Localizing Marketing Materials: Do’s and Don’ts

Marketing materials need a tailor-made approach. They cannot be handled like technical or other types of documents because they are strategically developed to get your target audience engaged and to get them to know, like and trust your brand and they need to reflect these qualities across the localized versions.

Ideally, the same amount of effort that was put in the production of marketing materials should be put in localization to each and every market to ensure that your new audiences have the same connection they have with your local brand.

Where can LSPs help me localize my marketing materials?

Chances are you’re not able to have an in-house team of translators for all of the countries and languages you’re doing business in, so getting a good LSP on board is going to be your key to success. As marketing documents shouldn’t be translated literally, you’ll need to make sure that your LSP has plenty of creative translators to hand.

Also, only working with native speakers is a must so that they know how to make sure your marketing texts are culturally suitable. They’ll also have to be experienced in dealing with marketing content, and translating things like CTAs, headings, forms etc.

I have in-country company resources. Can they be involved in the translation process too?

The answer to that is a resounding yes, the more you can get them involved, the better.

They will have a good insight and deep knowledge of your products or service and can help the translator achieve the desired flow, clarity and vividness of the localized versions. That’s why it’s so important that they check the translations after they’ve been done.

They’ll be able to give that all important feedback to the translators, and of course let you know if there are any serious issues with the translation if you can’t speak the language yourself.

How can my LSP be sure that they convey the full meaning of my brand?

In order to get results, you’ll have to work with your LSP.

To make things easier, we’d recommend teaming up and creating a glossary and terminology base so that the translator knows exactly what to translate and how. You could also create a style guide for linguists so that the translator knows which tone you’d like them to use.

At any rate, close cooperation between all stakeholders (content producers, marketing managers, linguists etc) is a winning formula for localization of marketing materials.