Getting the Word Out: Evangelizing Better with Internal Marketing

Globalization teams often struggle to provide training and evangelize for localization.

During my time in localization, I’ve heard many variations on the same theme:?

“The teams that I work with don’t understand what localization is or how it works.”

“How can I get my colleagues across the organization to follow localization best practices so localization is more efficient?”

“We need to elevate localization so senior leadership recognizes its value to our global growth strategy.”

Usually, these comments come from a variety of places. Internal colleagues may not know how to work efficiently – or effectively – with the localization team, which affects turnaround times and productivity. They may be unaware of localization best practices, which contribute to translation issues that slow time to market and increase costs. Senior leaders may be unaware of everything that goes into supporting global launches and multilingual products, which impacts staffing, budgets, and decision-making.

Facing full days with packed schedules, globalization teams often don’t have the time to create presentations, don’t know the best way to share information, or don’t know who should receive the information.?

On top of these challenges, many executives are examining every part of the business to determine how and where AI can improve efficiency and productivity. A few of the questions they’re asking may include “Why are we paying for translation when we can use AI?” or “With AI, could we have a smaller localization budget?”?

With AI causing a seismic shift in our industry, now is the time to consider a campaign of internal marketing to broadcast how your globalization team is expanding the global customer experience, filling gaps, or driving improvement.

By using internal marketing to improve understanding and awareness about localization, you can streamline your localization processes, be ready to respond to leadership questions about localization’s value, and create allies who support your team and its work.

What is Internal Marketing?

Internal marketing is marketing and promotion to your in-house audience. It’s an organized campaign of communications to extended teams, senior leaders, and the C-suite designed to raise visibility and educate about localization’s impact.?

Internal marketing is more than a one-off training about best practices. It’s a calculated, long-term strategy to show how localization fits in the product life cycle. It’s about educating current and new team members as they come on board. It’s about sharing global accomplishments across the organization.

Is your team seen as file movers? Are you the last team to find out when something needs to be localized? Internal marketing can change perceptions about your team across the organization and help you move localization from being an afterthought to being a proactive part of decision-making.

How Can Internal Marketing Help Localization Teams?

To ensure regular, consistent, and quality information is being delivered, a communications plan is created. The plan can include a variety of elements including what teams to target, what kinds of content to create, and how and when to distribute information.?

For example, initial communications could focus on training and education about localization, such as best practices, localization workflows, or typical translation timelines. Training on technology like a translation management system may also be useful to help streamline the submission of translation requests across the organization.

Training and education can go beyond just translation. It can explore how product managers can help ensure the right features are being added for global audiences. Or how to proactively resolve internationalization issues and minimize bugs in multilingual products. The potential ripple effect across the organization from these kinds of training could be huge. Perhaps by lowering the number of bugs, there would be fewer support calls, which would save your company money.

There are many options when it comes to how and when to distribute communications. A weekly email or a Slack channel can share bullet point accomplishments. A better user experience could be to send an email newsletter with longer stories and photos. Everyone consumes content differently, so short videos with leadership messages are great for engaging those who prefer to watch content instead of reading.

Evangelization Evolves with Your Company

Internal marketing isn’t just a one-off activity, it’s an on-going process that takes place over time. As companies grow and change, the need for internal promotion and communication grows even stronger.

As new products are launched or new employees join the company, further training will be needed. As your company grows, introducing new team members in an internal newsletter helps to build teamwork across distributed teams.

If your company has just gone through a merger or acquisition, find out if your new teammates know about localization. The transition period is a good time for your teams to work together to share information and collaborate on a path forward to ensure everyone is moving in the same direction. Internal marketing can help bridge the gap with communications as your teams integrate.

Internal Marketing: Proven and Effective?

The companies I’ve worked with have seen the results of internal marketing first-hand. As an external part-time resource, I worked with these companies to help them broadcast their messages to their internal teams.

One company had a small globalization team who struggled with visibility. They wanted to elevate localization so they could be involved earlier in decisions and planning that impacted global strategy. We worked together on a plan that included email blasts and presentations to educate internal stakeholders on localization best practices and workflows.?

Another company had a new globalization team that was expanding rapidly and facing formidable strategic goals. The many internal teams they worked with were new to localization. They didn’t understand how to work effectively with the localization team and had no knowledge of best practices, which caused inefficiencies and delays. Together we developed a strategy where I worked closely with the team on three communication elements:

1. I created a monthly newsletter with market information, training content, and team accomplishments.

2.? I developed several different training presentations about localization best practices, workflows, and product life cycles.

3.? I ghost wrote articles, presentations, and important internal communications for the senior globalization leader.

From these internal marketing initiatives, both companies experienced several positive outcomes:

• Increased executive and organizational visibility into localization activities and accomplishments.
• Education about localization helped accelerate go-to-market time.
• Best practice knowledge improved the quality of localized content.
• Workflows were streamlined and became more efficient.
• Stronger teamwork created across distributed global teams.

?Build Stronger Connections with Internal Marketing

Internal marketing is a powerful tool to build bridges within your organization. By raising awareness about localization and its value, you can improve collaboration across teams, streamline processes, and gain the support of key stakeholders. With regular communication and education, your globalization team can be seen not just as problem-solvers, but as strategic partners helping to drive the company’s global success.?

So whether you do it yourself or get external help, consider taking the time to invest in internal marketing. It’s an easy way to make a big difference.

Do you have questions about internal marketing? Drop me a message!