International content marketing involves tailoring content to a global audience or creating content that will appeal to someone in country A as well in country B.
Using content to extend your reach into other global markets can be a hugely successful strategy but it takes careful preparation and planning. It’s not enough to simply translate your existing assets into another language. You can’t assume that the tactics and positioning you’ve been using in your home market will be relevant, or even appropriate, to audiences within other countries and cultures.
Though producing unique, compelling and engaging content for diverse international audiences and markets might seem like a big challenge, when done well, it’s highly effective and brings great results.
Language is the most obvious obstacle but other factors such as culture, legal restrictions and online behaviour you need to consider when creating content on an international scale.
There are some important factors to take into account when looking at international content marketing vs. a country/region-specific approach.
Market research
Market research forms the base of any successful marketing plan and the same applies to content marketing.
Cultures, traditions and preferences differ from one country to another. Then, when working on international content marketing it’s important to be aware of these differences and adapt the process to them.
As a methodology tip, carrying out PESTLE (political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental) analysis will highlight aspects that may not have been immediately apparent.
For example, if you create a blog post about preparing a Thanksgiving meal, you should be aware that it won’t have much international appeal as Thanksgiving people predominately celebrate in the USA and its colonies. Though the concept you could be adapt and apply to any given country that you wanted to target, considering the different domestic cultures .
Structure your team
To make your content marketing strategy effective you must determine the optimal balance between local and global teams. This will likely be different for every company and depend on the organisational setup. There could be a centralised approach where the global team creates most of the content and distributes it to the local markets. On the other hand, a decentralised approach will have strong localised teams with the central team providing support here and there.
Finding the right balance is the most effective approach: centralisation to a point with the global team trusting that their local teams know best what is relevant to their local market. Content marketing requires centralised leadership but also a substantial degree of local authority and autonomy.
Localisation
Do we need to localise? Well, yes, internationalisation and localisation usually come together. Not everyone speaks English so if you want your content to reach a global audience, you’ll need to localise it. Localisation means adapting your content for your target audiences within different cultures, taking into account cultural nuances and different consumer preferences. It can involve everything from changing colours and images on your marketing material to altering the fonts on your flyers and the layout of your website.
Read how to develop an international digital marketing strategy
The level of localisation and customisation required will be determined by the markets and the audiences you are trying to reach. Some content should be localised for specific audiences but won’t be relevant for others. Bear this in mind and be ready to adapt your strategy for different markets.
Don’t forget that people search differently so it’s also important to do localised keyword research. This not only applies to different languages, but also to countries that speak the same language. Keywords used in Germany are not necessarily the same as those used in Austria or Switzerland. To properly optimise our content on the site, the research for the most popular and important keywords you should do in the local language for the specific country. Furthermore, your research you should perform through the leading search engines in that country.
Use relevant channels
Where should you publish or optimise for your content? When you are putting so much effort into localising your content, it’s crucial to identify the best channels to distribute it. Google and Facebook might be the most popular platforms in the majority of countries, but there are some exceptions like Yandex and VKontakte in Russia. Closely study the networks and platforms your audience uses within each country.
Measure success
It’s difficult to justify the business value of your content globalisation program without measuring its success.
Content success is not just about how many people you reach. It’s about how much engagement you get and how much your content can drive (business) decisions. Keep in mind that you need to identify the key performance indicators most relevant to your business. When measuring the success of your content marketing efforts, you can look at metrics like traffic, engagement, number of leads, purchases, etc.
Understanding and monitoring how your audience engages with your localised content is the only way to improve your content strategy and achieve a successful globalised content marketing program.
Pilot
We recommend to pilot your content marketing efforts in a few markets before rolling it out fully globally. Pilot launches give the perfect opportunity to try out your localisation process, including how global and local teams work together.
How do we select pilot markets? Language, team expertise, the willingness of the sales team to adopt new, innovative content models, size and agility of the country, preparation of the marketing team are all criteria for the selection of pilot countries.
Thanks to piloting you can discover issues like lack of resources, automation tools not working as expected, building landing pages, cooperation between departments, etc.
Content marketing takes time, especially if the plan is to roll out the program across different geographies. Piloting minimises the risks and increases the chances of success.
Every company that commits to using content in their marketing mix must consider how to scale their efforts and establish governance, staffing and technology to create compelling content on the right channels in order to deliver the desired results.
Creating a global content strategy isn’t going to be easy but can bring great results when done right. Any brand can become global with time and persistence. Even small businesses can find success on a global scale with the right marketing strategy.
