The advancements in digital marketing have made it easier for brands of all sizes to reach customers outside of their local market. However, identifying scalable marketing tactics while still taking into account local nuances is where these brands are still maturing.

To combat these challenges companies must add local flavour to their messaging and content as well as play a balance game between finding the right global messaging and ensuring its relevance to each local market.

We took an in-depth look at how brands manage global customer engagement and analysed the main differences in global marketing approaches between leading companies and non-leading ones. The research targeted more than 727 international marketing organisations across the US, UK, France, and Germany, and highlighted the key differences between best-in-class organisations and those that are still maturing.

Here are the three principles that leading companies stick to that you should follow in order to ensure your brand engages with customers across borders and languages, and is ready for multi-markets success:

1. Control global marketing through a hub and spoke model

Throughout the study, there was a common element of leaders’ approach to global marketing: an emphasis on central governance with local control over execution. Leaders prefer creating content locally, and they are much more likely than non-leaders to require approvals for all content. Based on survey results in the UK, France, and Germany, 56% of leaders require approvals as compared to only 29% of non-leaders. And in the US, the difference is even greater, with 72% of leaders requiring approvals and only 32% of non-leaders.

2. Maintain consistent technology and process management

Technology and process management are crucial for a leader to maintain global standards in brand management, media asset use, and measurement. In a sharp contrast, only 4% of the non-leading companies in the US describe their systems and processes as “fully consistent” across the stakeholders involved, compared to over 70% of leading companies. Although the difference is not as dramatic, the same goes for the UK, France, and Germany, where 62% of the leading companies are fully consistent across the stakeholders involved, compared to less than 30% of the non-leading ones.

3. Use external partners

Both leading companies, as well as non-leading use outside vendors to support their international marketing efforts, but how they deploy them is markedly different. The non-leading companies in the US rely on creative agencies, whereas the non-leading companies in the UK, France, and Germany depend on language service providers for support across functions. They are both, however, less likely to use translation/localisation services than the leaders across both geographies, with 36% versus 58% in the US, and 36% versus 49% in the UK, France, and Germany. Leaders use specialists, but maintain internal expertise in producing and distributing content. Leaders put themselves in a position to lead and manage the process, taking advantage of specialists without relying too heavily on them for strategy and creative execution.

Back to the drawing board

Developing your strategy can indeed be difficult, especially when you have to make sure that the results will propel your brand to the next level. Following the above principles should make the process a lot easier. And don’t forget:

  • Time-to-market is the key to success for all leading global marketers. They are able to take advantage of emerging opportunities, market changes, and events in a way that non-leading companies can’t. 
  • Put yourself in a position to win by using specialist partners, vetting them thoroughly, and managing them closely. 
  • Invest in people, processes, and technology. Inexpensive solutions are very costly in the long-run
  • Match channels to localities and audiences—non-leaders tend to make a one size fits all solution.
  • Locally produced content gets rigorously reviewed, but the key is a process that works quickly.
  • Never stop learning— invest time and money into understanding your customers’ diverse preferences for content, channel, and product (among other things).

 

By Clint Poole, CMO at Lionbridge

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