On the eve of the 8^th year, May 25^th, since starting Cloudwords, I found myself reflecting on the some of the ideas that have helped guide the company since its inception. In short, Cloudwords is in the strongest position the company has ever been – financially, strategically and poised for growth. This is great news for our customers, partners and investors.

How much does your organization spend on localization? Does your estimate include your regional websites, product and sales materials, and all your global marketing efforts company-wide?

If you don’t know, or can take a guess but are unsure, you’re not alone. Localization of global marketing content is often a highly decentralized process within organizations, creating inefficiencies in both time and money spent on the globalization of marketing programs.

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.

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.

Your company is expanding and you will soon be a proud global presence. You’re getting ready to sing your song to the world: you’ve researched global markets, chosen territories that are likeliest to increase revenue, and all of your materials have been translated perfectly.

Time to press play?

Not so fast: translation is only one part of this tune.

It’s easy to understand the value of marketing to your global customers in their preferred language – we know that they are 34% more likely to respond, and then there is the brand halo of even trying. It’s obviously the most effective way for your message to be heard or seen and generate a return on your investment in a global operation.

It’s just as easy to forget the enormous value of doing the same thing for your domestic customers in the US. In a nation that is now “majority minority,” smart marketers are “thinking glocal” about the customer across the street. In fact, over 60 million Americans speak a language other than English at home, and most consider that a conservative estimate.