We’ve written a lot on international marketing before and personalizing web content for various audiences, but let’s look into the specifics. Exactly how can you make different content for different markets?
When it comes to personalization there are lots of things you can do. These include:
- Local domain addresses
- Local currencies
- Smart content
- Customer service adjustments
- SEO adjustments
Local Domains
It’s easy enough to buy local domains from domain providers – whether this is .fr .de .ca or .com – and this will help you set create websites that are personalized to the country the domain rests in and trusted by local users. Think of the major online retailer Amazon. They are a global conglomerate but their different domains are relatively separate, requiring you to make new user logins for each variation but ensuring they can provide highly specific content and digital media. Not all Amazon primes are created equally, and that’s deliberate. On top of this, the sites use IP address to make sure that the right people are logging onto the right sites and getting the right service.
Remember that when you have more than one domain, in order to customize each for different audiences, you’re creating duplicate databases that are separate unless you redirect pages. Change one and the other will not reflect this change unless you link the two together. This is great for localized deals but does mean you’ll need to generate twice as much content. There’s no point not personalizing some of the content if you have two localized domains so you have to commit to this.
Smart Content
As a Hubspot Partner Agency, we can’t speak highly enough of this feature in Hubspot but there are other options for this in various CMS. Smart content allows you to speak directly to your audiences across the globe depending on what criteria they meet. For our clients at Cayman Enterprise City we’ve made smart content dependent on IP address and were recently nominated for an award for this. Their localized content allowed them to speak to different audiences, each who are seeking different things, while maintaining a consistent brand. This smart content is done based on IP address.
Timely Customer Service
Live chat increases conversion by at least 45% so making sure your chat content is available at reasonable times in your potential customers’ regions is very important. If you don’t have the resources to be in the office all the time, there’s loads of smart ways you can manage this. For example, there are some plugins that will message you in slack when a customer needs your attention. With the release of the Facebook messenger plugin for websites (currently in a closed beta) soon you can make sure customers will be able to talk directly to you using their Facebook login to give you information, and payments. When customers leave your site they’ll still be able to see your conversation in their Facebook messenger app. This plugin will be especially great if you have a large Facebook audience as it means you don’t need to maintain two chat services with your customers.
Imagery
We’ve spoken about this before, tailoring imagery is important for different markets. You can create smart content based on location that will change imagery dependent on location, using smart content. Images play a vital role in messaging and branding, so switching this up based on your markets is a great idea.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Think of SEO in different languages. Fluency in language is best here – it’s not enough to simply google translate phrases you know work well in your language. Use Keyword Planner and other tools to search for related phrases and check out monthly searches. As of 2017, 36% of consumers would rather stay at home and shop with Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home, so it’s worth considering looking into optimizing your sites for voice searches too.
Translation
Translating content is very important, using a native speaker even more so if you want to make sure your content rings true. Here are a few particular things to pay attention to while translating content.
- Think about different units of measure
- List products in local currencies
- Observe date formatting differences
- Take note of culturally rooted dates and identities
As a proud Magento Business Solution Partner and HubSpot Partner Agency we specialize in creating content for websites that appeal to your specific markets. You can read more about our work with California Closets here.
