Top Five Challenges of Creating a Global Marketing Campaign
With the prevalence of online marketing today, global companies strive to tailor campaigns that match the unique needs of individuals and groups internationally. However, these companies face barriers when launching global digital marketing campaign. In his article: Top Five Challenges of Creating a Global Marketing Campaign (2018), Winter discusses how people, personas, translation, customer data, and budget deter online marketing. Global marketing teams find it difficult to plan and align campaigns to global regions. When the process is not carefully thought through, the global target audience may miss or misinterpret the intended message. Winter emphasizes the importance of coordination between the local marketing teams and the global marketing teams in order to create effective campaigns (2018).
Identifying personas is another challenge that companies face when operating across the border. Winter uses an example of the youth in Norway and Sweden. Although the two groups fall into the same age group, the youth in Norway love hockey ice while those in the US prefer soccer (2018). Some companies tend to assume that likes and preferences are uniform among people of the same age across countries. Marketing teams are required to have knowledge of personas of the target countries. Additionally, running campaigns in foreign countries greatly relies on translation. Sometimes, the translated information can differ with the original words used. Marketing teams should to be keen to ensure that all translations are consistent with the local agency to avoid misinterpretations.
The fourth challenge is customer data. It is a common practice for companies to centralize user data. However, some countries have customized technology for storing data, which implies that customer data cannot be synchronized or shared with other countries (Winter, 2018). When launching global apps, marketing teams are required to integrate customer data with the relevant configuration tools to avoid mishaps. Lastly, creating budgets for global campaigns can be a daunting task. Companies may find it hard to correlate the costs of local campaigns to the global ones since they (global) require extra costs for translation and content management. However, the cost of global campaigns can be approximated to the local ones. For instance, Winter explains that if a local ad costs approximately $400,000, the amount will be multiplied by 50 to estimate the cost of marketing in 50 countries (2018). He points out that the extra costs for translation and content management can be attained from a single advert.
Since internet users are exposed of massive advertising content on a daily basis, they tend to be only persuaded by campaigns that are customized for their specific needs. Winter mentioned that users across countries may be have similar characteristics like age, social status, or level of education but their preferences may vary according to the regional inherited personas. However, Laker, in his article on challenges of global marketing leaders, recognizes that technology has bred a new class of interconnected consumers who have changed the rules of marketing (2012). Laker points out that the interconnectedness of consumers has blurred the line between local and global marketing. In spite of this, the author warns that marketing teams should create a balance between local and global campaigns (2012). To achieve success in an international brand, Bath emphasizes that cultural competency is crucial (2018). The global marketing team should be aware of the target customers’ cultural values. Meeting purchasing agents and potential clients in person would be helpful in learning cultures. Global marketing professionals can also take cultural training for efficiency.
References
Laker, F. (2012, Aug 21). Five challenges for tomorrow’s global marketing leaders: Study. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2012/08/21/five-challenges-for-tomorrows-global-marketing-leaders-study/#6408959a484f
Winter, J. (2017, July 19). The top five challenges of creating a global marketing campaign. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/07/19/the-top-five-challenges-of-creating-a-global-marketing-campaign/#6200324b72eb
Bath, V. (2018, July 16). Cultural competency is key to international brand success. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeslacouncil/2018/07/16/cultural-competency-is-key-to-international-brand-success/#56f5d2a253c0