Localized Marketing Campaigns

What is a localized marketing campaign?  

At its core, a localized marketing campaign is a way of crafting campaigns to account for various attributes of a culture’s buying habits. It considers the local customs, language, preferences, and taboos of the audience as they engage with the brand. 

In the ever-growing digital marketing landscape, localization and globalization go hand in hand. That’s to say, as the consumer market continues to expand, our interconnectivity with one another also increases, thereby making localization a critical component for gaining a competitive edge. Speaking a similar language as your target audience enables you to create future-proof marketing campaigns on a personalized level and omnichannel publishing. 

The role of localization for content creators and marketers 

Localizing your content does not just mean translating the copy into your local audience’s language. It requires that you tailor the content to communicate your brand to the local audience while being true to your global marketing strategy. 

Localization allows your brand to keep global while staying local at the same time. It aims to create access to new audiences and markets, build awareness, create demand, and consequently increase your sales and conversion rate.  

In previous years, businesses created content and marketing campaigns that were mainly centered on their brands. While this strategy worked then, today’s consumers’ expectations for a one-in-all experience demand that you create content and marketing campaigns that resonate and connect to their values. That said, this trend presents you with an opportunity of converting your clients into brand ambassadors. In fact, according to a consumer behavior survey, 72.4%  of buyers are likely to purchase a product with information in their native language. 

For content creators and marketers, this presents a make-or-break situation regarding how you connect with your audience and whether or not you’ll sell your product or service to them. Omnichannel localization comes in handy in such a scenario. On the one hand, it helps you publish your content in multiple languages, and on the other hand, it allows you to determine the channels and devices that suit your audience best. 

However, to be successful, you need to deploy content that spans multiple channels and devices, including landing pages, websites, mobile apps, social media, payment gateways, email marketing, and IoT. 

The benefits of localizing your marketing campaigns 

Creating content that’s compatible across devices and channels yet upholds the lingo and culture of your audience presents you with numerous possibilities for your marketing campaign and omnichannel storytelling. Below is an outline of the main reasons why you should localize your marketing strategy. 

1. It enhances your organic visibility 

Website localization helps you bring the right message to the right audience at the most opportune time. Moreover, it helps optimize your content for global search engine optimization, thereby helping make you a global brand. 

Content localization not only entails translating your copy into your audience’s language but also adjusting images to appeal to their market and also incorporating locally-searched keywords into the mix. Doing so helps boost your SEO rankings locally. 

You should ensure that you use only one language per page since Google crawlers/bots can understand and determine the language for each page on your website. As a rule of thumb, given that localization ignores code-level language information such as «lang» to DTD (Document Type Definitions), you should ensure that whichever content you decide to localize is search engine ready. 

2. It decreases your barrier to market entry 

Whereas you can decide to grow your brand by venturing into the global market and using multiple languages on your website, such a multilingual website could get your audience tongue twisted and confused. Fortunately, localization can provide an easy fix. According to Statista, only 25.9% of online interactions are in English, leaving 74.1% of audiences speaking other languages for your audience to tap into. 

Localization enables you to access new markets easily by reducing any barriers that would have previously barred your entry to new markets. It does this by ensuring that your website is compatible with whichever region, language, currency, and content while also staying true to your brand’s storytelling and identity. 

Remember that whereas some imagery, wording, color, or even references may pass in some countries, others may consider them offensive, and so they could hurt your brand. As such, your international marketing strategy should entail researching to understand your target audience’s culture, beliefs, preferences, language, among other things. 

3. It helps with brand identification in the local market

Localization does not just tell your audience what your product or services do; it goes beyond connecting directly with the audience in a way that makes them feel like your business is local. It helps you create new markets and adapt your brand in these markets. 

Examples of localized market campaigns that worked and why

Below are examples of companies that embraced localization and got success from it: 

• Coca-Cola –Share a Coke Campaign: Coca-Cola researched the famous names in its market and printed them on individual bottles to drive purchases and engagement. By doing this, Coca-Cola encouraged its clients to share personal sentiments. 

• Nike – Nothing Beats a Londoner: The US-based sportswear agency, Wieden + Kennedy, was tasked with creating a London-centric campaign. The agency created ads that symbolized what it meant to be young in London. This campaign worked because it resonated with the audience. By using the less known areas of London (such as Dalston and Peckham) for its settings and using London-born celebrities to pass the intended message, the campaign was able to get through to the London youth. This campaign won awards at the Cannes Lion, Grand Prix, among other places. It also received various publications. 

• KitKat – Edible Postcard: KitKat is believed to bring good luck in Japan. Using this logic and the Japanese tradition of sending good luck cards whenever a new school year begins, the popular chocolate bar gave customers the chance to print personalized messages and send them to other people via Japan Post.  This campaign received free PR throughout the blogosphere and on National News, totaling $11 million. 

• Snickers – You’re Not You When You’re Hungry: This campaign was built around a prominent insight into the male psyche.  The campaign found that men have the social desire to be part of a pack, and when they feel hungry, they tend to become angry or whiny. This jeopardized their position in the group. The main reason why this campaign worked was that it used features, pastimes, and celebrities local to a given region to tailor their familiarity and insight. The campaign reported a 15.9% increase in global sales in its first full year. 

Vistatec can help you localize your marketing campaigns 

Localization is a continuous process that requires constant revision as your audience, market, consumer habits, and trends change. Even so, it is worth the trouble. Integrating localization into your marketing campaign will enable you to explore new markets. Moreover, it will become part of your brand identity even as you grow. 

Suppose you want to create a localized marketing campaign or revamp your current one; Vistatec is your go-to provider. We offer a wide range of services towards this end, including digital marketing, content creation, localization, and translation. Contact us today to learn more about our services.