Why brand marketers need a localisation strategy
Make your global communication strategy and campaigns effective in local markets by implementing a localisation strategy. We look at how an international outlook can benefit brand marketers.
As a global marketer, you’re always looking for ways to maximise your budgets and achieve more impact with less spend. Adopting a localisation strategy can help you achieve this – by taking your global campaign and adapting it for local markets.
Make your global communication strategy and campaigns effective in local markets by implementing a localisation strategy. We look at how an international outlook can benefit brand marketers.
What is a localisation strategy?
Put simply, a localisation strategy is a long-term plan that guides a business or brand in adapting its marketing messages to the culture and language of different markets. It can often be an adaptation of your global comms strategy. From the personas and audience segments you want to target to the advertising channels you use and the KPIs you measure, your strategy should be tailored to each local market as well as your overall marketing objectives.
What does it mean for brand marketers?
As a brand marketer, it’s your job to understand what it takes to help a business or brand succeed and a localisation strategy is just that – a plan that outlines what you want to achieve in a local market and how you will achieve it, as well as practical considerations such as time, budget and resources.
There are many benefits of having a localisation strategy – perhaps most importantly, the fact that it ensures you can fully adapt your global messaging and campaigns for local markets. This means you don’t run the risk of asset wastage or expensive reshoots and revisions that have to be carried out in order to ensure marketing messages resonate in different countries and regions. In other words, a localisation strategy – especially when supported by the expertise of a localisation agency – can make your outputs work harder both for central and local teams.
A localisation strategy can also make budgets work harder, by helping marketers avoid common mistakes, for example, producing ineffective assets or getting stuck in inefficient production processes.
How can you implement a localisation strategy?
A localisation strategy must be closely aligned with a business’s goals – so establish clear objectives and KPIs from the outset. Your strategy should also be data-driven in order to define the target audience and determine which content to localise.
Start exploring a local market’s consumer landscape and cultural context by carrying out research, this involves asking questions such as:
- Audience: Who do you want to talk to? What are people’s interests, needs and motivations? How do they make purchase decisions? How do they consume content? How do they like to interact with brands and businesses?
- Brand: How is your brand or business perceived in the local market – has it already established a presence or will you need to launch it with education and awareness-building activities? How can you reinforce or change people’s ideas of a product or service?
- Context: What external factors influence people’s behaviours?
- Culture: What cultural factors, religious beliefs, values and attitudes do you need to pay attention to?
The best strategies include an outline of the adaptation and localisation workflow so you have a detailed guide to follow every time you create new content. Remember, a localisation strategy is not static – it should be reviewed and revised on a regular basis to ensure it’s always relevant and reflects your localisation needs.
How we can help…
By managing the localisation strategy for the brands and the accounts that you work on, Freedman can help by:
- Identifying and distilling complex challenges into easily understood, actionable strategies
- Managing and conducting research using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies
- Analysing findings to unearth powerful insights and recommend actions that can drive behavioural change
- Being a champion of creativity – working closely with creative teams, delivering inspiring briefings and monitoring creative development
- Having expertise and experience across both traditional advertising and digital media
- Creating the structure for the successful delivery of communications programmes
- Driving a culture of effectiveness
- Creating and implementing KPI and measurement frameworks
Find out more by contacting us today.
