A Guide to Cultural Adaptation on The Digital Platform

The digital platform has made staying connected with everybody a lot easier. This has acted as nothing less than a miracle for most businesses out there and along with expanding the reach, it has also extended the voice on the global level. So, what is the first thing that you do when finding out that you have a global visitor on your website? Well, the most ideal thing any company will do is to come up with a marketing strategy designed for that specific country only. 

But just working on a marketing strategy and implementing it won’t work as you also have to focus on translating the content of the campaign into the target language. It has been found that a translated ad campaign according to the language used by the target country increases the effectiveness of the campaign. 

While many people think that translation of a marketing document means word-to-word translation of every sentence, the truth is that cultural adaptation also plays a key role in deciding how effective the content would turn out to be. 

To make things easier for you, we have come up with this comprehensive guide to cultural adoption for digital marketing strategies.

The basics of cultural adaptation 

When you are working on a marketing strategy for a global audience, cultural adaptation should always be prioritized, especially during the translation process. When cultural adaptation in business is prioritized during the translation process, the translated campaigns are always relevant and appropriate in terms of the culture.

But cultural adaption can’t be learned overnight by reading a couple of articles or watching expert YouTube videos. Only experienced translators with vast knowledge of the culture of both the origin and targeted culture can consider all the points of cultural adaptation rather than just focusing on word-to-word translation. 

A professional translator always ensures that:

• The content used in the campaign is never offensive to the target audience 
• The target audience can relate to the marketing strategy 
• The message used in the marketing strategy actually resonates with the audience

If you are working with an experienced translator with vast knowledge of cultural adaptation in business then he will first analyze the original content, locate the cultural norms and then alter and adapt the message so that it can turn out to be culturally relevant and accurate. 

All the above-mentioned factors must be a part of your document translation and only a professional translator can take care of these aspects. 

Different levels of cultural adaptation 

For keeping the marketing strategy aligned with the culture of a new market or for using a multicultural marketing strategy, a professional translator works on the different levels of cultural adaptation. 

Localization 

The focus in this form of translation is narrowed down. Whenever you localize content, the message is first translated into the target language and then every aspect of the marketing strategy like the currency of the content is adapted according to the target market. 

Every minor detail of the content is then transformed according to the geographical location and this is what makes multicultural marketing a possibility. For example, if you are localizing content for the Spanish market then you might need to translate it into the Catalan language, adapt the currencies to Euros and even bring Spanish figures into the spotlight. 

Transcreation 

This is a more tailored translation approach. During the process of transcreation, an idea is taken and then that idea is used as a base for creating new content that will be more relevant and appropriate according to the culture and the language of the target audience. This is mostly done when there is no source content that can be translated. 

Globalization 

This is not as focused and tailored as transcreation but it doesn’t mean it is not necessary or not effective. In globalization, the content is translated into a single language and thus the content becomes relevant for all the parts of the world where the specific language is spoken. This is also a part of the multicultural translation services.

 For example, if the content is translated into the Spanish language then apart from Spain, the same content can be used in even Chile and Peru. Since there are many countries around the world where the native languages are the same, globalization can work like a magic wand in such cases and give the best results without being too focused or tailored during the translation process. 

For better results from multicultural translation services, the focus should always be on the approach used for cultural adaptation since even the most accurately translated document will mean nothing if it doesn’t have any cultural relevance. So, always check whether cultural adaptation is a part of the translation process before choosing the best translation agency.