Integrating translation management software (TMS) with CMS helps you go global – with swift content localization, faster time to value and reduced cost across your multi-channel content supply chain.

It’s no longer enough for your brand or organization to simply have a digital presence. The world of content has evolved from simple, information-driven websites toward having a multi-channel digital presence that is focused on engagement with customers, prospects, job candidates, partners and others you want to reach with your message.

Just as methods of engagement have evolved, so have customer expectations. Simply interacting is no longer enough. Customers today want exceptional digital experiences and they will gravitate toward brands that deliver them.

“It's rapidly becoming an old adage now that every interaction needs to be as simple as Amazon as intuitive as Facebook,” says Phil Morton , European Partner Account Manager for Crownpeak. “Brands can only deliver exceptional experiences by ensuring a razor-sharp focus on customer needs and optimizing their digital experiences to meet those needs, which is why localization is important.”

This was the central focus of our recent webinar with XTM International: How a Smart Approach to Content Management Can Help You Truly Go Global available now on demand.

Phil Morton was joined by Lauren Johnston , Partner Development Manager at XTM International and John Weisgerber , XTM Xpert and localization solutions specialist at XTM International, to explore exactly what is localization when it comes to omnichannel global experiences and how an integrated approach to content management and translation management are key to managing complexity and delivering lasting success.

Read on for our four key takeaways.

1. The holy grail: Creating brand evangelists with exceptional, customer-centric experiences

When you want to deliver customer-centric digital experiences that effectively reach global audiences, localization and personalization are key. And that means localizing and personalizing content across the entire digital landscape – from your websites to mobile apps and Internet of Things devices – to ensure that your content is delivered in the proper language and in a culturally-relevant way that is tailored to fit each customer in each local market.

Localization is about making your content feel natural in the local market, and personalization is what helps you really engage customers wherever they are.

That may seem at odds with maintaining your central brand standards and values, but it shouldn’t be. Maintaining a strong, consistent, globally recognizable brand is crucial. The most effective approach to localization maintains brand consistency and coherence while adding some exciting flavor that makes your content more enticing for the local market.

The most engaging digital experiences happen when your content feels natural to the audience. It helps people relate more personally to your message and you begin building a brand relationship. If your content lacks personalization and has poor translation – or no translation whatsoever – your message becomes disjointed and incoherent, and your potential customers won’t bother coming back.

When localization and personalization are done well, you do more than just interact. You create exceptional digital experiences that not only drive conversions, but build loyalty and actively work to turn customers into evangelists for your brand - gladly sharing your content and promoting your products to their friends and colleagues. That’s the Holy Grail of marketing.

2. Data is key to your content localization strategy

Gone are the old days of print publishing, where forward-thinking brands could only rely on polling, focus groups or just putting their messages out there and waiting to see how effective they were. Digital marketers today have a huge number of tools at their disposal – tools that provide unprecedented power to collect customer data and gather measurable feedback – in real-time – to see how marketing efforts are landing with customers. You can do AB testing for messaging, see which channel is generating the most click-throughs and which messages are leading to the most conversions. You can even get down into the nitty gritty of which marketing elements your most loyal and valued customers are interacting with the most.

This data is what empowers us to make smart decisions. And nowhere is this more important than in guiding your content localization strategy. We may feel like we understand our customers in our own language and culture, but no human being has the capacity to understand the nuance of customer needs, desires and quirks in dozens of other cultures as well.

That’s why data needs to underpin every decision you make from the very beginning, especially when you are considering embarking into foreign markets. The payoffs of going global are enormous, but the risks of doing it wrong are significant as well.

Gathering good data should always be a part of due diligence whenever you are contemplating moving into new international markets. You probably have years’ worth of content in one language, but customers in your new markets want this information too – only they want it localized for them. It’s not inexpensive to invest in quality translation, so you want to make sure you are getting the most from your investment. Data from your existing markets – like which content do your customers engage with most and what drives conversions – will help you understand which content to prioritize for translation and how much you should invest in localizing it.

3. TMS and the dynamic quality revolution

One of the major revolutions in the website localization services industry over the past decade has been recognition of what we call dynamic quality. At XTM International we’ve learned that “quality” means what the user wants it to mean. Not a box-ticking exercise that can be repeated from one project to the next, but a commitment to swiftly and reliably giving the user what they need, when they need it. Not every type of content will require premium human translation. You’ll certainly want it for your primo marketing content, but what about those terabytes of user-generated content, knowledgebase, and other information that has built up over the years? If you run a large e-commerce site, you probably have millions of products, each with its own custom name and description. Do you need top-of-the-line translation and review for all of those elements?

Unless you have unlimited time and budget, the simple answer is no. While your high-level marketing content will need to be not only accurate but also persuasive, other, less nuanced content will be fit for purpose with an initial machine translation and a light review by a human linguist.

Knowledgebase articles are the clearest examples. There’s a lot of information, and it’s valuable to your customers, but it’s probably not the front line of what’s driving sales for you. But it can still be an element of your customer experience – particularly in ensuring your customers are well supported with self-service content when it’s needed.

If you have a knowledgebase, you have probably built up a huge repository of content over time. Translating that manually into every language you want to localize for would be a huge, costly job. So you start by looking at the data – what are the touchpoints where you’ve had the most interaction with users? Using your data, decide which articles carry the most value and target those for a machine translation (to speed the process and reduce costs) followed by post- editing and improvement with an actual human translator where user demand justifies the additional cost.

The key is to harness data to intelligently drive your content localization strategy for the most effective and resource-efficient results.

A next-generation translation management system will offer you the option that’s most suitable for each individual project. By centralizing processes and language assets, and making them easily accessible to designated users, XTM Cloud enables you to customize workflows to suit your needs, and swiftly access translation memories and terminology for maximum benefit. By integrating seamlessly with best-in-class MT engines, XTM Cloud enables swift, accurate machine translation. By applying our proprietary technology, inter-language vector space, and using vast amounts of online data for reference, XTM Cloud calculates the probability of machine translation accuracy more reliably than any other language tool. And when the persuasive touch of a human linguist is needed, XTM Cloud offers game-changing tools including a user-focused visual mode that gives the translator an instant snapshot of their work and its impact. Changes the translator makes are instantly displayed in the target text preview, enabling informed language decisions and a more engaging message. Whatever degree of nuance and attention to detail the project calls for, XTM Cloud will help you meet that precise need.

Effective localization involves a lot more than translation, and that’s where a digital experience platform can make all the difference.

4. The right DXP is key to scaling your brand globally

A global, omnichannel marketing strategy allows you to meet your customers where they are – with the right message at the right time, anywhere, on any device, whether it’s desktop, mobile or internet of things (IoT) - think smart devices, digital signage, point-of-sale systems, smart refrigerators, etc. Just like human languages, all of these devices have their own file formats, content types and other requirements you need to take into consideration as well.

Supporting omnichannel localization in marketing, with multiple brands and multiple websites in multiple languages requires innovation, flexibility and focus.

Marketers are always in a full sprint, trying to keep up with ever-evolving audience expectations so they can deliver great experiences across every website and channel. When you’re going global you need to manage all of this while also ensuring that all that content is properly localized – and personalized and optimized – to drive those great experiences in every market.

In terms of personalization, you need to continuously monitor and measure success in real-time so you can quickly shape and adapt your messaging and content to your new markets and audiences. And you need to be able to test your messages in-market quickly in order to gather the kind of data that helps you foster a closer relationship with the customers in that market.

You also need digital quality management and optimization to ensure that you have good SEO and accessibility practices for every market. You’re working with a diverse set of audiences, so you need to be sure you are using inclusive terms and language that are culturally appropriate.

And you need to do all of this efficiently and cost effectively and in a way that actively and consistently reflects your organization’s brand values.

This is where having the right digital experience platform makes all the difference.

It would be incredibly complex and expensive to go out and buy point solutions to take care of each of these pieces. It would also require a big learning curve for users, a huge amount of integration and nightmarish maintenance. In an attempt to simplify, some organizations invest in large, monolithic platforms that promise to do it all. The problem with most of these is the lack of agility to address ever-changing customer and market needs. One size does not fit all, and monolithic systems mean you are paying for – and maintaining – a lot of functionality you may never use.

An enterprise-grade DXP, like Crownpeak, simplifies the entire process, enabling you to more effectively manage multiple content types across a vast array of different channels, formats and languages. But what makes Crownpeak different is its composable architecture. This gives marketers the ability to get just the best-of-breed functionality they need, while providing all the advantages of a single, integrated platform where everything works together seamlessly.

Localization of your websites and other marketing channels is a perfect scenario for the advantages of a composable digital experience platform.

With Crownpeak’s DXP, the SaaS-based, composable architecture enables seamless integration between XTM Cloud’s best-of-breed, cloud-based translation management system (TMS) and Crownpeak’s hybrid-headless CMS , which is designed to enable marketing teams to implement campaign globalization and localization with ease.

Crownpeak's composable architecture also incorporates onboard AI-based personalization and Digital Quality Management (DQM) to monitor your websites and ensure they are always compliant with local accessibility laws, SEO best practices, user expectations and your brand guidelines.

Together, these technologies work synergistically to deliver swift translation and effective localization into any language to ensure coherency and consistency of your brand message. You focus on creating great content, and the platform ensures that it is securely created, translated and shared in a matter of minutes – across multiple channels and languages.

The power and persuasiveness of a message can win trust and drive lasting success in all corners of the world. With everything onboard, integrated and aligned, marketing teams can dramatically reduce complexity and speed their path to success in globalization.

Ensuring exceptional experiences with Crownpeak + XTM

For organizations looking to engage in effective marketing at a global scale, you need a localization platform that enables you to create exceptional digital experiences that don’t get lost in translation. The strategic relationship between Crownpeak and XTM opens the door for global brands looking to create, manage and publish content across multiple channels, in multiple languages, in a fast and scalable way that inspires and empowers marketers while turning customers into local brand evangelists.

Want to learn more about how CMS with integrated TMS can drive success? Speak to an expert, today →