Some marketers, particularly those working for smaller companies, will begin and end their career marketing to an international/global audience, without ever narrowing their focus to one or a select few regions. Others begin on a local level. At MarketingMoves we often see marketers making the transition from managing one or a small number of local regions to taking on international or global marketing responsibility. Naturally with a wider international remit marketers face a host of new marketing challenges, but take with them invaluable experience from their time in local marketing. This is especially true if the new role itself involves managing other local marketing managers.
As an international marketing manager, say for a region like EMEA, the balancing act between maintaining global brand consistency and adapting to multiple local market demands intensifies. This can be particularly difficult when working within limited marketing budgets, where greater consolidation can seem like the more cost effective option. Here are our 5 top tips for getting this right:
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Build and maintain strong internal relationships
This will be fundamental to your success. Ensure that you build a strong, positive relationship with both global marketing and local in-market teams and maintain frequent communication. Wider company priorities, goals and messaging need to be discussed and translated to a local level. It’s also very useful to share successes from other regions to establish best practice. If you ensure you are well-connected to local team members – in both marketing and sales – and can present yourself as being open to hearing new ideas and comments, you’ll be able to find out more key insights. These might be different customer challenges, brand/product perception, popular communication channels or the kind of content that resonates in each market. Such information could make the difference when it comes to achieving campaign success.
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Determine whether budget is to be allocated globally or locally
To invest the budget in the most effective way, make sure you understand how the budget is usually allocated and how much you can influence this – do you only manage local budgets or can you also allocate resource creation to the global budget? We often hear that the cost of asset creation can be managed centrally, whereas the campaign execution belongs to the local budget.
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Get the timing right and synchronise
Collaborate with managers to ensure you’ve left sufficient time and have sufficient resources for transcreation and campaign roll-out in region. This is particularly true if the campaign is to be synchronised across all countries.
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Identify cultural differences – and localise your marketing
You’ll be working with more regions, some of which you’ll be less familiar with. Make sure you make yourself aware of the local landscape, cultural sensitivities, the needs and characteristics of the local target audiences. Key messages may need to be refined for each region – transcreated, not just translated. This goes beyond text content, to encompass design elements and channel choices. For example, Northern European countries can react better to minimalist web design, where there is a preference in other parts of Europe for more interactive, colourful web pages.
If you have marketing team members in region, make sure you give them every opportunity to discuss regional differences and make suggestions for tailoring the campaign. In B2B Technology, remember that cultural differences can strongly influence workplace values and business communication. This will also be important for collaborating with, or managing, your own colleagues in different countries. Hofstede’s Five Dimensions of Culture is an interesting means of examining this, if you’re looking for further reading.
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But don’t create more work than you need to.
Not all assets need to be localised. Customer facing assets may need to be adapted for different regions, but internal assets, such as sales enablement materials, can often stay centralised. Likewise, some campaigns lend themselves to being centrally led, while others are best managed locally – recognising how to approach each is important.
MarketingMoves recruits marketing managers internationally, and is well-placed to support you in building effective international marketing teams.
If you’re developing your team, contact Melvin Day on mday@marketingmoves.com or 01932 253 352.
