We’ve all heard it before: Content is king. But how are you getting the most out of your content? A big part of what makes content “good” is context – where is the content showing up and who is reading it? Did the audience discover the content on their own, or did the content find them? In other words, localization of content is incredibly important. Local sales channels need to be able to utilize messaging that’s directed toward their audience, not be stuck with a one-size-fits-all approach.
Localized marketing is particularly difficult for organizations that operate on a national level. Developing localized content takes more time and resources than may be available, putting greater strain on the marketing team. In addition, localization presents other challenges to national brands, such as brand control and consistency, and compliance issues from both a corporate and a legal standpoint.
Marketing process optimization
Technology, however, is helping businesses meet these challenges head-on by offering process automation at various levels of the content lifespan, all driven by a need and demand for localization. There are two major processes where automation is having a big impact in improving the efficiency of localized marketing: content creation and approval, and content distribution and approval.
Within the creative content production process, automation of the design and review process can ensure brand and regulatory standards are appropriately addressed. Even more impactful, local marketing automation allows representatives at the local level to customize communications with pre-approved (from the production process) messaging and content that they feel is best suited for their target audience. Further customized communication can then be rerouted for approval by a manager before it is finally sent out.
Top-to-bottom analytics
These process automations, make it simple to gather metrics from local markets and analyze the data from a corporate perspective. Since the end-to-end process is being done in the framework of a system, everything can be tracked, from hours logged on a project to email open rates of the final product. The data gathered can drive further optimization of the processes themselves, as well as allow for message refinement and improved targeting. All of this plays into a company’s ability to more accurately predict and calculate ROI. So from a national perspective, an organization can really segment its results locally down to the smallest of scales.
Localized Marketing Simplified
The prospect of whittling down your brand’s overall national message to be viable and resonant on a local level can be intimidating with no automation or support in place. But remember, technology is evolving every day to meet the demands of marketers and local sales channels. Local marketing automation not only helps you deliver meaningful messaging more efficiently, but ensures brand consistency and provides valuable metrics to help you refine and reform your sales and marketing strategies.
