How to adapt content campaigns for global markets so they work every time

As the globalisation landscape shifts beneath our feet, many tech B2B companies are seeking to launch ABM content campaigns and lead generation campaigns in new international markets. Once a strategy restricted to major brands, today even small and medium-sized businesses are now exploring ways to enter new markets to mitigate risk, access new customers, and tap into higher-value opportunities.

And if you’re one of these, I have a quick true story for you. Not that long ago, the MD at an agency I worked for told a client seeking a global marketing campaign, who wanted to increase visibility in Asia-Pacific: ‘Everyone reads the Guardian, let’s face it.’ Needless to say, we didn’t win the business.

This is a particularly egregious example, but it’s not that uncommon. Tech B2B content marketing professionals have long addressed content to global audiences simply by sending the same content to global audiences. And this approach simply doesn’t work.

There are multiple reasons for this: lack of time/budget is the most cited reason, but there are several others too. The most fundamental one is a lack of understanding of the local context. Cultural differences can be one of the biggest obstacles for the success of international marketing and lead generation campaigns. These differences can affect the perception of your brand, how your communications are received, negotiations, and relationship management. To overcome these challenges in the ideal world, companies must work with local sales and marketing teams with an understanding of the customs and business practices of the target market.

However, with stretched marketing budgets, recruiting local marketing talent is often not a viable option. How then, can marketers ensure that campaigns implemented in international markets stay true to the brand’s positioning and messaging, while resonating deeply with local audiences?

International marketing fundamentals: it’s like yoga

Successful international campaigns strike a balance between brand consistency and localisation. This strategy is common with all major B2C brands: whether it’s McDonalds selling ‘alu tikki burgers’ in India, or Starbucks reducing the size of its drinks for the UK. Brand names and logos are localised. Advertising campaigns are local. The most important principle they follow, however, is that the brand experience and values remain consistent.

The best analogy here is yoga: which needs both a strong core, and flexibility in the joints and limbs. Your brand, too, needs to retain a strong, consistent core, and be flexible to the needs of the market you are addressing.

Use the STEEPLE framework to optimise your content campaigns

Most marketers are familiar with a SWOT analysis. A critical component of any marketing strategy, it provides a handy framework that enables you to understand how to achieve marketing goals by tapping into opportunities and mitigating threats. While planning for a campaign in a different market, a little more nuance is needed to ensure no blind spots remain that might render a marketing campaign ineffective. Isoline’s innovation lab often uses the STEEPLE framework for a more methodical analysis of the different macro-economic factors at play in each market.

The STEEPLE analysis, sometimes known as PESTLE, covers long-term factors that are easy to underestimate or ignore but, over time, could cause unforeseen risks and damage to a business. STEEPLE is an acronym for the six factors it covers: Social, Technological, Environment, Economic, Political, Legal and Ethical. Each of these are external factors that businesses may consider as long-term risks, threats or even opportunities for their business. While commonly used for broader business strategy planning, STEEPLE is extremely useful for ratifying a content strategy or approach too.

Questions to ask:

1. How do current business social trends, cultural values, or shifts in business norms influence the target market’s perception and response to our content campaign?
2. What recent technological advancements or digital platforms could be leveraged to enhance our marketing efforts or improve customer engagement? Conversely, the platforms we use limit the prospect’s ability to absorb our message?
3. How might changes in economic business conditions — such as tariffs, budgets, inflation, or employment rates — affect the effectiveness of our content? Are these factors reflected in our content?
4. In what ways could local environmental concerns, such as sustainability expectations or resource availability, impact our positioning and messaging?
5. Are there any upcoming regulatory changes, trade policies, or shifts in political stability that we need to take into account in our messaging?
6. What legal requirements, advertising standards, or consumer protection laws must we consider to ensure our marketing strategy remains compliant in all target markets?
7. Does our marketing align with local ethical standards and societal expectations regarding transparency, diversity, and social responsibility?

Hyper-personalisation strategies are an opportunity to embed local insight

Hyper-personalisation at scale has long been the goal of one-to-few and one-to-one ABM. Many practitioners believe that the rise of AI will serve as a catalyst for content personalisation at scale through the funnel, with measurable ROI. Broad lead generation strategies are giving way to more targeted strategies, such as account-based marketing, data-driven storytelling, and interactive content, to better meet buyer expectations.

This trend is perfect for marketers to incorporate deep localisation strategies.

Personalisation is not just about replaces images, statistics, and spellings in your content. This also means considering all content against frameworks such as STEEPLE to ensure that the issues addressed, and way their solutions are framed, are aligned with local circumstances.

Focusing in on culture

Finally, the most overlooked factor in marketing content is the culture of the audience. In a different context, the great Peter Drucker said: ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’: meaning that no matter what the organizational strategy, if the performance culture wasn’t in place, the strategy would fail. As far as running international campaigns goes, this adage holds true.

Apart from the STEEPLE factors, each market is unique in terms of business culture. Fluency with this culture is essential for messages to resonate. A number of factors affect this, such as:

• Implicit vs explicit communication – Some cultures are implicit communicators, while others are much more explicit. For example, a marketing campaign that originates from a tech B2B brand in America might present its market leadership in a straightforward and explicit manner. ‘We are the best at xxx, our platform is the fastest at xxx’. A prospect based in Japan, which is a much more implicit culture, might find this approach too pushy or boastful. While conversely, an implicit communication style might result in customers from an ‘explicit style’ market missing the point.
• Risk-taking vs risk avoidance – Cultures that are more risk-taking will respond positively to messages about being a pioneer, leading the market, etc. On the other hand, cultures that lean towards risk avoidance will respond better to messages that emphasise the track record, continuity of management, and stability of the company.
• Factual vs reasoning thinkers – A culture that is more ‘factual’ in approach will respond better to data and tools such as calculators, while a culture that emphasizes reasoning will be more open to storytelling approaches. The type of content each market responds might differ too: here is our most recent report on the types of content tech b2B buyers most prefer to read.

It is important to recognise that no culture is wrong. Presenting the same brand and marketing messages in a manner that resonates with the audience dramatically increases its effectiveness, and engenders engagement and trust.

What is the best approach for you?

The level of localisation you incorporate into your content ultimately depends on the size and opportunity of the market in question and the resources you have available to tailor your content. The advent of increasingly sophisticated AI platforms makes it easy to understand the communication preferences and cultural styles prevailing the market you want to address. Another factor to consider is the competitive context: different sectors have certain content norms and you might want to adhere to those in order to stay in the same playing firls. This content benchmark report we published last year allows you to understand the content norms in five key tech B2B verticals.

Effective localisation of content has the potential to turbo-charge your international expansion strategies.

Thinking of launching a campaign in a new market? Get in touch at hello@isolinecomms.com for a free audit of your content’s effectiveness.