You know how to create killer content for your home market, but what about abroad? That’s where global content marketing comes in. By adapting your content strategy to new markets effectively, you can make your brand known worldwide.
To harness the power of international content marketing, you need to know how to do it right. Read on to learn more about what global content marketing involves, why it’s important and how to map out a strategy to reach international audiences.
See also: How to optimize your global social media strategy
Watch our recap here:
What is global content marketing?
The idea behind content marketing is simple enough. Provide your audience with free content that they find relevant and valuable, and you’ll be rewarded with more brand awareness and ultimately more sales.
When it comes to global content marketing, the core concept is the same, of course. But it’s not just about copy-pasting the same content across platforms for different markets. A story that resonates with someone in California may mean nothing to someone in England, even though they speak the same language.
You need to redesign and repurpose—and sometimes completely create new content from scratch—to fit the interests and desires of people from different cultures.
“We have to recycle content smartly. Maybe it’s splitting content up into pieces or editing it in a way that makes it work on another platform. Resource wise, it would be impossible not to repurpose content.” – Adriana Carles, head of content and social media at Ladenzeile.
The type of content used in a global content marketing strategy can include things like:
- Written content: Blog articles, LinkedIn posts, multilingual Facebook posts
- Audio content: Podcasts
- Visual content: YouTube videos, Instagram posts, TikTok videos
Do you need help designing an international content marketing strategy? Get in touch with our experienced content team at VeraContent. We offer multilingual content creation services and can help you develop a strategy that brings in business from all over the world.
See also: 6 effective international marketing strategies by top brands
Why is content marketing important for global marketing?
Content marketing is key to building successful global marketing strategies. The best way to connect with potential customers in international markets is by sharing content they can relate to, whether it’s social media content, blog posts or newsletters.
Compared to paid global campaigns, content marketing is more affordable in the long run due to its sustainability. It requires an initial investment to learn about your target audience, but once you have that knowledge, carrying out consistent global content marketing efforts is much more affordable than launching an international ad campaign. Multilingual SEO is also a great long-term investment.
“I believe brands are built on content nowadays, especially with social media being so strong. You need content as a brand.” – Thiago Kiwi, head of marketing & communications at Headspring.
See also: Social media localization: Go global without fresh content
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How do you map out a global content marketing strategy?
As with any localization strategy, it’s important to spend time properly mapping out your global content strategy. Start with understanding your international audience and then strategically managing your web content.
See also: Global marketing standardization vs. localization: A helpful guide
Understanding your unique global audiences
You want to make sure your content is a hit in every regional market you target. Before putting lots of resources into creating localized content, it’s definitely worth it to take some time to truly understand the cultural norms and preferences in each of those places. That way you can be sure to create content that’s culturally sensitive and relevant, and make a real connection with your audience.
Be sure to work with professionals, whether it’s a global marketing agency or freelancer, who truly understand your target markets and can localize your content accordingly.
“Everything about marketing is really about getting under the skin of why people do what they do, why they think what they think, and trying to talk to people in the right way and find the right people to talk to.” – Euan Brown, head of digital and content at Virgin Red.
See also: American vs. British English: How they’re different and why it matters
Not sure where to start? We’ve got you covered. Check out VeraContent’s free worksheet that will help you get the right questions answered before entering any new market.
Get your free guide by filling in the form below!
Create a consistent brand identity across markets
Again, before cranking up your global content creation machine, you’ll want to be certain everyone on each of your local teams knows exactly what they need to do. It’s not as simple as giving them your corporate brand guidelines and sending them on their way.
Each market needs its own tailored guidelines, including style and tone preferences in the local language. You’ll also want to address anything specific to that market—such as a limited product offering or more niche marketing strategy—so your content creators understand how they should tailor their messaging.
Create a global content management workflow
You want to make sure you have a workflow in place that gives you consistently great results. You’ll need a well designed content plan, where you define your publishing frequency, content types, what content needs to be localized for different markets and what should be created from scratch.
With your plan in place, it’s time to assign the content to local trans-creators. These are the local experts who can adapt your content to each culture and language. As we said it’s important to provide them guidelines and style notes so they effectively convey your brand’s personality and tone.
Finally, you’ll want to implement systems for tracking and issue management, so you can stay on top of any hiccups that might arise.
See also: 8 best tools for running an effective multilingual blog
3 global content marketing best practices
How can you make sure your content strategy is successful? Here are three tactics we’ve seen work, along with some real-world examples of how they were implemented.
See also: Hiring a global marketing manager vs. agency: How to decide
1. Fully customize your content to each market
To connect with audiences in different regions, it’s essential to create content that resonates with them. This means creating original content that is tailored to each market’s unique needs, preferences, and cultural nuances. You can achieve this by creating region-specific content and repurposing content across languages.
Take a look at the HubSpot blog as a reference. You can see that the content is different for English visitors vs. Portuguese visitors. Hubspot has researched trending and relevant topics in each country rather than simply translating existing content from one blog to another.
While the English blog promotes the 2021 State of Marketing Report, the Portuguese blog promotes their free Sales Hub. Other blog posts highlighted on the Portuguese blog include, 10 strategies to increase sales and grow online, What is lead nurturing? How to create a basic lead nurturing sequence and How to qualify your company’s leads.
Successful e-commerce platform Shopify employs the same approach to global content marketing. For example, see their French vs. Spanish blogs below.
The French blog features a social selling case study of a French business, along with a post on starting a business without money and one explaining the concept of headless ecommerce. The Spanish blog features information on product distribution, translating your online store and an explanation of social network Clubhouse.
And a project that we worked on at VeraContent:
Real-estate platform Spotahome also successfully implemented this approach, creating SEO-optimized blog posts in six languages, touching on property rental legal questions that were unique to each market. While we created similar prompts for the writers in each language, the content was written from scratch for each market and was completely unique.
Read our client story for all the details on how we did it!
2. Always make sure that your content is timely, relevant and up-to-date
To stay relevant, it’s essential to stay on top of current events and trends in your market. Sometimes, this means throwing out your content calendar for something more timely and relevant.
For example:
During the devastating wildfires in Turkey in 2021, we changed our planned strategy for the localized Turkish Instagram account for LivU, an app that connects people across borders, languages and cultures. While the content shared on the account is always lighthearted, we decided to create and share a post showing our solidarity with the people of Turkey, and pause the planned calendar for some time.
The text in the image says, “We are burning inside!” followed by the cities that were most affected. The caption reads, “Our hearts are with you, Turkey!”
Continuing with fun content could have seemed insensitive considering the context and mood in the country. While it’s tempting to schedule evergreen content in advance and put it on auto-pilot, making the effort to take into account current events and make adjustments shows your audience you are truly engaged and care about what’s happening where they are.
3. Work with locals in each target market
Working with locals who have in-depth knowledge of your target audience is critical for creating effective global content marketing strategies. By creating teams of local translators and community managers, like VeraContent, you can create custom content that resonates with each market.
Mobile phone accessory brand PopSockets enlisted VeraContent to create a team of community managers for each European market. We drew on our vast network of trusted collaborators to find capable professionals who know the ins and outs of their own markets—and are skilled content creators. These community managers adapt PopSockets’ campaigns as necessary and run country-specific social media pages.
“You need to really connect with the locals in the market you’re trying to reach to make sure that the strategy you’re creating applies to their reality.” – Mário Costa, marketing and communications director at MANZ.
How to create great content that speaks to different audiences
As you can see, a lot goes into designing a successful global content marketing strategy. But you can successfully take your content global with the right team of professionals working for your brand. Working with an in-house global marketing manager or hiring a specialized agency is your best bet for not only putting together a solid content strategy, but also consistently implementing and adapting it.
Need help with your international content marketing strategy? Don’t hesitate to get in touch with our experienced content team at VeraContent. We offer multilingual content creation services and can help you develop a strategy that brings in business from all over the world.