Multilingual Marketing Content: Growing International Business with Global Content Value Chains

Authors: Mary Laplante, Vice President & Lead Analyst; Karl Kadie, Affiliate Analyst; Vince Emery, Affiliate Analyst

Today’s marketing and brand management groups are on the front lines of business mandates to grow international revenue, increase worldwide market share, and strengthen the impact of global brands. Businesses reaching for such goals face unprecedented pressures. This detailed report describes proven, real-world approaches to increasing the value of content as a key component of strategic brand management and marketing communications, citing examples of how industry leaders have succeeded and failed. To our knowledge, it’s the first study ever to focus specifically on managing multilingual marketing content.

This report gives brand and marketing managers, business executives, content strategists, and language professionals new insight into:

- How to improve their global content operations;
- How to determine which investments generate new competitive advantage;
- How to bring their practices in line with larger business goals.

Open table of contents

Research Sponsors
Why This Topic?
Research Highlights
Three Business Forces That Drive Multilingual Marketing

External Business Trends
The Desire for Consistent Customer Experience
The Shift to Digital

The Current State of Multilingual Marketing

Marketing Priorities
Fractured Marketing Functions within Enterprises
Challenges from Marketing Content Itself
Marketing Content Technologies Are Evolving
Current Technologies

Multilingual Marketing Content: No Best Practices

Defining “Best Practices”
Introducing Global Content Value Chains
Content Value Chains for Global Marketing
Identifying Best Targets for Fast Improvements
Working with Service Providers and Partners
Leveraging Metrics and Results
Managing the Executives

Essential Actions for Global Marketing and Localization Managers

Adopt a Global Content Value Chain Strategy
Develop Global Content Strategists
Leverage the Wedge

Conclusion: Maturing the Global Content Value Chain for Marketing
Related Research
Methodology
Sponsor Acknowledgement

Tables & Figures

Figure 1. Most Commonly Cited Business Drivers for Multilingual Marketing
Figure 2. Relative Importance of Multilingual Marketing Initiatives
Figure 3. A Global Content Value Chain Impacts Business Results
Figure 4. The Infrastructure for Multilingual Marketing
Figure 5. Components of a Global Content Value Chain
Table 1. Global Content Value Chain Functions
Table 2. Global Content Value Chain Competencies
Table 3. Values of Multilingual Marketing Content
Figure 6. Multiple Creation Sources, But Only One Gets Localized
Figure 7. Incomplete Global Content Competencies
Figure 8. The Black Box and the Black Hole
Figure 9. Multiple Unconnected Marketing Operations
Figure 10. The Sweet Spot Is Where Product and Marketing Content Overlap
Table 4. Sample Communications Goals and Efficiency Goals for Multilingual Marketing
Figure 11. A Value Chain Diagram Is a Tool for Improving Multilingual Marketing
Figure 12. Map Content Globalization Practices to Global Business Strategy
Figure 13. Job Roles of Marketing Content Respondents
Figure 14. Number of Languages Used by Respondents for Marketing