If you’re looking to go global with your brand, localising your website to include the languages of key target markets goes without saying. Ensuring your website is fully optimised in a variety of languages increases accessibility and improves the all-around user experience for anyone who visits your website, putting your customers at the heart of your brand. This should, of course, be coupled with a global marketing strategy that accounts for local nuances.
With the concept of brand loyalty not quite as reliable as it used to be, now more than ever is the time begin enhancing your customer experience for both on a local and global scale.
UNDERSTAND CULTURAL NUANCES
Growing a global customer base means considering local attitudes and cultural nuances. Poorly executed localisation and marketing campaigns can severely damage your company’s reputation overseas, and sever any trust or rapport built up within this market. Dolce & Gabbana’s cultural misstep last year is the perfect example of how not to do a local campaign in China.
To avoid such blunders, ensuring you understand cultural nuances is key. A solid quality assurance process is crucial, not only to ensure quality localisation and translation, but also to cross-check international marketing plans respect and acknowledge cultural sensitivities. It is always better to do so with a market specialist or native of said market to make sure the message you want to get across doesn’t get lost or misinterpreted.
WORK WITH LOCAL INFLUENCERS
When it comes to retail and fashion brands, consider approaching local influencers to create unique content with a wider reach. Particularly in the lead up to big events such as fashion week and product showcases, teaming up with micro-influencers and bloggers can be a great way to provide a fresh angle and promote more exclusive and deep-dive content. Working with influencers can be especially beneficial when attempting to target more niche clientele and specific demographics, and can substantially boost customer engagement across different social channels.
Influencers are particularly crucial in modern day marketing as customer habits and trends change so rapidly. 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations, whilst only 33% trust traditional adverts, and up to 60% of people will consult blogs, forums, youtube and social media content before purchasing a product. Consumers value authenticity and relatability, and approaching micro-influencers to endorse your products and/or services is an effective way of achieving this. Do your research beforehand to determine which influencer/s would be the best fit for your brand by assessing their content and demographic reach for a more natural and seamless collaboration. Influencer marketing is capable of generating 11 times the ROI of traditional advertising, so consider it a savvy investment.
Also, when it comes to marketing content across social channels, review your target market and audience to decide which platform would be the most appropriate. For Russia, it might be Vkontakte, a platform which reportedly boasts 8.1 million monthly active mobile users. For China, it might be WeChat or Weibo, with WeChat seeing 1.08 billion users in 2018. Meanwhile, Weibo is expected to reach an impressive 418.1 million users by 2021.
GET FESTIVE
Research local commercial festivities and create an event marketing calendar to stay abreast of opportunities that could be relevant to your business. For example, in Japan, the biggest sale in retail occurs on New Year’s Day and includes a unique sales tradition known as ‘Lucky Bags’. No longer exclusive to the American market Black Friday and Cyber Monday events have spread like wildfire across Europe in different forms. In 2018, both days combined generated 13.92 billion dollars in the US alone. Though impressive, this figure pales in comparison to China’s ‘Singles’ Day’, a holiday that appeals to ‘Treat Yourself’ culture by encouraging singletons and those in relationships alike to indulge in a little retail therapy. In 2018, an incredible 30.8 billion was pulled in for this e-commerce event.
Done well, getting on board with such events can result in major pay-off for your brand, and build trust and awareness of your brand within the targeted markets.
GET ON YOUR CUSTOMERS’ LEVEL
When creating and localising content for your target market, think about how said content can add value to your business by being shareable and to the customer by being shareable, providing knowledge to the reader, and demonstrates authority and expertise on the product or service being offered to nurture a relationship of trust. Contact us today to learn more about how Locaria can help you localise your website and streamline your international social media strategy.
