Less than 7% of all internet users globally are in North America.
That’s 7% of roughly 4.9 billion connected people around the world, as of Q3 2020. The fastest growth in new users is coming from central Africa and southern Asia, with 40% and 20% increases in 2019 respectively.
If you’re an eCommerce business (or have been forced to transition to one in the age of global pandemics) only focusing your marketing efforts in North America, you’re leaving a massive opportunity on the table.
Maybe you’ve thought about going global, but figured it would be too complex and expensive to try. How on Earth would your brand and product offerings translate to Nigeria, India, or even another English-speaking region like the UK?
There are seemingly endless ways to get an international campaign wrong. Maybe you remember when Nokia launched their phone, the Lumia, in Spanish speaking markets, only to find that it had less than flattering connotations…
But there are plenty of companies producing content all over the world in thoughtful ways that build their brand in global markets in harmony with the local culture.
The difference is a strategy of Content Localization. What is content localization, exactly?
It’s tailoring your message to match the culture and norms of the market to which you’re seeking to sell. When it comes to content, the best way to do this is with local creators. In contrast to your centralized marketing team, or even a US-based agency, these creators will already have a deep understanding of the language, preferences, styles and designs that will resonate in their home market. The extra work is worth it. Geo-targeted social content gained six times as much engagement as universally shared content.
If you want to take your international content to the next level (or just get started), here are a couple things that will build a solid foundation.
Identify your high-potential markets.
The surest way to fail is to try to tackle the world overnight. Start by identifying one or two markets where you’ve noticed interest or that you believe have outsized potential for product-market fit. The natural place to start is with your sales data, but you can dig deeper. Look at your website and social analytics to see where you’re getting traffic and interest, but not converting to sales.
If you notice that your second-biggest source of Instagram views is coming from Italy, but you’re not seeing that reflected in your sales, try creating content that speaks to them directly. That means accurately translating your website (don’t just rely on Google translate…), building targeted landing pages with relevant offers, and social ads that will resonate in Italian communities. Of course marketing to “Italians” at large is no more effective than marketing to “Americans” at large, so you need to dig deeper to build a relevant persona. Look at shared interests, specific locales within the country, and what pieces of content they’ve engaged with on your social channels or website.
Identify local content creators
This is where the best brands separate themselves from the pack. And that’s because it isn’t always easy to find, vet and onboard content creators across the world. Making sure they’ll fit with your core brand is another challenge.
Two approaches can be applied here.
The first is the low-budget, DIY, one-at-a-time path. This path can definitely lead to success, it just takes time upfront and continued work to maintain relationships. To find creators yourself, you’ll want to turn to social channels, mostly Instagram. You can search for content by hashtag and by location, which is very powerful. This writeup from Gary Vee is one of my favorites and shows you what to look for when looking for people to collaborate with on Instagram. Don’t be fooled by big follower counts. Look for engagement (comments, likes) to see who has a really passionate audience. Depending on the market, you might have a harder time breaking through the language barrier, which is where this approach tends to break down.
The second approach is to partner with an international marketing firm or a content creation platform that provides access to international creators. Tools like Tarjama are combining AI with linguists around the world to quickly create content for different regions. Tongal provides access to 200K creators in 177 countries, along with a platform for easily connecting with them and managing production from start to finish.
Now that we’ve seen the importance of translating your brand into different markets and explore some ways to get started, let’s look at some examples that prove this out.
Map of Netflix's Global Studio / Office Presence (The Hollywood Reporter, 8/2019)
Netflix, having nearly saturated the US market with 73 million subscribers, has turned its attention overseas. A cornerstone of their international strategy is building studios and hiring creators in new markets around the world. Last year they added 250,000 square feet to their Canadian studio footprint. They’re in the process of producing over 50 shows locally in Mexico and have built other production hubs in Spain, France, England, and Australia. They’ve long been building a presence in India and some of the hottest shows in the US are now coming from their Indian originals program.
Uniqlo, one of the fastest growing eCommerce apparel companies in the world, has been quick to adapt their Japan-based brand to the digital and international scene. One way they’ve done this is by partnering with influencers in key markets and interest-groups, such as their partnership with Australian golfer Adam Scott and Swiss tennis player Roger Federer. One of their most famous international campaigns, Uniqlock, revolved around people dancing at precise times around the world and included a blog widget that was customized and embedded into 27,000 unique versions in 76 countries.
Tongal recently partnered with PayPal for their holiday campaign, creating 262 video assets for seven countries with filmmakers all over the world . In order to maintain consistent visuals across multiple filmmakers, Tongal sourced a Creative Director that coordinated efforts across these distributed teams. The end goal was to show how PayPal makes it easier to adapt to the "new normal" of 2020.
Make Giving Easy, highlighting donations through PayPal
Make Sharing Easy, highlighting the ease of payments amongst friends
