“Cloudwords helps us think of globalization as a process that starts at the beginning of marketing content creation. This global thinking saves the company time and money in the end.” - Bernadette Javier, Web Marketing Manager at Palo Alto Networks 

With an ever-growing global customer base, the Palo Alto Networks marketing team recognized a need for a more efficient, cost-effective localization process to better serve its multilingual audiences. One of the fastest growing security companies in the market, Palo Alto Networks initially selected Cloudwords to help them build localized websites for target regions. The company especially liked the Cloudwords platform because they were able to continue to use their existing translation service provider without disrupting their overall localization process, but are also able to identify new vendors that matched new content and language needs.

As CEO of a SaaS company that intersects both the marketing technology and translation space, I have the unique opportunity to have conversations with both partners—martech leaders like Salesforce, Marketo, Oracle—and global customers like CA Technologies, Sherwin Williams, and Qualtrics about their global sales and marketing strategies. Our discussions often focus on the state of global marketing tools and tactics and how marketers can ‘do global better.’ As such, I thought I’d share my insights and perspectives on where I see marketing and localization trends going in 2016.

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.

As a marketer tasked with expanding to new markets, it might seem like you’ll need to spend a lot of new resources and talent to build your global content operation. But it ain’t necessarily so.

I very rarely hear people refer to the “World Wide Web” anymore. In the ‘90s we were obsessed with sites like Yahoo, the burgeoning idea of e-commerce, and “going online” to use AOL to email friends in faraway places. The Internet is truly worldwide and has connected—and greatly impacted—countries and economies in multiple ways, from access to information to entire businesses built purely online.