Digital interactivity turns global brands into local communities. It gives local ideas instant global scope without eliminating local-market differences. Brands and companies that ignore this can miss important opportunities. Evidence shows that the better a brand understands its customers’ local cultural-triggers, the more likely it will be able to profit from digital marketing’s unique cross-marketing potential.

Large and small errors in the translation of marketing materials (brochures, ad campaigns, websites, and so on) occur every day as companies make the move into the global marketplace and promote their products and services in local languages. How can an organization ensure that its translated campaign carries the effect of the original? How can they avoid the enormous cost of having to launch a new marketing campaign in each local market?

The answer is “transcreation” — the process of linguistic and cultural translation that helps companies avoid potential problems from the very beginning. It is a method of naming products and working with catchphrases and idioms across multiple language-markets while also maintaining brand and message consistency.

Here are five steps to take a marketing campaign to a global audience:

1. Assess the campaign and its content. Evaluating the goals of the campaign is essential. If the marketing is already active in a market, take a close look at the concepts, graphics, and headlines to assess their cultural relevance and appropriateness. When starting out, try to select concepts, copy, and graphic elements that will work evenly across cultures. For example, avoid symbols — such as a red star — that carry deep political meaning in some parts of the world.

2. Build a qualified translation and localization team. Select a group that has a rich understanding of both the source and target languages as well as expertise in areas including marketing, copywriting, sales, customer service, graphic design, and business development. Good transcreation takes time and effort, so allocate adequate resources including demographic studies and market tests. Conducting due diligence is a given.

3. Create a transcreation brief. This document should include fundamental information about the company, product, and campaign to ensure that all teams understand the nuances of the language and local and business needs. It should specify the target audience (age, lifestyle, and behavior) as well as the thought process that has gone into producing the original text. The brief should also explain how to approach certain elements such as branded terms that must remain in English or have particular translations, taglines, and images.

4. Hand over to translation/localization agency. Once the transcreation brief is finalized, the organization can now send the document and associated materials to its agency. This translation/localization agency will create the actual content that needs to be localized. Make sure to communicate the thought process behind the original creative and what concerns there might be about any of the target markets.

5. Transcreate. The agency will start with the translations, closely following the original text. The translation is then refined and edited to make sure it sounds as if it had been written for the target market (but within the parameters and objectives of the campaign).

The transcreation process involves various items, mainly images and text as well as logos, slogans, brand/product names, and taglines. In some cases, not all of the meanings contained in a sentence can be carried over to the target language. A wordplay just does not work often in a different language, and a translator has to choose whether to stick to the meaning (at the expense of style) or develop the concept that best adapts to the structure and use of the target language (at the risk of losing some of the meaning). The agency will work with the company (and, if appropriate, its overseas team) to look at the choices and narrow down the options, taking into consideration the campaign visuals and supplementary text.

The most-effective way to create a localized marketing campaign is simply to recognize the intricacies involved in the process and have the patience to do it right from the beginning. When moving their products and services into new market, businesses cannot afford to underestimate the importance of people’s sensitivity to their language and culture. Having a global creative process that includes transcreation, not just translation, will save many rewrites — and headaches — down the road.

(1)The Bottom Line

Until an business reaches a certain level of critical mass, with sales exceeding several million dollars, most enterprises do not require the full-time efforts of a six-figure CFO with many years of corporate or consulting experience, though having the guidance of such a person is an invaluable resource to business owners and CEO’s.  Generally, this type of consulting expertise can be purchased at rates ranging from several hundred dollars per month to hourly rates nearing two hundred dollars.  In any event, a part time arrangement with a CFO expert will save you many thousands of dollars over the course of a year when compared to the cost of a full-time executive.  In the end, this will leave you with more cash for sales generating activities, and yourself.

(2)Hard Earned Experience

It sounds cliché, but there is truly no substitute for experience.  It’s hard to build a house if you’ve never built one before.  Likewise, it’s hard to build a sturdy and flexible financial framework if this is not your area of interest or expertise.  If you only own an old saw and a hammer, its best to leave those things on the shelf, focusing instead on the tasks you perform well.

Engaging a highly experienced financial consultant early in the life of an enterprise will greatly increase your ability to set the stage for later success, and help you present well to bankers, potential investors, and others in the business community.  In short, an experienced part time CFO can help you structure scalable financial reporting systems, raise capital, monitor your business trends, and in general, help you see around the next corner.

(3)Partner for Rent

It’s lonely at the top, and it can certainly be lonely for a small business owner that has no sounding board, generating ideas and plans without the input of groups or partners present in larger organizations.  In fact, because of their varied experiences, part time CFO’s are often able to offer valuable advice on a wide variety of topics including information systems, human resources, benefits, and general management topics.  In short, a part time CFO offers the dual benefits of a “partner” and an outsider, viewing your business objectively from a new prospective.   

Article provided to MyTechHub.com by FindCFOServices.com.  FindCFOServices is the nation’s largest on-line independent directory of CFO Services in the United States.  With hundreds of consultant listings from California to Maine, it’s easy to locate a part time CFO for your business.  Click http://www.FindCFOServices.com to find a consultant today.