When I reflect back to the very beginning of my University career in Media Communications, I remember the lessons on Roland Barthes and the theory of semiology. Signs are how we communicate and signs can be made up of words, images, sounds, etc. So when an organization spends thousands, even millions, of dollars to develop marketing content in English for the US market, isn’t it paramount to make sure the words, images and sounds are translated and localized to achieve the same goal for other markets?
In the rockcontent.com article How Cultural Differences Can Impact Your Content Marketing Strategy the author points out that the connotation and context can get lost in translation if you are just translating your content word for word (rockcontent.com, 2021). That is why a localization strategy needs to be a part of every organization’s content strategy.
Today, marketing content is doing more than just focusing on a market, it’s about user personas, targeted platforms and specialized messaging. Translation and localization can help marketers achieve their specific goals for targeting non-english speakers, even in the US and Canada. Racial and ethnic minorities make up nearly 40% of the US population, according to the article Are You Including Enough Diversity In Your Marketing? Part of a diversity and inclusion strategy needs to include language, but it also needs to include culturally appropriate images.
The signs need to reflect the target audience you are trying to attract to your brand. A great example of inclusivity is Kim Kardashian’s clothing brand, SKIMS. Their content includes models of all shapes, sizes and colours, and that inclusiveness is reflected in the product offerings. The brand has looked at their target user personas and ensured their content matched those audiences’ differences.
Lastly, once we have taken the brand or marketing messages and adapted it for the target markets, then we need to look at the data and ensure our goals are being achieved. According to Nitin Goyal, Data Analyst at Hootsuite, we need to use metrics to ensure we are moving the needle in the right direction.