Senior marketing execs want to know: How can I achieve influence and credibility in the boardroom?

When the media intelligence experts at Meltwater approached Cloudwords to address this question, we were thrilled to partner with them to collaborate and share insights about how marketing execs are increasingly influencing the C-Suite, particularly when it comes to expanding a company’s brand overseas. On Wednesday, April 13, at 11am PDT, our global sales and marketing VP, Richard Harpham, will present a webinar with Meltwater, titled, Think Like the C-Suite: Expand the Role of Marketing.

When it comes to trending topics in the tech world, “big data” might win again this year, but I think “cloud computing” has to be a pretty close second. While cloud-based platforms and services are relatively new, the advantages and benefits they provide have long been established as core business values: increased productivity, lower costs, and improved time to market.

It’s no surprise that content marketing as a process for both B2B and B2C marketers to produce and publish information to influence buyers, generate leads and increase sales has significantly grown as its own category of marketing. A key element to successful content marketing is high frequency digital content -- blogs, emails, landing pages, infographics, eBooks, and more, that is created and delivered regularly to keep content fresh and audiences engaged. And, of course, marketing automation software makes it all possible. However, the same technology that has made content marketing proliferation possible, has also made global content marketing go from hard to impossible.

"By 2115, it’s possible that only about 600 languages will be left on the planet as opposed to today’s 6,000,” according to an article in the Wall Street Journal by Columbia University linguistics teacher, Dr. John McWhorter. While many acknowledge that the de facto language for global communication—business or otherwise—is English, it’s undeniable that the seven billion people in the world speak a language other than English in their everyday lives. (In fact, while English is the third most widely spoken language, it’s only the native language for about 5% of the world’s population, and only about 30% of the world’s population speaks English with some degree of competency.)

Guest Post by Leslie Alore, Head of Global Marketing Operations & Automation at Iron Mountain

Modern marketers from across the globe attended Oracle’s Modern Marketing Experience Europe event in London last week to discuss best practices and learn new marketing strategies from peers and experts alike. As head of global marketing operations and automation at Iron Mountain, I was honored to have the opportunity to present and share how our company leverages Oracle Eloqua and Cloudwords to create and deliver global campaigns at scale.

As a good marketer in the digital age, you probably know how to find the right partner for a lot of your needs, from programmers to event planners. Chances are you have less confidence about how to do the same for a key aspect of your global content marketing campaign: Finding and engaging a great translator.

As you have certainly seen from infamous global advertising translations gone wrong, messaging that is incorrect as a result of poor translation or localization can undermine the entire investment you’ve made in the content and the campaign, not to mention your brand’s valuable reputation.

Investing in a global marketing strategy can be a major undertaking, both in terms of actual costs (localization of campaign assets) and productivity costs (employee time), but the return on investment can be exponential when it comes to opportunities for increased revenue and market share. However, getting globalization right is critical, because now more than ever, global marketers are on the frontlines of revenue growth and need to consider the impact on sales their campaigns generate.

Whether your company sells software or fleece hoodies, there is a core set of questions we need to ask to drive product creation and development.

I recently arrived at this conclusion following a surf trip near Puerto Nuevo, Mexico – if you surf, or have ever tried, you may feel as I do that the sport is one of the most challenging, but most rewarding activities you’ll try. During my latest trip, I had a scary experience involving currents trying to take me out to the ocean combined with an untimely calf cramp. When I finally made it to shore, I was relieved but also euphoric, and as a result felt emboldened to completely dive deeper into the sport. Based on a friend’s recommendation, I bought a book called “Let My People Go Surfing” written by Yvon Chouinard, the founder and owner of leading outdoor adventure gear company, Patagonia.