More than half (60%) of companies that market globally have no overarching multilingual content marketing strategy, accord to a recent report by Cloudwords.
Moreover, most marketers surveyed (67%) are unsure which technology tool, if any, they use to manage translation projects; and nearly one-third (31%) don't know how long it takes to complete translation projects.
As for annual spend, 69% of global marketers have no insight into their current budget, and 41.8% don't know their plans for the future.
Below, additional key findings from the report, which was based on data from a survey of 500 attendees of the Content Marketing World conference.
Current Practices
- 8% companies that market globally do not translate any content at all.
- Of those that do, the average number of languages that content is translated into is eight.
- The top five languages that global marketers translate English materials into are French, Spanish, German, Chinese, and Japanese.
Need for Translation
- Website materials are the most common type of content translated (79%).
- Next are brochures and product literature (42%), blogs and social media content (23%), and press releases (23%).
Difficulties With Translation
- 30% of survey respondents whose companies market globally say the biggest challenges to localization are high costs and slow turnaround times.
- 20% of participants cited the complexities of keeping branding and messaging consistent globally.
- 19% have experienced difficulties in managing multiple translation vendors and projects.
About the research: The report was based on data from a survey of 500 attendees of the Content Marketing World conference.
