The COVID-19 pandemic has forcefully encouraged more businesses to start operating within the online marketplace. We’ve also seen how most companies, along with their employees, have embraced the concept of remote work. 

In addition, customer expectations of brands are shifting, particularly in the way the two engage with one another. These new behaviours, and more, have caused the digital marketing landscape to evolve in a more humanized way. 

To give you an edge over your competitors, we’ve created a three-part series identifying  some of the top global digital marketing trends taking place in this evolved landscape. Brands who evolve with it will come out of the pandemic that has changed everything, stronger. 

The Future is Glocal

With more and more information flowing freely from one part of the globe to another, the world continues to feel smaller and smaller. Marketers need to tailor their content to the requirements of international audiences, but not without taking their local audiences into account. 

One thing brands should be weary of is that the rise of globalization doesn’t result in a fall of quality content. It’s not simply a matter of running North American content through Google Translate and calling it a day. Glocal brands – global and local – are climbing the ladder of success because they’re meeting their customers’ needs, wherever they are.

Adapting content to both, a local and global audience, has become the need of the hour. Hence, digital marketers are valuing the translation and localization industry like never before. Better yet, the growth and innovation taking place within this industry in recent years (such as AI-driven machine translation) makes for faster, better quality content adaptation. 

Here are a few future trends you should keep an eye out for:

1. The rise of machine translation

Machine translation breaks barriers with every passing day. Neural Machine Translation (NMT) engines are now being developed to copy the way human minds learn. This way, machines gain more knowledge over time, and seek to apply that knowledge while translating a piece of content. 

In fact, NMTs even try to understand the context of what’s being translated, so they can properly predict the correct words to be used. 

Of course, this doesn’t mean human translation editors are no longer needed – the demand for these editors has actually increased. You’ll still require human editors to ensure the quality, accuracy and finesse of translations by machines. 

2. Multilingual podcasts

For big brands looking  to tap into the global podcasting market, now’s the time. 

The first step is considering foreign-speaking audiences for your podcast. Translating podcast episodes makes content accessible to millions of listeners in countries like India and South Africa, where podcasting and podcast listening have started to ramp up. 

For example, iHeartMedia, plans to translate its podcast “Stuff You Should Know” into Hindi, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and other languages.

3. Don’t just translate. Transcreate.

While translation entails adaption from one language to another, transcreation involves adapting or maintaining the style, tone, theme, and intent of the content to adhere to a specific market. 

In short, the purpose of transcreation is to make you feel like the content was created in the target language.

You’ll know your global marketing strategy has become locally important when your brand content receives the same emotional response from your customers in the target language as it did in the source language.

4. Video content for every audience

It’s no question that video remains the most popular and effective medium to reach desired audiences. This fact was made even more apparent since we’ve all been in lockdown. Facebook videos now get around 4-8 billion views per day, according to Sprout Social. 

Marketers who not only create video content, but create video content tailored to their vast audiences, are the ones who will connect most. Consider translating already-existing video content, and as you create new content, arrange localized voice-overs. Think about details like music and script verbiage that would be most relevant to your audiences. 

5. Offering localized support 

Localizing your product or service offering and your brand experience is the first step toward providing language accessibility. But to hit a home run, focus on localized support. Building brand loyalty via existing customers is just as vital as attracting new ones. 

We’re already seeing the emergence of translated help centers, multi-language customer service departments, and multilingual chatbots.

6. Voice search localization

Voice-based services continue to grow in demand. As most voice searches tend to be location-specific, brands need to focus on optimizing their content for voice search in various markets. Then you’ll really be speaking their language.  

Be thoughtful and user-centric, and you’ll make the grade not only in the localization industry, but also in terms of SEO – as you’ll come to know from the next part in our digital marketing trends series.