Carlos-barraza-logo-50

Localizing Content Marketing with NMT to Build Brand Awareness

Written by

Think with Google reported that 72% of online shoppers stated that they spend the majority of their time on websites that are in their native language. Due to this, if businesses want to enter a new market and widen their clientele, translating and localizing their content is one of the best ways to go about it. 

There has been a lot of emphasis by marketers on creating content to build brand loyalty. In an interview conducted by Marketing Insight, about 80% of marketers said they would focus more on this in the coming years. The problem is that English content is over-saturated even though it’s not the largest number of native speakers globally. 

 If you want to learn how a translation company uses neural machine translation or NMT to enhance its content localization, then keep on reading!

Localizing Content Marketing with NMT to Build Brand Awareness
Table of Contents

Why is Content Localization Important?

To discuss content localization, let’s first talk about what localization is all about. Localization focuses on the target culture and language rather than being “faithful” to the original content. Unlike translation, which prioritizes translating the source text word for word, localization looks deeper into its target audience’s culture, history, customs, tone, and preferences to make it marketable.

As for content localization, it’s like repurposing old content but which is not for the same audience but transforming it for another market. There are several reasons why this approach is more engaging to international users. 

For one, not everyone speaks English, and so you’re missing out on the market by not localizing your content, which makes it more relatable to target users by engaging content that’s in their mother tongue and cultural preferences. This, in turn, increases trust and establishes a deeper connection with your international users.

If people don’t understand the content you created, you cannot form any trust with your users. This is why you should localize content, as it makes it easier for non-English speakers to communicate with your users and build brand awareness and loyalty. 

Finally, there have been countless research papers on the effect of language on consumer behavior. As one study reported, “it is not just what is said that matters, but also how it is said.” The cultural and linguistic nuances play a major role in how users will perceive a brand, which varies from country to country. Due to this, it is in the best interest of businesses wishing to personalize content for an international audience to research their users and localize to their preferences.

The Problems of Localizing Content and Branding in Another Market

Young professional team discussing business plan in the office

Now, like with regular content creation, there are some issues you will face when it comes to localizing content and building your brand internationally. We have listed below some common problems you will be facing:

  • Lack of Knowledge of Your Target Market - This is usually where many people, even long-time marketers, find it daunting when exploring a new market. However, like with all things, you can learn and master anything, but it will take time as you need to conduct extensive research. If you're looking to get started right away in entering your target country, you can work with experts on your target market.
  • Identifying Proper Tone and Linguistic Preference - The language of your target customers consists of their mother tongue and the manner or tone they talk. Because some cultures are more formal in their marketing approach while others are more casual, how you communicate with them is vital. By researching your online customers, you can better understand how to communicate with them effectively.
  • Cultural Barriers - Despite what many think in our globalized economy, we don't have a homogeneous culture. Each market has customs and cultural practices that are uniquely theirs, which should be respected and celebrated. Many international marketing campaigns have failed because of cultural barriers and misunderstandings of the cultural aspects of their target market.
  • Balancing Consistency with Local Preference in Your Designs - When it comes to content localization, many marketers and international companies run the issue of what parts of their business and branding they should retain and what parts should change for their users. You want to retain brand consistency in your designs and in the image you present your business internationally to strengthen public recognition while making it still relatable to your target audience. It all comes down to finding a balance between both brand identity and localization.
  • Fast Delivery Without Compromising Quality - Another issue in content localization is generating content for your target audience while not lowering its quality. Because even though you're churning up content for your target users, if you're creating poor content, then it would be useless.
  • Can Be a Bit Pricey - Localization can cost a lot of money. However, you should see it as a long-term investment. Establishing your brand abroad will take time, but the fact you're starting now rather than tomorrow gives you an advantage compared to your current competitors. The latter likely haven't thought of expanding into another market.
  • Mistakes in Translation and the Finer Details - With how fast information can spread due to the internet, you have to ensure that all aspects of your localized content have no errors. When translating and localizing content, if you're not a native speaker of the language, hire translators specializing in content localization and marketing for your target users and incorporate machine translation into your content creation to assist your translators.

Don’t be discouraged by the challenges mentioned above because marketing campaigns don’t happen overnight. It’s a process. Take your time researching and learning all you can about your target market. 

Later, we will discuss how machine translation, particularly Neural Machine Translation (NMT), can create multilingual content quickly and more accurately than other forms of machine translation.

How Tomedes Applied NMT to Achieve Brand Consistency for Content

We interviewed Rachelle Garcia, the Localization Manager of Tomedes, a translation company that provides content localization to thousands of businesses and Fortune 500 companies, and they have published an in-depth article on Neural Machine Translation, which offers insight on the history and development of MT and NMT. 

Garcia explained that localization of content, to an extent, still involves translation in the initial phase. Compared to other types of machine translation engines, NMTs are different due to their end-to-end machine learning program, meaning the more data it gathers from previous translations, the more it improves. 

NMTs are used for a wide range of uses but are primarily used in business because of the way it stores data. Unlike Statistical Machine Translation models, it requires less memory to operate, which makes it more cost-effective and versatile. 

“NMT is an excellent technique to use if you’re planning to localize you’re content while maintaining consistency. Because each time you translate your marketing content, its program stores that information,” Garcia explained.

She continued, “So, for example, you have a slogan you want to promote to your target market by using NMT, every time you’re translating your slogan across different content, the program will take note of it from previous translations, making the content localization process quicker.”

She stated that when they’re localizing content with NMT, their native translators manages these project by editing the translated text to ensure that the transformed content is in line with the request of business owners and follows the preference of their target market. 

“NMT has come a long way since its creation, but it still has flaws. Over the years, we found that merging advanced technology from MT with the marketing expertise of native translators is the best formula in ensuring that your content localization is successful,” Garcia advised.

Limitations and Potential of NMT in the Global Content Marketing Scene

Since we mentioned that NMT has flaws, we enumerated some of its limitations below.

  • Unable to Discern Inaccurate Data - The BBC reported that once you train NMT in a certain language. It can comb through thousands of data, trying to find and translate significant research through search engines. But when NMT summarizes the process, it hallucinates, which means it gathers the data from these search engines, but they're not always accurate information. It can be simple as a different date or a false chain of events.
  • The Length of Sentence Structure Can Affect Its Fluency - It's been noted that long sentences result in poorer quality of translation. This is problematic if you're creating long-form content, like white papers and articles.
  • Lack of Creativity: NMTs are just programmed to translate texts depending on their algorithms' experience with the target language. If you're localizing, you will need human translators and their expertise. Since SEO will be a major factor in distributing your content to your target users, simply word-for-word translation won't be enough when implementing multilingual SEO.

As for its potential, NMTs are quicker and more intuitive when translating content. The fact that it’s trainable and adjustable makes it the perfect tool for localizing a wide range of content.

It’s scalable, allowing you to increase the amount of content you’re creating for your target market. Due to this, professional translation companies have begun offering their NMT services to most industries. 

Final Thoughts

Machine Translations have gotten a bad reputation. But like with any new technology, there’s always push back against adapting them in various industries and our daily lives. 

As of now, the tech-driven translation company is one of the few companies that have begun to primarily uses NMT in their projects. In the coming years, international marketing experts will be treating NMTs as any other digital tool to increase their productivity and improve the quality of content marketing.  

More about Content Creation