MAGAZINE

#215 – May

Thinking Globally

Marketing is the lifeblood for many businesses, and for those that choose to go international, it takes localization to make your message sing.

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or many businesses, their marketing is their lifeblood. Any enterprise needs revenue to survive, and to achieve that revenue, executives have to reach the right customers or clients. For businesses with a bent toward international reach and ecommerce, that makes strong marketing paired with capable localization all the more important.

In this issue, we’re focused on the role of international marketing in growing a business. While the notion of reaching more customers is undeniably enticing, it’s vital to understand the market and the peoples and cultures that comprise it — otherwise, it’s possible to do more harm than good.

Luckily, there’s never been a more exciting or accessible time to take a business global, and this issue of MultiLingual is here to help. From advice on tailoring messaging to user experience tips to some of the automated tools that can help get the job done, this month’s contributors and interviewees are thinking through the issues of going global.

It’s a good reminder of the importance of quality localization. We’ve all heard stories about disastrous international launches due to simple oversights and ignorance, but the good news is it’s easier than ever to avoid those situations with the help of a few experts.

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PROFILE

Scott Schwalbach: Thinking globally

Interview By Cameron Rasmusson

With clients from all over the world, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has no shortage of communication and language challenges to overcome. In this issue’s cover feature, MultiLingual editor-in-chief Cameron Rasmusson talked to AWS’ global program and release manager, Scott Schwalbach, about how the field of globalization has evolved throughout his career.

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PROFILE

Mahendra Muralidhar: The cost of quality

Interview By Cameron Rasmusson

Few companies know more about globalization than Amazon. That’s why we talked to the company’s localization operations head, Mahendra Muralidhar, about the lessons he’s learned over the course of his career and his thoughts on the role that recent AI developments will play in the future of the industry.

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PERSPECTIVES

Perspectives

The Great (Global) Renegotiation

By Nataly Kelly

It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic shook things up work-wise. First there was the Great Reset. Then the Great Resignation. Now, there’s the Great Renegotiation — in her latest for the magazine, HubSpot’s Nataly Kelly takes a look at what makes the Great Renegotiation different from the movements before it and what it means for the future of labor around the world.

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COLUMN

Oriental Penmanship

By Tim Brookes

After falling down a rabbit hole of old 19th century scholarship, Tim Brookes guides us through the linguistic and philological journeys of Professor E.H. Palmer, who documented Persian handwriting on his expeditions through the Near East.

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HISTORY

The Language of Faith: Bible translation throughout the centuries

By Jost Zetzsche

In his latest for MultiLingual, Jost Zetzsche makes a pretty bold claim: that Christianity, more than any other school of thought, embodies translation. Here, he backs up that claim, walking us through pivotal points in the religion’s history — and how translators helped the Church grow into such a powerful entity.

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MARKETING

7 Ways to Make Localization Essential for Marketing

By Libor Safar

Marketing and localization teams don’t always see eye to eye on things. In his latest for MultiLingual, Libor Safar, vice president of growth at Argos Multilingual, shares seven practical tips to make localization a more essential aspect of any marketing endeavor.

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TECHNOLOGY

Chatbots: More than a marketing tool

By Angelo Passalacqua and Bryan Montpetit

Before the release of ChatGPT, chatbots were often maligned as unhelpful and annoying customer support tools. But the tides appear to be turning. Here, Angelo Passalacqua and Bryan Montpetit of Zin Global discuss the rise of chatbots and how advancements in artificial intelligence and natural language processing are making them far more powerful tools than they once were.

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HOW-TO

Content Marketing Strategy for your Global Audience 

By Lee Densmer

You’ve probably heard by now that content is king. And it’s true — content marketing generates more leads and costs less. It’s a powerful tool that businesses should be using to their advantage — here, Globia Content Marketing’s Lee Densmer takes a deep dive into the world of content marketing to show you how to develop a global content marketing strategy.

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USER EXPERIENCE

It’s All in the User Experiences You Create

 

Not sure about the difference between UI and UX? Miguel Sepulveda’s here to teach you the ABCs of user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). In this piece, he takes a look at how culture can have a profound impact on UX — and what localization professionals can do to ensure that consumers in new markets have the best experience possible.

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LINGUISTICS

Knowledge of One Language: Sometimes Helps When Learning Another

By Eddie Osborne

Is it easier to learn a new language if it’s similar to one you already know? Not necessarily. Here, Eddie Osborne discusses his own language-learning journey — from Spanish and Portuguese to Mandarin and Lao — to give us a better sense of how cross-linguistic similarities can aid the language learning process.

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BUYER’S GUIDE

BUYER’S GUIDE