When it comes to email marketing, language is a critical component. After all, you want your message to be clear and understandable to your target audience, no matter where your customers are. But, as many marketers have discovered, simply translating your emails from one language to another doesn’t always cut it. That’s where localization comes in.
What is localization?
Localization is the process of adapting content to a specific locale or region. It includes translating the text and ensuring the content is culturally appropriate and relevant to the target audience. In other words, localization considers the nuances of a particular language and culture and adjusts the content accordingly.
For example, say you’re a global brand launching a new product in Japan. Localization would involve adapting content to appeal to a Japanese audience using appropriate language, images, and cultural references. Your English marketing materials would suffice. Considering the cultural differences between the two countries, however, your message could stay flat.
What is translation?
Translation is simply converting text from one language to another. Although translation is essential, there are other considerations when it comes to email marketing. Without localization, your message may not resonate with your target audience, even if it’s translated accurately.
How does localization relate to email marketing?
When it comes to email marketing, localization is essential for reaching international audiences. Whether you’re targeting a specific region or trying to connect with customers around the globe, localization can help ensure that your message is clear, relevant, and effective.
Let’s say you’re a retailer with an online store that ships internationally. You want to send an email to customers promoting a new line of products. Rather than sending the same email to all subscribers in every country, consider creating different email versions for each region. This approach would involve adapting the content to appeal to each audience using appropriate language, images, and cultural references.
How can Stensul help with localization?
The Stensul Email and Landing Page Creation Platform simplifies and speeds up email campaign creation. One of the platform’s key features is Stensul Localization, a set of capabilities that allows marketers to create localized versions of their emails quickly and easily.
Stensul lets you localize emails at scale. From the Stensul Platform, simply export an email in your base language to over 15 translation platforms via an industry-standard format, then upload multiple files to create localized email copies. You follow that by sharing the localized emails with relevant local teams for collaborative review and approval.
Before Stensul Localization, creating an email campaign in multiple languages was highly time-consuming. Every element of an email would have to be manually extracted, sent for translation, and then copied back into a new file for each language. That meant if there were 20 target languages, you would have to create 20 individual translated versions of the email asset. Then each would need to be reviewed, adding significant time, especially if specific versions need changes after being checked by local teams or native speakers.
Stensul Localization reduces the time to complete that process by as much as 80%. As more marketing initiatives go cross-border, efficiently sending emails in the preferred language of their recipients—an essential element of personalization—is critical.
In addition to simplifying the process of creating localized emails, Stensul also helps ensure brand consistency across multiple regions. Robust, programmable guardrails ensure marketers their branding and design parameters are consistent no matter the location of their customers or who might be creating the email.
Learn more about Stensul Localization.
Although translation is essential to creating localized email campaigns, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. Localization, which involves adapting content to a specific locale or region, is essential for ensuring your message is clear, relevant, and effective. With the Stensul Localization feature, marketers can easily create localized versions of their email campaigns, helping them connect with customers worldwide.
