HOW TO SOLVE THE MULTILINGUALMARKETING PROBLEM

EXECUTIVEWith all of the changes impacting marketing, effective execution is hard enough in just one language.

Adding more languages introduces translation firms and in-country reviewers into the mix and requires changes to policies, process and content flows across all marketing teams and systems.

Given these complexities, most marketing departments are currently experiencing significant frustration with the multilingual aspects of their marketing and are at a loss to understand how to improve the global dimension of their efforts.

This ebook clarifies the underlying causes for the challenges and outlines a four step process to move from frustration to success:

• Step 1 – Align on a Global Brand Voice

• Step 2 – Translate with a 24/7 self-service portal

• Step 3 – Connect to systems to eliminate manual effort

• Step 4 – Manage global content assets across stakeholders

This four step process has been adopted by global marketing leaders such as Hootsuite, LifeFitness, and Qlik Software to implement a consistent global brand voice and a common, connected platform for all multilingual marketing to achieve their aggressive goals. Please read on to learn the four steps.

SUMMARY

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A Four Step Program to Successin Multilingual Marketing

Marketing in a Single Language is Straightforward

When operating in a single language, the primary challenge for marketing is to create compelling content. Once content is developed, there are numerous tools to ease the distribution across all of the channels.

One might think that adding languages simply increases the amount of content (source content multiplied by the number of languages) and this increased content can be managed in the same manner as the source content.

Let’s see if it is that simple . . .

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The challenge is creating content, not publishing and distributing it

SINGLE LANGUAGESTRAIGHTFORWARD

TO MANAGECHANNELS

CONTENT

SocialMedia

MarketingAutomation

Web ContentManagement

eCommerce Digital AdNetworks

App Stores

Graphics/Photos

Audio/Video

Text Apps

As soon as you add even one language, a translation partner and in-country reviewers become involved and introduce their own perspectives on what are appropriate style, tone, and content and necessitate process changes.

Most marketing departments move into the multilingual realm and add these two groups before aligning the organization on a Global Brand Voice and defining a clear technology-enabled process. The result is a predictable set of delays, frustrations, manual effort and errors that causes marketing teams a significant amount of pain.

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MULTILINGUALCONTENT FLOW IS

DISRUPTED & DELAYED

Marketing is often stuck in the middle and frustrated

CHANNELS

CONTENT

In-CountryReviewers

TranslationPartner

SocialMedia

MarketingAutomation

Web ContentManagement

eCommerce Digital AdNetworks

App Stores

Graphics/Photos

Audio/Video

Text Apps

Marketing

Multilingual Marketing is a Multi-party,Multi-perspective Problem

These challenges place marketing teams in the middle trying to manually manage an exception-filled process - this is a frustrating place to be.

So what is the solution?

Typical Frustrations with Translation Partners

Typical Frustrations with In-Country Reviewers

• Waiting days for a quote, confusing pricing for budgeting

• Translation quality concerns

• Technology is not user-friendly nor integrated

• Not managing and solving the whole problem

• Slow to provide reviews

• Subjective changes to source content

• Not aligned on content, style, voice

• Feedback not specific nor actionable

The first step is to align corporate marketing with regional and country marketing/sales staff on a Global Brand Voice. Most companies are not aligned on a global brand and the issues come to a head in the translation process as in-country reviewers change the source content positioning, tone and style to fit their preferences.

Codifying a Global Brand Voice into linguistic assets is the best solution to this problem. Our process defines tone of voice, style guide and glossary and involves global participants through sessions with our linguists. Ongoing review and updates to the assets continue to align all process members.

This results in a Global Brand Voice that can be defined and refined over time. It also enables Lionbridge to be the guardian of the Global Brand Voice on behalf of the client and ensure corporate that the in-country staff are not shifting the source content and brand to suit their own preferences.

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STEP 1: ALIGNGLOBAL BRAND VOICE

Where are you on the grid?

Global Consistency

Strong

LocalRelevance

Locally relevant, butnot aligned with

corporate

Weak

StrongWeak

Global BrandVoice

Not consistent, norlocally relevant

Consistent, but notlocally relevant

Align Your Company on a Global Brand Voice

Once the Global Brand Voice is completed, translation can begin. The challenge is that Marketing has extremely high demands in terms of ease of use, turn around times, and supported file types. A highly robust, self-service portal is required to meet the following needs:

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STEP 2: TRANSLATESELF-SERVICE PORTAL

Marketing demands ease, speed,and full content type support

CONTENT

Self-Service Portal

MarketingIn-CountryReviewers

TranslationPartner

Graphics/Photos

Audio/Video

Text Apps

Translation Should be an Easy, Online Experience

• 24/7 self-service, self-registration, user management

• Instant quotes

• 24 hour turnaround

• In context review

• Self-managed POs and automated monthly invoicing

Marketing also faces a broad range of content types and wants instant quotes for dozens of content formats:

• txt

• docx

• xlsx

• csv

• pptx

• pdf

• tiff

• jpg

• jpeg

• po

• json

• properties

• ini

• yaml

• yml

• resw

• resx

• resjson

• xlf

• xliff

• xml

• pot

• mp4

• flv

• mov

• wmv

• avi

• m4v

• indd

• indt

• fm

• pub

• eot

• svg

• ttf

• woff

• book

Lionbridge onDemand is the only solution that was purpose-built for Marketing to address these needs. Once your team is up and running with the self-service portal, the next step is determine where it makes sense to automate content flows from source systems.

The third step is to reduce manual effort and automate the flow of content in and out of digital channel systems. Most companies prioritize web content management and marketing automation systems the highest.

For web content management there are two options that are both pre-integrated with Lionbridge onDemand and fully leverage the established Global Brand Voice processes:

• Translation Proxy – best choice if your website is 100% translated

• Connector – best choice if multiple countries publish their own content

Out of the box connectors are available for all top systems such as Adobe Experience Manager, Sitecore, IBM, and many more. Translation Proxy works with any system. Marketing Automation systems such as Eloqua and Marketo are also supported.

Many companies have made the mistake of choosing a vendor for a specific connector and later have to throw them out because it only solved part of the problem. The most successful marketing organizations keep the whole challenge in mind when making translation partner decisions.

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STEP 3: CONNECTAUTOMATE SYSTEM

CONTENT FLOWS

Solve the whole problem - avoid the trap of one-off solutions for

each channel platform

CHANNELS

CONTENT

Connectors

Self-Service Portal

MarketingIn-CountryReviewers

TranslationPartner

SocialMedia

MarketingAutomation

Web ContentManagement

eCommerce Digital AdNetworks

App Stores

Graphics/Photos

Audio/Video

Text Apps

Easily Connect to Marketing Systems

The last phase to address is the challenge of global asset management.

• As you translate these assets, where will you store them all?

• How will people around the globe find previously translated assets?

• If a salesperson in Germany needs a key piece of content translated, how does that happen?

These are all global asset management challenges and most companies do not have a well deployed digital asset management system in place that meets the necessary requirements:

• Supports dozens of file types including video and apps

• Multilingual meta data search to enable global staff to find relevant assets

• Ability to order translation for additional languages from the site

Lionbridge onDemand offers a Global Asset Management option that is pre-integrated with the self-service portal to automate digital asset storage and instant ordering of additional languages for existing assets.

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STEP 4: MANAGE

How will global staff find translated content and order additional

languages?

GLOBAL ASSETMANAGEMENT

CHANNELS

CONTENT

Asset Management

Connectors

Self-Service Portal

MarketingIn-CountryReviewers

TranslationPartner

SocialMedia

MarketingAutomation

Web ContentManagement

eCommerce Digital AdNetworks

App Stores

Graphics/Photos

Audio/Video

Text Apps

Enable Effective Use of Translated Assets

SOLUTION: FREE MARKETING FROM THE TEDIOUS

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Leading global marketing organizations such as Hootsuite, LifeFitness, and Qlik Software have shifted 100% of their translation management needs to Lionbridge onDemand and are following the 4 Steps to achieve:

• A globally consistent and locally relevant brand voice

• On-time global campaigns

• Automated processes for speed and efficiency

• Ready access to all translated content

To receive answers to your specific questions about Lionbridge onDemand,

please click on Chat Now.

Ultimately, the goal is to free Marketing from the tedious to focus on the impactful

Self-Service Portal

Connectors

Asset Management

Marketing

In-CountryReviewers

TranslationPartner

SocialMedia

MarketingAutomation

Web ContentManagement

eCommerce Digital AdNetworks

App Stores

CHANNELS

CONTENT

Graphics/Photos

Audio/Video

Text Apps

ABOUT LIONBRIDGE

Lionbridge enables more than 800 world-leading brands to increase international market share, speed adoption of products and effectively engage their customers in local markets worldwide. Using our innovative cloud technology platforms and our global crowd of more than 100,000 professional cloud workers, we provide translation, online marketing, global content management and application testing solutions that ensure global brand consistency, local relevancy and technical usability across all touch points of the customer lifecycle. To learn more, visit www.lionbridge.com.

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