that properly advertises what it is you do, that isn’t all that matters. The language you use, how you articulate your thoughts, and how you develop content that will influence numerous cultures, is equally, if not more important. As you set out to establish your company’s trust, build brand awareness, and market to potential customers worldwide, here are four ways you can create compelling content for a global audience.
- Be Culturally Aware
Cultural awareness is an essential place to begin. Being culturally aware encompasses a whole lot more than just knowing general language differences. While it is impossible to know all of the unique characteristics of different groups throughout the world, you can look at a broad scope of areas where certain differences are more pronounced. Examples include:
- Religious references
- Fiscal years
- Sports
- Colors
- Superstitions
- Holidays
- Colors
While it can be tempting to save resources by generalizing material across many cultures, it isn’t a wise decision in the long run. Broad generalizations can easily be viewed as ignorant, careless, or inconsiderate. Additionally, you risk losing credibility and can be pegged as an adversary to global sensitivity. On the flip side, continual efforts to become culturally sensitive and aware present you with unique opportunities to get ahead of your competition by demonstrating your desire and willingness to learn more about other cultures and create a meaningful message for specific audiences. This can work to your benefit in addressing a more diverse business and social community.
- Identify Cultural Personas
Identifying cultural personas will be a helpful practice that can be used to market your product and create advertising campaigns. Depending on which areas you are marketing in, you can identify personas for a larger global audience, or you can investigate a smaller, local audience. This kind of research can provide you with useful data on your target audience’s purchasing behavior, aspirations, thought processes, attitudes, desires, and the challenges they face that could impact their decision to pursue your product and business. With this information, you can write marketing content that is appealing, helpful, and effective.
- Funnel Your Creativity
Creativity is an excellent skill to have and can transform any piece of standard content into something truly memorable. However, too much creativity can actually be counterproductive, especially when marketing to a global audience. For starters, creative phrases that embody lingo, metaphors, jokes, and slang are difficult if not impossible at times, for translation professionals to reiterate in another language.
Also, different cultural norms have drastically different points of reference and perspective. What is humor to one culture may offend another, and one CTA that works in one market may fall on deaf ears in another.If it can be translated, there is still a good chance it could be misunderstood, ignored, or mislead people of another culture. When you begin writing, don’t shut down your creativity entirely, but strategically funnel it in a direction where your content will be unique, but general enough to be understood by a global audience. Simplicity can be a benefit to this end.
- Use a Professional Translator
One of the most beneficial decisions you can make when finalizing your global marketing content is to hire a professional translator. With a solid understanding of language and cultural differences, a professional translator can effectively convey your core message into another language. You can rely on their expertise to point out areas that may be open to interpretation and should be clarified before your content is published. While it may seem easier to use a translation software, virtual translators cannot ensure 100% accuracy and losses in translation may hurt more than they help, If you don’t want to risk your message losing valuable meaning during its journey from one culture or language to another, hiring a professional translator is critically important.
Creating effective marketing content for a global audience requires time, research, and care. Through your efforts to show your interest in learning about other cultures, you can develop a more meaningful, persuasive, and entertaining message to everyone who engages with your content. Doing research within your target community, looking at competitors or relevant messaging in a similar space is invaluable in the prelaunch of any campaign.The time you spend in personalizing your content will pale in comparison to the success you will have in advertising your products with a global mindset and gaining new customers.
