Reminiscing the times in Bali, one of my favorite moments is when we walked into Finn’s beach club for the first time taking in the breathtaking scenery around and realized we are on a Workation! The excitement on everyone’s face was palpable and that instance itself made me realize, this freedom to travel and work after the pandemic was long pending indeed. 

At Desygner, we are a close-knit team of young, passionate, creative people who love what we do everyday and enjoy the journey of creating something wonderful. For us, the idea of working from a destination like Bali and the chance to see colleagues face-to-face only ignites this passion and creativity further. 

The pandemic has presented us and the rest of the community with a number of unexpected challenges, leading to unanticipated costs & problems that could not have been anticipated prior to January 2020. However, I also believe that the pandemic presented us with a number of opportunities. For instance, the ability to work from a variety of locations, especially for such a young and energetic team, is a welcome change. Today, people want to travel and see the world more than they ever have before, but prohibitive flight costs and inflexible working locales make that difficult. So, post-pandemic, we have traded our remote work set-up to a hybrid model and are now able to strike a balance of growing a company, nurturing our younger teams with mentorships while also giving them the flexibility to work from anywhere.

When I shared my vision for our teams to be able to maintain a strong sense of camaraderie working from different locations and not just in offices, Kate Hankinson – our User Experience expert came up with the idea that sparked the model of working from a location that feels like a holiday but is not a company offsite. The idea was an instant hit and to test this model, Bali seemed ideal with just six hours away from Australia and yet bringing people together from as far away as Brazil, Nepal, and Europe.

This workation was a brilliant start for an experiment as much it is about few key learnings that we intend to apply in future:

Having a sharp foresight of the end result

As a CEO, my ultimate objective is to see the end-result and the total output of any effort. And Bali Workation has been a true testament to this. For instance, during our hatchathon, we produced three new game changing features that will set us apart as leaders in the industry, generating more satisfied customers and, as a consequence, more profits.

Shaking up the norms of a start-up ecosystem 

As a scaling start-up after years of building our core enterprise tech in shadows, we are now focusing on sales or marketing. And by adopting a culture of WFA, I am hoping the digital nomad community will see the value in being part of a family rather than being solo. Because at the end of the day, irrespective of age or gender, we all seek good company that we can trust and be honest with. The way I see it, this is a fantastic way to look at the future of work, and I hope it will create a new standard for businesses everywhere. 

This trip gave me an impression of a family get-together and by the time I was on plane to leave Bali, I realized that we need to have a base there in addition to our global offices that both bring us all together and aggressively promote worldwide travel for everyone who works with us regardless of the function they play.

Therefore, we have already started looking for a wonderful villa in Bali that we can use as a remote outpost location. This villa will have a chef on site, and it will be available to any of our team members who want to be there permanently (visas permitting), or simply for a few weeks while they are traveling the world. We will make it a priority to encourage every member of our team to make travel arrangements that take them to different parts of the world so that they can finally put faces to names of people with whom they have collaborated for years but have never actually met. It was absolutely mind blowing to meet team members I had seen on google meet, but never in person. It was completely different to how they come across and completely worth every penny it cost us to attend the event. 

Acclimatizing and the pitfalls of digital nomadic life

Irrespective of impeccable planning and cautious safety measures, there are few things only experience can teach better. For example, scheduling events and travel on Monday and Thursdays went against the concept of “workation” where people think they are on a vacation. So, planning time off either at the beginning or toward the end of a project is vital. This also allows careful planning for groups who intend to bring family or children on the trip well in advance. Take into account the sick leaves during workations in exotic countries like Bali as western folks have a lot to get adjusted to, be it food, weather conditions, travel sickness and not to forget Covid variants just yet. 

Golden Nugget for Leadership 

I had the preconceived notion that our headquarters should be located on the Gold Coast of Australia and therefore should be a hub for the board meeting. This changed in Bali after AHA! moment when I realized that a HQ mindset is not necessarily the ideal way for key leaders to have consistent connections with all senior members. If we continue to hold these gatherings once every three to six months, I feel that we will be even more cohesive as a company than we have ever been before.

Have a defined goal in mind for the workation and what it is meant to accomplish. In our situation, we only wanted to connect people in remote roles and reward ordinary office dwellers by providing them new experiences.

It was heartening to see how the workation fostered co-workers from around the world bonding over food, activities and not just knowing each other just for the role we play in the company. When someone got sick, the rest of us banded together to help, when people were going out to eat or on trips, groups were formed and connections were forged. As a result, there was an underlying sense of a family. 

This experience opens up a whole new world for Desygner, and I hope that we will be able to collaborate with other businesses as well on the next one that we are already beginning to prepare. Also, there is a great possibility of being able to hop between our London, Gold Coast, Lisbon, and soon our Bali office giving our global teams the flexibility to travel and be a part of a rapidly growing startup but not working remotely alone. 

Finally, it was our beta, and I have no doubt that the next workation will be great, both in terms of individual results and overall impact on the firm. It was incredible that everyone got in touch with me and shared what an incredible adventure it had been for them! 

Next time around, I hope to see our employees hacking some of the best ideas amidst an ocean from the deck of a cruise!

The post Workation in Bali – When Nomadic Life Also Offers Executive Lessons appeared first on Desygner.

Leveraging cloud storage for file management and sharing is prevalent among organizations. If you are a marketer or brand director with access to cloud-based storage service, it may be worth asking if your organization needs digital asset management (DAM).

Applications for cloud storage like Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, etc., meet a wide range of urgent business needs. Are these remedies prepared to address your problems? Do cloud storage and digital asset management systems differ? If so, what’s the margin of the disparity?

This article seeks to clarify what DAM is, how it differs from traditional cloud storage systems, and why businesses should consider incorporating DAM systems.

Let’s get straight to business.

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What Is Digital Asset Management (DAM)

Digital Asset Management (DAM) system is a platform that businesses employ to store and manage digital assets such as images, documents, text, graphics, animations, audio files, or video footage efficiently—to achieve maximum business efficiency in procedures involving such data.

It’s an integral part of product or service content management as it provides a central platform for managing, storing, and retrieving digital assets in compliance with your organization’s policies. It allows you to create, store and access all types of content from one single location.

Although each DAM system has a slightly different way of operating, the basic idea is the same: a centralized, accessible library where a company manages digital assets.

With the help of a DAM, users can effortlessly share huge files, resize and format their media, track usage patterns, and manage any digital file. A DAM also offers fantastic capabilities that let users manage any digital file. Also, a DAM offers enterprises more sophisticated and multilevel media security features like user permissions, compliance guidelines, and watermarking.

Regardless of size, digital asset collections can be managed using DAM systems. Generally, businesses can design their DAM systems to be customized and adapted to any digital asset database. It is worth noting that regardless of whether you own a small business or work for a larger organization.

Companies in industries such as Marketing, Hospitality, E-Commerce, Real Estate, Design, etc., have full liberty to incorporate the use of DAM storage solutions.

Related Article: A Buyer’s Guide: How to Choose a Digital Asset Management System

DAM vs. Cloud Storage

With cloud storage, you can store data and files in a remote place accessible by either a customized private network connection or the open internet. A third-party cloud provider is now responsible for the data you move off-site for storage. When you need access to the data, the provider makes sure it is available by hosting, securing, managing, and maintaining the servers and related infrastructure.

Does DAM vary in any significant ways from cloud storage platforms? Which services should you use, as a business or as an individual? What should you consider the deciding factor? Let’s examine how these systems are different from one another and how each performs its assigned role.

Shall we?

File searching

Cloud storage systems organize files using a hierarchical folder structure and file names. Locating a specific file often requires you to know the full path of the folder where it’s located. The folder structure can be confusing, especially if there are many levels of folders and subfolders. Cloud storage systems also typically don’t support searching by file type or content (such as words contained in a document).

A DAM system simplifies the search for up-to-date assets through metadata. This enables you to find a file quickly. For example, if your sales team is looking for images used in the 2021 marketing campaign. You can search for it by using metadata tags or keywords ‘marketing campaign’ or ‘2021 campaign.’ With a DAM system, different departments can locate assets more easily because there’s no need to navigate a complicated file path.

Built-in photo editing and design tools

There isn’t any space for image editing in cloud storage. Naturally, these storage platforms’ only concern is providing storage space. However, a DAM system offers you many tools to edit and design your images.

Using DAM solutions’ unique toolbox, you can resize, animate, remove the background, and edit pictures. This feature could save you a lot of money because it eliminates the need for another piece of software. The same goes for video editing. If you’re using a cloud storage provider, you’ll need to purchase another software package to edit your videos. But with a digital asset management system, you can do it all in one place.

User roles and Restrictions

If you’re working with a large team of creatives or marketers, you’ll find that cloud storage isn’t ideal because it’s difficult to manage who has access to what files and their permission level. The role-based access management system in DAM offers administrators full control over assets while allowing occasional guest users (both internal and external) to view items.

With DAM, pre-defined permission can be set for each user to give them specific access rights. Users can view or edit assets in real time and may even be able to share assets. It ensures that assets are used consistently and in line with the brand identity. DAM allows all users to have a seamless experience. The result is increased efficiency, which leads to greater productivity and the attainment of business goals.

Integrations to any platform

Some cloud storage services integrate with task handling and customer relationship management systems (CRMs). However, few of these integrations are nevertheless helpful.

Project management systems, instant messaging applications, picture editors, and other tools are just a few of the choices DAMs provide for integration. You can do all these things in one spot, including generating, sharing, organizing, showcasing, and exchanging comments on various ideas.

Reporting and analytics of digital assets

One of the most important rules for success in business is “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it,” and the cloud storage system doesn’t allow you to measure the success of your digital asset strategy.

DAM displays important statistics about your media assets and generates reports demonstrating their performance. With this insight, you will understand how users engage with images and other digital assets. You will have a better sense of how to streamline your workflow, collaborate more effectively with others and integrate new technologies.

Monitoring the performance of your assets in a DAM system can give you insights into which type of content resonates with customers and use this information to target them better. You can also use this information to assess the ROI of your digital asset strategy overall.

Hosting options

The cloud is the sole hosting option available to cloud storage services. On the other hand, a digital asset management system offers local drives and servers as possible locations for data.

The cloud-based option for DAM systems is the most common because it’s easy to set up and maintain. You can access your data from anywhere and on any device, which is particularly beneficial for remote teams or employees who travel frequently.

Cloud-based systems are also less expensive because they don’t require you to pay for hardware or software licenses. However, some organizations still prefer on-premise systems because they want to maintain control over their data. This is particularly true for sensitive data that may be subject to legal or regulatory requirements.

Update assets automatically 

Your team’s ability to swiftly and easily identify the graphics they require is made possible by DAM systems’ use of A.I. to update and label every asset with data automatically. 

DAM doesn’t require manual updates of digital assets like your cloud storage may do. This can be a huge time saver for teams that don’t have the resources to update their graphics whenever they need new assets manually.

Automated graphics labeling is another feature that can help you ensure that all your assets are properly labeled. This is useful for compliance and making it easy for team members to locate needed information.

Collaboration features 

You can share resources with others via cloud storage, and team members can read, annotate, or modify a file.

DAM goes a step further by facilitating collaboration between different teams and departments. It helps you streamline the development process by keeping everyone in sync with each other. For example, designers can create and share assets with stakeholders for approval. It reduces the chance of errors during the project execution.

Learn More

Why upgrade from cloud storage to DAM

Taking a switch from a cloud storage provider to a digital asset management system is up to you. However, every organization should seek to invest in a DAM system. A standard DAM platform must adapt to the company’s demands and streamline departmental procedures.

Here are five of the best reasons why you should consider upgrading to a DAM system today:

1. Restriction for brand consistency

By centralizing material, you can maintain the quality and consistency of your visual content and marketing assets, resulting in uniform quality and styling and avoiding the usage of unauthorized or out-of-date assets. Doing so results in a reliable mechanism for brand governance inside your company. Because of this, your brand’s image grows more substantial, unified, and competent across several agencies and platforms.

2. Reporting and analytics 

Several DAM solutions let you monitor how the files are used and provide details about who uses your assets and where they use them. The quantity of downloads for a single file is even visible. If used properly, this data may assist you in precisely determining what to do with your digital assets that are most beneficial to your business and the methods you have implemented.

3. Integration to existing platforms or workflow

Digital asset management connects with various tech tools, such as your content management system and design software, to enable a more effective transfer of digital assets throughout the process that goes from planning to delivery. Desygner’s Figma plugin is just one example of how DAMs can be used across multiple platforms.

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4. Automation

A centralized platform for finding, editing, repurposing, and distributing digital content can help make workflows more stable by automating processes. Automation is essential for an effective work environment because it enables users to collaborate on material across departments and with outside teams. It reduces resource usage and also eliminates the aggravation caused by workflow congestion and delays.

5. Workflow and approval

DAM makes it much simpler to manage workflow since it offers you much more precise control over your assets. In addition to monitoring the distribution of assets, tracking modifications, adding comments, and adding time stamps are all included. Additionally, DAM enables you to allocate access, edit selectively, and use permissions. This feature is beneficial for ensuring that everyone follows branding requirements.

Desygner’s Jumpstart Program

We will help you translate your branding and marketing strategy into a tangible plan by providing expert account management, knowledge transfer of best practices in the field, and implementation support.

In addition to a specialized account manager and a client service team, it facilitates asset transfer, training, and onboarding.

You will receive all the assistance you need to get going from the Desygner Jumpstart Program. With it, you can:

• Train administrative staff on effective workspace management.
• Run and document training sessions.
• Implement, set up, and test new integrations per your requirements.
• Get assistance in importing all of your current material.
• Enjoy 24/7 worldwide and regional assistance.

Last words

As you can see, cloud storage software and DAM systems undoubtedly share some fundamental aspects – they both offer limitless storage, 24/7 remote access, and function as central vaults. However, DAM systems are more than just content libraries. They enable businesses to automate operations, disseminate information across platforms, and use content analytics to develop brand narratives.

Even while a DAM solution requires a higher initial time and financial investment, the value it can provide delivers a quantifiable return on investment that teams can depend on as they expand.

Contact Sales Team

Desygner provides all you need to organize, optimize, and extract the most value possible from ALL of your graphic assets, going well beyond simple cloud storage. Get in touch with our sales team to discover why our DAM software is the best option for your company.

The post Cloud Storage vs DAM: What’s the Difference? appeared first on Desygner.

The above statement in many ways encapsulates life at Desygner. And our bi-annual “Workation” is just one such instance. With our teams spread across the globe, we are getting together to celebrate our awesomeness and hack innovation with a scenic backdrop of turquoise blue and sandy beaches of Bali. 

Desygner is hosting a fully sponsored global hackathon in Bali to kickstart its series of company-sponsored “workations” in some of the most sought-after destinations across the world for digital nomads.

The hackathon will be live from 31st October 22 until 11th November 22 in Bali and will open to the public from the 3rd of November, including digital nomads and outstanding students. Participants can join the first event at the link below.

Talented Developers, DevOps, QA professionals, marketers, designers, and sales professionals are invited to work with the Desygner team and apply for roles in Bali, London, and Desygner’s headquarters in Gold Coast, Australia at this event (sponsoring remote applicants).

Click Here to Register

We are a fast-growing company that believes “the awesome factor” can be created through the right balance of work and fun. Through this initiative, we want to attract top talent from all over the globe and introduce novel approaches to remote work that dispel the myth that employees must be present in an office setting to be productive. 

In the post-pandemic world, as many companies are experimenting with hybrid and remote working models, we aim to lead in creating better work-life experiences. The initiative also doubles up as a key strategy to recruit and retain top talent in the face of a growing global talent crisis. 

Instead of just investing in traditional startup slacks and ping-pong tables in the office, we are going one step further and investing in places people want to work from, in dream locations. 

When running a software company with over 3 million lines of code and 30+ million customers across the world, smaller initiatives get overlooked. The hackathon strategy helps us to foster a culture of innovation.

In addition to providing lodging, food, and entertainment, we are giving away rewards and prizes in the form of instant cash, bonuses, and valuable stock options to participants. 

Come along and join us at Canggu. And who knows, there are high chances you will soon be one among us!

The post Desygner´s Global Hackathon 2022 in Bali – Suksma Mewali to Our Workation! appeared first on Desygner.

As a modern salesman, your responsibility is to understand the problems of your clients and prospects. And sales enablement techniques help you address the business challenges your target customers face.

When you equip your sales team with the tools and resources they need to convert leads into customers, your company will see an increase in revenue.

That is the power of sales enablement strategy.

In this blog, you will learn about sales enablement. You’ll also see how an efficient sales enablement strategy can improve your business. And the critical components of a good sales enablement strategy. 

Let’s get right into business!

What Is Sales Enablement?

Sales enablement is designed to boost sales outcomes and performance. It offers integrated content, training, and coaching services for salespeople and front-line sales managers enabled by technology.

Sales enablement aims to close more deals and increase sales speed. It has several facets, and while sales operations and training are essential components of the whole strategy, content makes up the lion’s share of it.

Sales enablement also includes content, such as sales slides and demos, that helps sales professionals get their message across. This sales process goes beyond simply putting together a blog post or a white paper.

Recent statistics show that employing a sales enablement strategy increased sales by up to 20% for 76% of the firms.

Sales enablement’s core objective is to provide sales representatives with valuable data about their target market to help them develop a successful sales plan.

What Sales Enablement Can Do For Your Business

A sales enablement plan for your company has numerous advantages and is beneficial in various ways. The biggest one is that it presents an opportunity to completely revamp your selling strategy and move prospects through the sales cycle faster and more efficiently.

A well-planned sales enablement strategy can have a significant impact on the success of your sales team. The revenue of your business is bound to increase when your salesforce is equipped to convert leads to paying customers.

Hence, here are a few ways sales enablement strategy is vital for your sales staff.

1. Boost Sales Readiness

During sales enablement, sales representatives can learn the skill of sales readiness. It gets the representatives ready for face-to-face communication with clients or prospects.

Sales enablement can aid sales representatives in getting ready for what lies ahead because you need a distinct strategy at each phase of the buyer journey.

In a sense, sales enablement can improve your sales team’s ability to communicate with clients.

2. Increase Productivity

It can free up time representatives spend on administrative tasks to concentrate on more productive aspects of their jobs. Automating repetitive and manual tasks frees up salespeople’s time, allowing them to focus on selling instead of spending hours doing non-selling work.

Obtaining data regarding leads can also make reps more effective. Accurate and adequate metrics can accomplish this by determining which leads are more certain to be a better match and which leads they should devote more effort to pursuing.

This rise in output can potentially lead to increased revenue for your company.

3. Enhances Effectiveness

Many things need to be considered by your sales team. Lead generation, relationship management, and transaction closing are necessary for them to succeed. Businesses often update their product or service. Sales teams must be aware of these changes to help the business achieve its goals.

If there is no sales enablement plan, all this could be frustrating.

The sales team is more effective with sales enablement. It provides sales representatives with the necessary equipment to complete more deals faster. The sales procedure is streamlined and made more effective with the correct tools.

Discover Sales and Marketing tools that can help increase productivity and improve lead conversion rates

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Who Owns Sales Enablement?

It can appear to be a simple question at first. Choosing who will be responsible for sales enablement determines how your approach will come together and function.

Every case will be different, and there are countless methods to set up a sales enablement strategy within an organization. Each setup will vary somewhat depending on the resources available, the overall goals, and the objectives.

There are two perspectives on who owns sales enablement – Sales and Marketing. 

Sales Perspective

Doesn’t it make sense that the sales team should be in charge of this program if the goal of sales enablement is to increase sellers’ productivity and capacity to close deals? After all, the term “sales enablement” is for a purpose.

The extra benefit of having the department feel more accountable for success is allowing sales to manage the entire initiative.

Sales will determine the general direction for strategy regarding how Sales and Marketing work going forward in a sales-owned arrangement. In this scenario, marketing will still be responsible for content generation and maintenance.

A sales-owned strategy is optimal for businesses looking to boost collaboration, communication, and sales readiness.

Marketing Perspective

The traditional way to answer this question is to assign marketing responsibilities for sales enablement. The reason is that a lot of the work goes into increasing marketing’s overall effectiveness, even though sales enablement eventually leads to closing more deals more effectively.

The marketing team commits to completely restructuring their relationship with content when they start a sales enablement journey. They understand that their content must be more accessible, speak more directly to the demands of the buyer, give sales the ability to generate their own certified, customized material, and must increase their return on investment.

Marketers spend their entire careers worrying about such kinds of issues. Therefore, it makes sense that sales enablement would be a marketing concern.

5 Key Components Of A Successful Sales Enablement Strategy

The efficiency of the sales process is a goal shared by both the sales and marketing departments. Prospecting through final sale closure can take a lot of time, often over several months. However, businesses can implement strategies and procedures to help improve sales.

There are several elements that makeup sales enablement. The following are the essential components you must pay close attention to if you wish to adopt a feasible strategy:

1. Sales Content

Relevant content must build any practical sales approach.

A strong sales enablement strategy must include sales content. The fundamental tenet of sales enablement is that salespeople should add value to every engagement with the client. To achieve this, they must access the appropriate content at every stage of the sales process.

There’s a significant difference between sales and marketing content. The key difference between these concepts is in the respective functions. On the one hand, marketing aims to ‘entice’ people with things they like to see and interact with. On the other, Sales’ main job is to convince prospects to take action.

As for sales content, we can classify it into two:

• Internal Sales Content: It is written with the company’s sales representatives in mind. The objective is to increase the reps’ familiarity with their product line.
• External Sales Content: Assets that users can download and read or view at their leisure are in this content category. The content must be valuable to avoid wasting a customer’s time.

Build your Sales Content Strategy Now

2. Training and Coaching

2020 may seem like a lot back, but the changes that came with it still exist today. The post-pandemic era has seen many businesses transition to provide means to operate virtually. In this regard, remote selling is fast becoming a norm. 

Data from HubSpot’s 2021 Sales Enablement study shows that, compared to sales executives who stuck with their present models, just 50% of those who switched their teams to remote selling in 2020 met or exceeded their revenue targets.

Therefore, remember that most sales teams will implement a remote approach in the coming years as you consider how much catching up you may have to do for your own sales teams. Now is the best time to switch to a remote selling approach to prevent widening this revenue difference.

Sales enablement must make the necessary effort to ensure that the team embraces new sales representatives. Remote onboarding is crucial to ensuring that new hires are engaged, enthusiastic, and equipped for success when teams cannot meet in person.

3. Content Localization

Making an emotional connection with global audiences is essential for a vast reach. It begins with speaking to potential consumers in their language and continues by offering a specialized service based on their needs and wants. Content localization is helpful in this situation.

Content localization is the process of adapting previously created content for your primary market to meet the needs of your new target audience. Despite being frequently used interchangeably, it’s not the same as simple translation.

Desygner helps you to create excellent content that can be localized to match the taste of your target audience. It has an “Unmatched AI-powered Customization Campaign” that allows you to:

• Create the campaign structure once, and Desygner will automatically cascade it to your users in line with the needs of your business.
• Gather and analyze data that will automatically improve the algorithm of your marketing campaign. The marketing localization engine offers options to replace the content across all materials automatically.
• Create customized campaigns using personalized assets and enable customization for thousands of users in an instant. 
• Save all your campaigns as drafts, allowing administrators to review and publish them on their own time.
• Build a first-class set of templates for your primary print and digital marketing pieces.
• Create as many sub-workspaces as required to localize your content automatically.

With Desygner as your all-in-one content localization platform, you’ll save a lot of costs and time for your company.

 See what we can do for you

4. Data Reporting and Analysis

Data is the best ally you can have for your sales enablement strategy.

An effective sales enablement strategy should assist you in producing solid reports and provide you with data-driven insights. You can monitor your sales process, fill up any gaps, and maintain everyone’s alignment with organizational objectives with the aid of reports. Plus, you can watch your team’s and your products’ effectiveness using these analytics.

A few critical sales enablement KPIs are a win rate, average sales cycle duration, average deal size, and sales productivity for the organization and individual salesperson.

You may go even further and monitor the content you send out if you have the appropriate technologies in place.

The following are examples of questions to narrow the results of your analysis:

• Does your staff use the content?
• Do your customers read your emails and click the links in them?
• How many emails did you send before receiving the first call?
• How many calls did you receive before finalizing a deal?

5. Technology Tools

You must implement the appropriate technology once your processes have been specified and you know the metrics you’ll use. The technology you select must complement your goals and can significantly impact how successful your business operates.

A thorough sales enablement strategy should give sales the resources, guidance, and assistance they require to succeed. 

Thousands of these technology platforms and solutions are available on the market, all claiming to enhance your sales activities. Tools for CRM, sales management, coaching, email automation, communication, and so forth are a few examples. Every tool has unique features and functions, and not every tool is appropriate for every user. 

Many firms have realized how Desygner can boost revenue generation. One such organization is Keller Williams Realty, a force to reckon with in the real estate industry in America.

This case study gives valuable insights into how much progress Keller Williams Realty has made as a business since it decided to embrace Desygner.

Final Words

Giving your sales staff the necessary tools is vital to a successful sales enablement plan. It entails offering the right technology, software, and creative material to cut down on waste and increase productivity.

Sales enablement offers too many benefits to overlook. Your sales staff can accelerate sales cycles and close bigger deals.

Implementing a sales enablement strategy won’t happen fast and frequently requires a significant change to your routine business practices and internal culture.

The post What is Sales Enablement | 5 Key Components of a Solid Strategy appeared first on Desygner.

Over the next five years, vendors in the DAM industry will continue to innovate and invest in refining their products. But for users with so many choices, choosing a DAM system that suits their needs will be increasingly challenging.

To help you find the right DAM solution for your business needs, we’ve put together this guide to help you navigate the DAM landscape. We’ve included a buyer’s guide explaining what key features are essential in a system and questions to ask to narrow down your choices.

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Questions to Ask When Choosing a DAM Software

DAM systems are purchased to solve various problems. Before choosing one, it’s essential to be clear about your current needs and goals—and then ask yourself the following questions:

What type of digital assets does your company need to manage?

Knowing the type of assets your company needs to manage can help determine which DAM software is best for your business.

A cloud-based DAM solution may be the ideal option if your company needs to manage a large amount of multimedia content. Cloud-based solutions offer greater scalability and flexibility, so they can grow with your company as it expands or becomes more complex over time.

Whether you need to store and manage photos, videos, audio, documents, or other digital assets, make sure that your DAM software can handle all these media types.

Who will use the DAM system in your organization?

Depending on the company’s structure and departments, various teams will use the system—and all of them have different needs. For example, marketing and sales teams require features that IT or creative staff do not.

Another thing to consider is how much control or access each team needs over a digital asset. Some teams may only need to view assets and not be able to edit them. Other teams might need access to metadata but not be allowed to edit files themselves.

A significant benefit of a DAM system is that it allows you to set user permission settings and access levels. The more you can tailor the system to your organization’s needs, the more effective it will be.

How will the new DAM system integrate with your existing workflow and tools?

Evaluate how you currently use and manage your digital assets, and assess how the new DAM system would fit into your workflow. This way, you can decide what kind of flexibility is most important to have in a new system.

You should also consider how well a DAM system integrates with your team’s tools, which can boost productivity. For example, if your graphic design team uses Figma or Adobe, will they be able to import files from Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign within seconds?

Desygner offers customizable integrations that can be connected to any third-party platform, ensuring that your organization maximizes the full potential of a DAM system.

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DAM Software Non-Negotiables

When choosing a digital asset management system, you have to define non-negotiables. These features refer to the must-have capabilities of the DAM software.

The ideal DAM software will balance price and functionality. We’ll show you this on Desygner’s DAM system.

Technological preference

As businesses have become more complex, the implementation of the DAM system has evolved to meet the needs of companies. Consider whether you want the software hosted internally or within an external cloud-based environment.

• On-premise or locally hosted DAM software gives you more control and customization to fit every need. Because the software is already in place, you can be sure that it’s secure and that only those within your organization can access it. Also, since it is hosted on servers within your organization, the tool will still work in case of internet connection issues. However, the cost of both time and money is considerable.
• With Software as a System (SaaS) or cloud-based solutions like Desygner, businesses don’t need to invest heavily in expertise and manpower. It allows employees to use the software from both mobile and desktop devices, enabling them to work remotely as long as they are connected to an internet-based environment. It is also cheaper to purchase a cloud-based solution rather than on-premise software. You can control the number of seats or users and choose only the features you need.

Features

A DAM system offers many features, making it a solution-based platform. Consider the features you’ll use often, and they include

• Metadata tags make it simpler and faster to search and retrieve assets. Your DAM system should allow you to index and store files by keyword (including phrases or brand names), file information, content usage/rights, and copyright info.
• Digital assets stored in the DAM system will continue to grow over time. It should be able to handle large files and support multiple file formats, including images, videos, documents, and media assets across all channels.
• Multiple downloading of assets and automatic file conversion are also essential features. The ability to convert into different file formats without redesigning from scratch is a huge advantage.
• Easy sharing of assets between multiple partners, freelancers, agencies, and team members by assigning different levels of permissions to each group to ensure that assets will not be compromised.
• Version control and history of changes to files. A DAM system ensures that every user works with the most updated version of the asset and records all changes made to it.

Customer and Onboarding Support

When choosing a digital asset management system, look for vendors that provide dedicated implementation and training support. This will help you to ensure that all of your organization’s requirements are met going forward and prevent any issues from arising.

Desygner has a comprehensive array of support programs for its partners. We offer you: 

• 7-day jumpstart program supporting set up and training
• Dedicated global account manager 
• Customer service team 

If you are looking for a digital asset management system and support is important to you, then Desygner could be the solution. 

We’re here to help you get started. If this is your first time using such a solution, getting all the assistance you need is important. After all, it’s not like your paying for a tool and figuring out how it works on your own! We’ll assist every step of the way.

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User Experience

Digital asset management system users have varying skill levels, from technical experts who can use the tool easily to those who need some training. A DAM system that’s easy to use and has advanced features should be a criterion when choosing a digital asset management system.

Desygner is relatively easy to use for organizations of any size and complexity because of its intuitive user interface. The DAM system is easy for novice users to learn, and its multilingual capabilities allow users to navigate the software in their native language without having to understand new terms.

Reporting and Analytics 

Another feature that should be high on your list of priorities is digital asset analytics. Knowing your digital assets’ performance and usage data can provide many benefits. With this information, you can see what is successful and what isn’t, which will help guide your decision-making.

For example, if you know that your digital assets are used most often by members of your sales team and least often by support staff, you can gain insight into where to focus future efforts and budget. 

Analytics dashboards can also help you identify trends in your digital asset usage to know when it’s time to refresh or update existing assets. Monitoring the performance of your digital assets is important so that you can keep track of their effectiveness and make adjustments if needed.

Scalability

A digital asset management system’s scalability is defined as its ability to manage the growing amount of digital assets and the number of users without impacting the DAM system’s performance or user experience.

This means that the DAM system should be able to add new digital assets and users and integrate external systems without disrupting its existing operations.

Desygner’s DAM system was engineered with scalability and enterprise functionality in mind. Not only is it designed to accommodate the ever-expanding digital assets of your business, but it also has enterprise tools that will propel you into new revenue streams.

Choose DAM Software

Knowing what features are important for your organization to have in a digital asset management system can help you make the right decision. With a price and list of features established, you’ll have the right tools for your company.

Keep in mind the value of what you’re getting now and whether you can scale it. If you get benefits both now and later, you have a winning DAM software in your hands.

The post How To Choose A Digital Asset Management System appeared first on Desygner.

Things now operate differently. Nowadays, a wide range of individuals—from top management to external teams—can influence what your brand is and isn’t.

There are still principles worth following, but how you protect your brand has to change. Here at Desygner, we call this Embracing Modern Brand Governance.

In this article, we will explore how traditional brand compliance has become less effective and what steps you can take to meet the challenges of today’s modern world using 5 guiding principles in managing your brand.

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What is Brand Governance?

Brand governance refers to all the actions an organization takes to manage how its brand is presented and used in internal and external communications. This includes the brand’s visual identity, tone of voice, messaging, and other assets an organization uses to communicate about itself.

The goal is to build trust and loyalty in the brand by ensuring consistent messaging and customer experience across all touchpoints.

Brand Governance: The Traditional View

The conventional “iron fist” approach to brand management calls for a brand manager to monitor the brand identity, establishing and enforcing brand guidelines across every division and team.

Anytime a brand element — like a logo, color scheme, or brand materials — appeared somewhere, the brand marketing team would have ensured all brand assets complied with the brand guidelines.

The truth is that the old brand management model wasn’t as successful as most companies initially believed. It didn’t stop “off-brand” advertising and left brand managers agitated and exhausted.

In other cases, staff members purposefully produced content that reflected their perception of the brand rather than the actual one because they didn’t clearly understand the brand guidelines.

According to a recent poll, 67% of employees make up for being cut off from their brand team when they develop their own brand rules and utilize those guidelines to govern message, design, and asset usage.

Modern Brand Governance

In this approach, brand consistency is a responsibility that extends beyond the brand manager.

Because every team member and employee becomes a brand ambassador that cares and actively tries to preserve the brand identity, the brand manager becomes more of a facilitator than an authority figure, enabling team members to be creative and innovative while maintaining the brand identity.

One of the good things about embracing modern brand governance is that it allows you to tap into the benefits of employee-generated content (EGC).

It creates an innovative culture where everyone is encouraged to develop new ideas for the brand. This is one of the many ways to strengthen your brand. Your employees are also more engaged in the process, which can help with employee retention.

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5 Management Principles for Adopting Modern Brand Governance 

Implementing employee-driven brand governance doesn’t mean you’ll hand over the reins to your employees. Changing your brand management strategy to maintain a balance between trust and control will require a new approach.

Here are five easy-to-apply principles you can start using today:

1. Set basic guidelines and make them known to everyone 

If your employees aren’t aware of the ideal brand’s aesthetic and tone, they won’t be able to assist you in creating a strong one.

Therefore, it only makes sense to begin by creating digital brand guidelines where all your branding elements (logo, color palette, typography, graphics, and images) are in one place.

Create a simple, user-friendly interface where your employees can have a look and feel of what your brand looks like. In this way, you’re introducing your brand’s guidelines to all of your organization’s employees in a more effective way.

Even if you already use something like a design blueprint or brand management tool, keep in mind that these are the frameworks that your entire organization will use to interpret your brand identity.

As such, they need to be appropriately managed and accessible. Make the brand guidelines accessible to everyone in your organization, and they’ll better understand what your brand should be like.

2. Don’t be a ‘brand police’; be a ‘brand custodian’ instead

Learn to select a few individuals to act as brand custodians. Members of your organization should be able to consult with brand custodians.

By doing this, you’ll prevent a lot of brand assets from being misused and encourage other employees to seek your advice on how to use them effectively.

One more thing you should do is understand that not every part of your branding image has to be sacred and “untouchable.” Be free to allow your staff to express their creativity with the not-so-sacred aspect of your branding image.

This would encourage collaborative thinking much more than group thinking. Everyone is challenged to put in their uniqueness to make the brand better.

3. Define limits 

While every company employee represents your brand, not everyone has the authority or should make decisions about what constitutes your brand.

As much as you want to be inclusive, certain parts of your brand identity must remain constant. Decide what makes up your essential brand image and consider other aspects as flexible or optional.

Setting restrictions on how much you can change and how far you can go will help you avoid getting carried away with the creative process and keep your brand identity intact.

4. Keep communication channels constantly open

Brands change over time, and teams must stay on top of these developments and apply them to their work.

Communicating these changes with your staff doesn’t have to be challenging. It might be as easy as selecting the central communication hub for important company news and updates.

Also, make sure that you’re not the only one talking. Most employees want to share their insights and feel acknowledged and listened to. Communication is a two-way street; create opportunities for them to respond to you.

Practice active listening. Take important notes and actively address concerns.

5. Organize training from time to time

The more your employees know about branding in general and your brand in particular, the more likely they will be able to develop initiatives that support your brand.

Make brand training a must for all employees regardless of their level in the company. The more they understand the fundamentals of your brand strategy, the more they will be able to contribute to its development.

From time to time, hold workshops that cover various topics such as how to use brand guidelines and tailor the training so it is relevant for their particular roles. Document all the training. It can serve as a reference point for staff struggling with brand identity.

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How Desygner Supports Brand Governance

Desygner enables non-designers in your team to independently produce and distribute graphic design collateral that is consistently on-brand. Your creative assets can be cohesive, and marketing will be twice as fast. Here’s how;

• Faster Marketing Time: 

The Desygner brand guidelines enforcer can improve your marketing time and make it ten times faster. The brand guideline enforcer significantly reduces the review and approval of creative and digital assets. Desygner minimizes the back and forth involved with designing non-cohesive items. Since you’ve already stated the guidelines, the creative director doesn’t have to undergo a rigorous onboarding process for new team members.

• Increase Brand Advocates:

 Modern brand governance implies that all members of a brand do brand advocacy. This is easier with Desygner. Employees who may not be in the marketing team can also be brand advocates since they can quickly assess brand assets without going through the hierarchical and stressful process of asking marketing team members. Employee-generated content (EGC) takes center stage, too, as all employees can be involved in brand advocacy.

• Regulate how users interact with work files: 

You can stop users from sending, printing, and downloading designs created using templates. Set limits using simple checkboxes and predefined criteria.

There is no need to employ a complex system or write code to determine what can be modified. You can select precisely what can be changed or added and from which sources, such as free stock photos, corporate assets, individual assets, social media pages, and individual profiles.

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Final Words

The most significant course of action if you want your brand to be the best it can be isn’t to maintain complete control over it, even though it can feel safer and more secure.

You must take a step back and allow staff members more authority over the brand-building process in every department of your company.

The post Brand Governance: 5 Principles To Keep Your Brand Under Control appeared first on Desygner.

The critical thing here is to understand that the final product of localization depends on your content creation process. The process requires a good team, tech stack, and staying consistent with quality standards. 

Solving the tech stack issues is easy since you could use an enterprise graphic design tool like Desygner. The more challenging problem of content localization is how you do it. Localization can be a complex process, so it’s vital to have an efficient approach before you begin translating. Keep reading to find out how to create high-quality localized content.

Systematic Approach to Content Localization

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Content operations differ little between businesses. Marketing managers issue content briefs, send them to copywriters and graphic designers and wait for the results. Once they get the final visual, you approve it and publish it. 

The content localization process is almost the same, with the difference in the appropriation for specific markets. Usually, you have the source file, which you share with marketing teams to localize the content. They must translate the content, typeset it, and prepare it for publishing. But none of that is what makes your localized content amazing. 

If you have a franchise or a business with multiple offices, launching a campaign in multiple languages and/or target markets can be challenging. The graphic designers sent out templates for each market and had to manually update them when each office needed to change something in their respective market. Yet, the campaign failed to yield any measurable result that matters.

That’s because much time was spent creating materials. The goal isn’t to translate brochures, web pages, or social media posts into multiple languages but to ensure that the content connects with the target market in a way that is most appealing. And there’s a process for creating content of that quality.

Your Success is a Reflection of Your Process 

Michael Gerber, the author of E-Myth, popularized the idea of thinking of your business as a franchise. The goal of a business is to become a turn-key operation, which means it could replicate the whole operation in any market. Once you set it up, it’ll work on the same principles until you scale it to the same level as your first business. 

He was talking about franchises. The main advantage of a franchise is that there are business development, sales, and marketing principles you could apply to a new franchise. In this sense, it means that there are content assets you could reuse to market your services and products. 

The correct process allows you to do this in any market. Also, it reduces the learning curve for new employees and keeps the quality of content consistent. But, before you even get to consistency, you must build the process before anything else.

Consistency 

First, take a look at how you should structure your process. Your process should look like this: 

• Create a brief for the marketing team 
• Assign tasks 
• Send content and context to translators 
• Deliver the content to the graphic design team
• Edit existing materials with new content 
• Match the quality standards of the content 
• Approve for publishing 
• Publish the content 

Execution is the primary issue for most businesses. We have a common observation from our users that Desygner helps them structure the content creation process. For example, maybe you have a marketing manager that doesn’t know how to write a content brief.

They’ll be left to work independently even if you have a superstar team. That leads to less brand enforcement and unsatisfactory content. It’s impossible to have an excellent final product. But, with a proper process, organizing your team is much simpler.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

For content localization to work, you need a multi-talented team. You need a marketing and content team with experience in global markets. And, you want a graphic designer with comprehensive knowledge of a locale.

Native translators with advanced language proficiency in the target language. The hard part of content localization is to adapt the content for a specific market. The content you publish in Europe will look much different than the one you publish in Asia. 

Core skills for your designers should be graphic design, typesetting, and an understanding of the global market. A marketing manager with experience could build a content creation process, but the people make it work.

Content Localization Challenges

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1. Language 

The core problem of content localization is the linguistic and cultural adaptation of the content. When you think about it from the business development perspective, language is a huge obstacle to overcome. Every language has a unique usage pattern and meaning. Small errors made when translating into a foreign language can dramatically alter the meaning of the information. Translating content from English to German requires a different approach to translating content from English to Chinese. 

When you drill it down to the actual process, the latter language pair requires that a designer must use new fonts and characters and work with different design elements such as colors, images, symbols, and icons. A brochure copy that has been translated from English to Chinese may appear very differently.

2. Typesetting Issues 

Typesetting is a crucial part of the process. During the typesetting, you’ll format the translated text inside the template or graphic design software such as Adobe InDesign.

The greatest challenge of typesetting is to make the translated text read naturally. Each language has its own set of rules. There is a lot that needs to be considered before the typesetting process begins. When positioning translated text, take into account the following crucial elements:

• Text expansion and contraction
• Bidirectional script (right-to-left languages)
• Line breaks
• Font rules (capitalization, alignment, italic, bold, etc.)
• Punctuation

Professional multilingual typesetters made all the integral changes to make certain that every textual content fits nicely inside the template and maintains the integrity of the original design.

3. Design Elements 

The final obstacle of content localization is getting the design together. Sometimes, you’ll encounter issues like: 

• Use of appropriate images and symbols
• Identifying the correct colors and gestures
• Cultural differences between designs

Without comprehensive knowledge of cultural nuances and details, you’ll fail to capitalize on the taste and preferences of your target market. Also, following a process allows you to sustain quality content in all your campaigns and marketing activities.

Creating such high-performing visual content doesn’t have to be complicated. Desygner eliminates the risk of localization mistakes or cultural understanding by empowering local content producers.

Content Localization Workflow

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Let’s start with the content localization workflow. You need a solid content creation process and choose the right tech stack for a successful workflow.

If you approach these issues systematically, you can scale them as necessary. The usual situation is that you want to expand your reach in a new market. If you have the process down, you’ll build the team, introduce them to workflow and start creating multilingual content.

So far, we have discussed how to think about content localization. Now, let’s look at how you could use Desygner to help you with the process! 

1. Setting Up Content Localization Process 

Always create the documentation first. It should cover: 

• Context of each market
• Tasks
• Team roles 
• Quality standards

Documentation is perfect for new and existing operations, and it’ll help you to enforce your brands and keep up with quality standards. Then, it’s time to learn how to use your tech stack.

2. Content Localization Tech Stack 

Your designers probably use the Adobe suite (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.). You have a content creation process, and you want them to tap into the asset manager, implement brand guidelines and create a multilingual campaign.

Whether you are following marketing trends or doing multilingual content marketing, Desygner helps you to do all of this with a single tool.

First, it has a plug-in that allows integration with the Adobe suite. That means you can export and import branded templates from Desygner and work on them as you wish. 

The plug-in also allows you to access DAM. The marketing manager may set a digital asset manager to enable designers to access only specific, tagged assets for a particular locale.

Also, when you use Desygner, you can immediately distribute your template to different offices. When you distribute the materials, your team members receive the notification and can start localizing the templates. 

Then, they use the same platform to manage design changes and send the templates back for approval. Once the approval process ends, they may publish the content. If you are refining such a process, it is worth to look at the InDesign alternative that helps with this improvement, scaling and time saving.

3. Content Localization Process 

Ideally, the content localization process should work like this. Let’s say you want to create a brochure for a new service. It’s a global campaign, and you must launch it simultaneously in all your offices. 

You’ll develop the content with your primary marketing team and upload it to Desygner. Then, you’ll translate all content for each market you have and upload it with the branded template into the asset manager. 

Here, the Marketing Localization Engine performs the best. You can also read how franchises like Coldwell Banker and Keller Williams use these tools for their franchise marketing. 

The features use Neural Machine Translation (NMT) to help you localize your materials. But, it’s also possible to integrate 3rd party CAT tools with Desygner. 

Another perk is that our tools have an AI learning system that stores your previous templates to give you recommendations. Once you upload the templates, the market localization engine “learns” what type of template you prefer and gives you recommendations for new projects. 

If unsatisfied with your content, you can always use advanced design tools. When you decide to make a change to your template, log into the Desygner platform and edit the document. 

It’s possible to resize images and templates, remove background, add animations and even use premium stock photos. Once all the templates are ready, send them for approval and are prepared for publishing.

4. Publishing Materials 

It’s time for quality control. Only the final product counts. If you think about your marketing collateral as an asset in marketing, you want people to take action when they see it. 

First, cover the basics like: 

• Equivalence of meaning to the original text
• Comply with native language using idioms, phrases, and conversational style 
• Align all elements on the templates
• Ensure that word length fits the template 
• Enforce brand policies
• Set proper fonts

That’s the basic checkup, but you want to add another layer of quality, and another quality is how well you adopt the templates for the local markets. 

Understanding specific markets’ social and cultural nuances is the secret sauce behind high-quality visuals. Once you publish the content, try to measure how people react to it. For example, you could track: 

• Number of calls 
• Website visits 
• Sales 

Then, you’ll get a pretty good estimate of whether the content works. If it works, rinse and repeat. If not, you’ll have an idea of why the localization strategy is not working. Document the process and repeat it.

Try Localizing Content With Desygner 

So, that’s how you could improve your content localization process. All that is left is signing up and using Desygner enterprise features.

The post How to Simplify High-Visual Content Localization appeared first on Desygner.

What Is MarTech?

The phrase “marketing technology” or “martech” refers to marketing teams’ software and technology to entice and keep customers. These tools save time since they frequently automate and streamline operations. They also aid marketers in evaluating the effectiveness of their initiatives.

Moreover, MarTech can be used by any type of marketer — even non-digital marketers. Typically, one MarTech tool is applied to various marketing disciplines.

How to Build a MarTech Stack: 6 Essential Steps

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1. Factor In Your Existing Technology

Before you invest a lot of money in something new, you should be aware of the platforms, software, and apps your team is using and each product’s features. It’s never wise to spend money on a tool that you already own or one that doesn’t compliment your existing tools.

Your martech stack’s technologies will frequently interact with one another to improve your data and carry out your requests. The last thing you need is a major headache caused by tools that don’t work well together or ones that break frequently.

2. Identify Your Needs

Nowadays, there are a near-infinite number of marketing technologies available, each catering to different needs and purposes. Consider what you want from your marketing tech stack in order to avoid being paralyzed by the seemingly limitless possibilities available.

For starters, try outlining your company’s goals and the digital marketing tactics you want to use to achieve them. Lo and behold, you’ve already ruled out a ton of possibilities that wouldn’t be worthwhile by simply having goals and a plan in place.

3. Figure Out Your Budget

The cost of marketing technology varies. Depending on your use case, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars- annually. That sort of money does not come cheap.

Know your budget for each tool before scheduling meetings with the representatives of the respective software being pursued. This prevents you from spending all of your money on one piece of your martech stack only to find that you subsequently cannot afford the other two tools required to reach your objectives.

4. Research Different Solutions

Get your game face on because at this stage; you’ll probably going be having meetings with sales reps from different companies.

A classic way to start off your research is to Google it. Search for corporate websites and take note of any that stick out. Review websites like G2 offer a wealth of useful information about each business.  

Make every conscious effort to try and gain as much knowledge as you can about each marketing technology. Look up tutorials, tips and tricks, and any other useful documents. If it’s difficult for you to obtain sufficient information on how to use a certain technology, you should reconsider investing in it. 

After all, you’ll need all the help you can get to put the tools you choose into practice and make the most of them. It’s also crucial to remember that your team’s skill level should also be factored into your decision. For instance, software that is too complicated won’t ease up work-it’ll have the opposite effect instead of dragging it into the slumps.

5. Choose What Works Best For You

Take your time when making your decision. Take into account all of your possibilities, and don’t forget to consider how much work will be involved in configuring your tool. If it helps, you could create a list of pros and cons to simplify the decision.

Make sure that you share your research with everyone in charge of managing your marketing stack. They should feel just as confident in your choice as you do.

6. Implementation

Finally, once you’ve signed contracts and obtained access to your brand-new tools, you’re ready to integrate them into your martech stack or start one from scratch if you don’t already have one. Depending on the technologies you’ve invested in, and how much of your marketing data you need to process or export, this might be a quite complicated, technical procedure. It might be the most difficult aspect of everything.

Some companies may help with the setup of your martech stack, whether that’s included in your investment or as an extra fee. Having your new tools set up by professionals is a great option, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience or time to devote to your setup.

On an ending note, don’t forget to evaluate your tools on a routine basis. If your marketing technology doesn’t work as promised, or you don’t like it as much as you thought, look at your options and consider switching to a different tech. The numbers of platforms out there are neigh limitless!

Top 5 Tools To Include In Your MarTech Stack

Every company’s martech stack is bound to be unique since every company’s size and marketing strategy varies. However, these basic building blocks are a common feature in most martech stacks.

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1. Content Creation & Automation Tool: Desygner Enterprise

Desygner should be your go-to solution for creating visual content, offering numerous tools to create or design images for your business. Desygner allows you to implement content localization, brand compliance, DAM (Digital Asset Management), and more. 

Whether you want to improve task approval or ensure your web content meets your marketing strategy’s needs, Desygner’s got you covered!

2. Analytics Tool: Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the most popular web analytics tools – and for a good reason. This free Google-powered tool offers both prescriptive and predictive analytics in equal measure. 

However, to utilize Google Analytics effectively, you’ll need to follow a tutorial, as sometimes it can be challenging to analyze the data without any prior knowledge of how it functions. With Google Analytics, observing trends and identifying user flows is like a walk in the park!

3. Customer Relationship Management: Salesforce

Salesforce services allow businesses to use cloud technology to better connect with partners, customers, and potential customers. With the Salesforce CRM, companies can track customer activity, market to customers, and carry out many more services. You can also maximize your Salesforce investment with help from other salesforce services and integrations, such as Salesforce time tracking that can create custom fields or automate manual processes to increase sales team efficiency.

A CRM platform enables you to dig deeper into all of your metrics and data; with Salesforce, you can also create a dashboard that visually displays your data. CRM software solution enhances your sales team’s outreach efforts or customer service’s capacity to assist clients, which is a huge added benefit.

4. Project Management Software: Jira

Jira is a robust work management platform for various types of use cases, varying from agile software development to requirements and test case management.

Jira Software can be tailored to fit any project. Teams have the option of starting with a pre-existing project template, or they may opt for a custom template. Furthermore, administrators can choose who can view what and take what actions by using customizable permissions, and reports can be generated using the project information. This allows you to monitor productivity, track advancement, and make sure nothing is overlooked.

5. SEO Tools: Semrush

SEMrush is software that is used by businesses to run digital marketing strategies, like SEO campaigns. This all-in-one digital marketing program allows you to run SEO, pay-per-click (PPC), and content marketing campaigns. 

Using SEMrush, identifying trends that occur within your industry segment becomes a breeze. Moreover, it evaluates your on-page SEO and aids in page improvement. You may use this to better understand your page and SEO-optimize it for improved lead creation.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, the benefits of employing a martech stack are limitless. Increased productivity and better identification of customer trends are just the tip of the iceberg-and it only gets better from here! Take reign of your marketing campaigns and integrate Desygner into your martech stack today!

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The post How to Build a MarTech Stack That’ll Boost Your Marketing Efforts appeared first on Desygner.

What is Digital Asset Management Workflow?

Starting with the basics, a workflow is essentially a series of tasks that process a certain dataset. When it comes to asset management, a typical workflow includes a vast range of tasks, from drafting assets to integrating them into a digital solution, then further submitting the solution for approval, and finally finetuning and editing.

DAM process aims to digitize the asset management process, enabling users to manage the entire creative workflow from a single location. That’s the broad definition of how DAM helps anyways.

Each digital asset has its own lifecycle, one that defines each segment of its life cycle. This leads to the next subtopic, the lifecycle of a digital asset.

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The Life Cycle of a Digital Asset

With digital assets such as images and videos, there are four distinct phases in their lifetime, also known as a digital asset life cycle.

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1. Creation

The creation phase is often defined by intensive drawing, designing, photographing, and modeling.

However, for any of the aforementioned activities to be carried out satisfactorily, brainstorming, creating draughts, iterating, and creating the final design are all quintessential activities.

Digital asset management workflow begins right from this stage. It’s crucial to make sure the same idea is considered while naming each iteration design to maximize its potential. The name should be constant regardless of whether you choose to optimize for accessibility using the date of the design, the stage of the draught, or any other criteria.

2. Management

Moving on from the creation of a digital asset, we arrive at the management phase of the digital asset’s lifecycle. At this stage, the majority of the tasks performed are purely administrative by nature.

Assigning permissions to the appropriate teams, ensuring they are accessible from a centralized location, effectively categorizing them, and providing metadata are all aspects of managing digital assets.

Making sure feedback is shared amongst teams is a crucial component of the management process that should not be overlooked. Moreover, communication with the relevant teams is required for approvals, rejections, modifying rights, and changing file and folder structures.

It is also crucial to have a single repository for the digital assets, where they can be conveniently accessed by teams who need them and sorted through to discover the files they need. This necessitates a uniform folder organization and naming scheme that is both simple to understand and simple to use.

3. Distribution

The third stage is the distribution stage: which involves ending the digital assets across the internet to other teams and partners. Compared to the other three stages, the distribution stage tends to be more relevant for most teams. 

It’s vital to be able to easily and securely track who has received what at this phase. It’s crucial to avoid transmitting them through conventional channels in particular because they are not scaleable, such as email or FTP.

The distribution phase will start once each team has been granted access to the raw, uncompressed files through a common site.

The digital asset is then embedded into emails, onto web pages, and linked with social media. Linking works brilliantly because it allows for easier tracking of interactions on the internet-a figure that is used quite often in gauging the effectiveness of a digital marketing asset.

4. Archiving

When a digital asset has finished its life cycle, it is time to either retire it or perhaps merely store it for later use. Many teams opt to completely skip this step; however, it may be crucial for the organization. Without maintaining sufficient documentation, gathering data about a project is not particularly beneficial.

Generally speaking, the steps involved in creating repositories to back up the asset are nearly comparable. It makes managing non-currently-used assets much simpler and serves to preserve them.

5 Benefits Of Digital Asset Management Workflow

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1. Organize Content

One of the greatest benefits of DAM is that it allows for the organizing of content. This allows team members and outside partners can locate all they require in a single system.

New assets are always being generated due to the ongoing demand for marketing content. However, having more files may make it simpler to lose them. Team alignment and content accessibility are maintained by having a central area where users can regularly locate what they need when they need it.

Additionally, since missing assets are safe and simple to find once they’re kept in the system, DAM systems can eliminate the expenditures of having them recreated.

2. Repurpose your Best-Performing Content 

Repurpose your best-performing content again to save time and money. DAM systems can increase the value of assets through reuse and repurposing by giving a complete view of the content that is available. It’s not just about recycling current copy, graphics, video, or other creative content; it’s also about rethinking it to fulfill brand-new objectives. 

Teams may develop prior projects and give them new life while saving time, money, and resources by building on assets that already exist when past and current content is freely available.

3. Ensure Brand Consistency 

Digital asset management workflow allows you to align brand guidelines and content across creators and communicators. This ensures that all your team members use the same on-brand files. 

A single content repository with simple search tools allows marketers to curtail the use of outdated or low-quality file versions. Consistent use of the right content helps ensure cohesive brand messaging and thus a wholly solid brand image.

4. Monitor Content Effectiveness

By understanding where and why teammates publish content and measuring how well it engages your audience, you can gauge how effective your content is.

DAM systems often include analytics tools that track who is using which assets — when, where, and how. This data can be used to inform system optimization and influence important content strategy decisions. Using data to inform content strategy allows teams to identify opportunities to reuse their best-performing content, ultimately saving time and valuable resources.

5. Aids in Preventing Video Duplicates

By employing DAM, you can ensure that a certain video file is only uploaded once. Videos, especially high-quality videos, take up many GB of space on both servers and users’ computers.

DAM tags video files to multiple categories—freeing up space while also ensuring proper storage and organization with the central repository of data. Note that this is only one of the many benefits of video asset management.

Final Thoughts

However, the benefits of DAM don’t end here. Whether you want to improve productivity, speed up asset searching, or introduce work from home, Desygner’s Digital Asset Management workflow software solution is the way to go. After all, online marketing is quickly gaining notoriety, and DAM is shaping up to be one of the only ways to stay ahead of the curve!

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That’s why marketing automation has come to the forefront in 2022. 

Marketing experts predict that by the end of 2023, global marketing automation will reach a 25.1billion dollar market size. Already, 90% of marketers use about two marketing automation software daily. 

The results are mind-blowing. The prospects are enormous, and in a world of a million strategies, marketing automation is a marketing strategy that has come to stay and is growing as rapidly as ever. 

This article will address the new trends in the marketing automation industry. We will discuss how businesses keep up with these trends and adjust to these changes to achieve their marketing goals. It will also outline how Artificial intelligence and machine learning are providing solutions to the marketing industries’ challenges and enhancing customer experiences.

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What is Marketing Automation and Why is It Important

Marketing automation refers to using software to automate routine and repetitive marketing tasks. These software applications help to achieve the seamless experience that makes marketing effective. 

You can use them as stand-alone software or integrate them with your CRM, CDP, and other enterprise software. They can also be used collaboratively with human input. 

The goal is to turn the complex and monotonous processes involved in marketing into repeatable, consistent, and easier operations. 

Marketing automation does not replace human input in organizations. It augments and improves human efforts, freeing employees to focus on other tasks. You can automate marketing tasks, as well as input employee time tracking to increase your team’s productivity.

Marketing automation Is essential because it boosts productivity and decreases the errors and shortcomings of human input.

Top 5 Marketing Automation Trends in 2022

2022 is the year of brand awakening. Customer-centric brands are at the forefront of B2B and especially B2C companies. People want seamless service. The stakes are high, and there is an influx of innovations with every waking moment. 

Let us explore the trends in marketing automation and why your business should adopt them as part of your marketing strategy.

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1. ChatBot Automation

Marketers have seen the dangerous consequences of not paying attention to customers. Allowing them to go through the stress of poor communication is bad for business. Prompt communication, along with the best business phone systems and the right automation tools, means more conversion rates as they can move quickly from each stage of their buyer journey to the other. AI-powered chatbots can make the process easy and fast. Thirty-five percent of customers love chatbots. Building a global customer base would mean responding to customers round the clock, especially as a B2C or SaaS company. Using chatbots improves user experience considerably. Your bot can be an omni channel marketing platform to accommodate customers on various platforms, even social media. The Desygner Enterprise bot doesn’t just aid in a prompt response. It makes sure to respond to customers in a personalized tone and could be set to multilingual to enable the engagement of customers from around the world. Because there is less intervention, it’s easier to avoid human errors and track information for analysis and more user-generated content. The result is that the average response time is improved significantly as the chatbot can respond to lots of clients at once.

2. Voice-Activated Automation

Voice-based marketing is ideal for most product-based companies. It’s also really great for other kinds of companies. Voice-based marketing can help with recording, tracking, and managing phone conversations. It can also help with call transcriptions and receiving voice commands. Big brands like Dominos, Uber, and PayPal have launched voice-based marketing features. Voice-activated automation enables brands to have two-way conversations with their customers and avoid the monotony of one-way voice recordings. Voice automated chatbots remove the technical bridge in the information that comes with text conversations.

3. Digital Marketing Content Automation

Content marketing is a vital part of any digital brand to thrive. Content marketing is consistent, cohesive content strategy and content curation. This is made quite easy using a digital marketing content automation tool. In 2022, marketers will be using these content automation tools to achieve excellent results in their content marketing. The algorithm of most social media platforms supports constant engagement and content posting. Desygner’s digital marketing content automation tool can enable marketers to create and repurpose content. It even allows them to use the algorithm tools that would help them reach their target audience.

4. Hyper-Personalisation Automation

Things have evolved from the bare minimum personalization to the need for hyper-personalization. Customers do not just want their names tagged in every paragraph of an AI-written email. They want more. They don’t want generic, rigid messages and content. They want the kinds of things that resonate with them. They want you to sound human. People are not just buying a product or using a service. 

Customers want a feeling of acceptance, love, and support. Hyper personalization helps you achieve that. And marketing without this personalization would not work in 2022 with the excessive competition in every industry. This automation could be done using an SMS marketing service for two-way conversational chats or personalized product tours. It may even include voice features for customers to express themselves better.

5. No-Code Adaptations

The complexity of many marketing tools has greatly hindered productivity and led to several frustrating stops. No-code automation is getting more popular because of the need to accommodate team members who may not be tech-savvy. No-code tools save money, time, and effort. Websites can be quickly built, content can be adequately managed, and data can be better analyzed using no-code tools. No-code is a revolution that has started happening. Technical knowledge can no longer stand as a hindrance to marketing operations. No-code apps and software can enable marketers to create customized and beautiful landing pages. They can also post their blogs themselves and track their data.

6. Collaboration Automation Tools

Remote working has taken over the world, especially after the pandemic and the aftermath of the great resignation in 2021. New collaboration methods have become top-notch in marketing automation. Marketing Teams now seek means for effective collaboration with teammates. The impact of good teamwork on the business’ productivity cannot be overemphasized.

 Marketing automation tools would help in content marketing, advertising, analytics, and customer support.

Wrapping Up

Marketing automation is evolving. Marketing Teams would always have to update and keep up with the trends. This would make for effective, sustainable marketing. 

Creating a marketing automation strategy will help put all these trends in place. Also, using the right automation tools will ensure effective marketing automation. The Desygner digital marketing content and bot are the best tools to achieve your marketing automation goals.

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Branding helps you create and sustain a presence, whether expanding an existing franchise or developing a new one. Performance marketing, like SEO or PPC, is much better when there’s an existing marketing platform.

It’s much easier to use an existing content library, repurpose it, and use it for growth. Keep reading to learn how to approach franchise marketing for consistent branding and development.

A Misconception About Franchise Marketing

Franchises have centralized and decentralized marketing structures, and the difference between them is in the alignment to the core of operations. 

A centralized franchise is like a classic corporate marketing structure. It has a unified brand image with a great similarity between the products/services and the core brand – the main brand has power over different business units. A decentralized structure offers multiple products/services with not much similarity between what is offered, thus requiring different managing teams each having their own customers, marketing approaches, initiatives, and pricing strategies.

You must develop a marketing strategy to attract clients regardless of your structure. That way, starting with content marketing, SEO, or PPC is like building a house without a foundation. 

Of course, you’ll use both SEO and PPC, but you’ll do it in later stages of business. First, you have to build a foundation for your franchise marketing.

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4 Biggest Digital Marketing Problems Franchisors Face

Imagine that you just moved your franchise to a new market. You have two choices: using existing content assets or creating entirely new content. When you consider time, money, and resources, it makes much more sense to use existing content and localize it. 

Localizing the content means you’ll take existing content and appropriate it for the new market. Also, you could repurpose the content and use it for both print and digital. 

Owners and marketing executives often spend the least time on this task. Most claim to have problems with the localization of materials, timing, resources, or budget.

1. Marketing Campaigns and Local materials  

Established franchises have a content library ready for business owners to use once they get a license. However, you must edit materials for the local market before publishing them.

The most significant hurdle to franchise marketing is localizing content. For example, Marketing Execs are responsible for putting together a unified marketing strategy for about 20 franchisees. 

They have to coordinate the latest version of the artwork and translation and make each design fit into different social media sizes. That’s a lot of work if they communicate with each marketing team in those 20 franchisees. 

So, Marketing Managers have to:

• Align marketing strategies (centralize them) 
• Communicate with individual marketing teams 
• Ensure that everything is published on schedule 

But, to align franchisees, you still have to edit the materials for each franchise. During the editing process, address: 

• Copy
• Prices 
• Product info 

The hard part is getting it all together. That requires adequate technology, knowledge, and organization or an enterprise tool.

2. Timing 

While marketing localization is essential, it’s even more important to do it at the right time. For example, you may want to run a discount or a giveaway to promote your business. 

Another major thing is to keep your brand consistent. Ensuring your franchise marketing works like a well-oiled machine gives you room to grow your business. 

Then, marketing becomes more straightforward while focusing on business development and sales. Yet, you want to keep your brand immediately recognizable. That means that you need visuals and graphics for: 

• Website
• Social media
• Fliers
• Print 
• Emails

But, these visuals have to stay consistent with the brand guidelines. Your franchise will look untrustworthy if your customers get a different style for social media design, print, and website.

3. Resources

So, you’ll have to allocate resources for franchise marketing. Here, resources refer to human resources or employees involved with marketing tasks. 

If you run a small company, these tasks will be the whole team’s responsibility. More prominent companies have marketing departments, with marketing executives, managers, and specialists for these tasks.  

Yet, marketing teams always want to tackle long-term strategies without much attention to building their brand. You could attribute that to the way companies want to spend their budgets.

4. Budget 

Franchise owners consider franchise marketing a tool to get the most sales and leads possible. They may approach hiring a marketing team or work with an agency with an idea of a long-term performance strategy. 

In reality, they want to pay to see a return on investment in the first few months of investing in marketing. 

That’s the mistake most franchise owners make, and they fail to notice that a franchise became a franchise due to solid branding. Instead of measuring their success in marketing data, they should try to replicate the brand. 

A brand is the foundation and source of growth for franchisees, and many owners fail to recognize that. 

Why Franchises Struggle With Marketing 

The reason why franchises struggle with marketing is that they lack proper tools and brand consistency. 

Using a bunch of tools for your marketing requires that you expand the budget, and that means more money spent with lower ROI and unclear results. Instead, you could focus on building your brand through content.

Change the way you manage your marketing materials across your entire franchise network

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How to Improve Franchise Marketing

If you want to improve your franchise marketing, you could use Desygner Enterprise Solution. Take a moment to read how Coldwell Banker and Keller Williams Realty franchises used Desygner for franchise marketing.  

In both cases, these franchises are used for digital asset management, content governance, and building content governance models. Or, you could say that Desygner helps these franchises create content, store and distribute digital assets, enforce their brand, and delegate marketing tasks.

Manage Digital Assets 

First, you want to start using Digital Asset Management software. Digital asset management is a system to host and share graphic content. 

DAM lets you manage everything from icons, images, visuals, videos, and text. It has another feature that helps you build and store templates for your business. 

Imagine that you opened up a franchise at a new location. You have an existing content library that you import into the DAM. Then, you pick the best-performing content in the DAM and create branded templates. 

Now, you can go into Desygner and set who has access to specific assets. For example, you may give access to certain assets to your social media team. 

Then, each user on the social media team gets access to the platform, and they can create content in minutes. Instead of building everything step by step, you can complete the whole content creation process beforehand. 

In the case of Keller Williams Realty, it helped them build over 3000 templates for their customers. And they can customize them on the spot! 

Build a Marketing Hub For Users 

Once you import the content, it’s time to create a Corporate Marketing Hub for your employees. The hub’s purpose is to customize a working space for your employees to manage and create content. 

For Coldwell Banker, the marketing hub helped them share and create content among 60 franchises! They had a special use for Desygner since they had to prepare a lot of content for print. 

Another helpful feature of a Corporate Marketing Hub is that creators can collaborate with the rest of the marketing team. For example, your marketing team may want to run a Facebook ads campaign and need an ad visual. 

Your content creators can create the visual, upload it and store it for later use. If they need inspiration, they can browse old visuals and find the best performers. 

However, integration with other tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign is truly redeeming. Unlike with other design tools, you can connect with tools you regularly use with Desygner. Another thing is that you can use Adobe Indesign Alternative for Mac, Linux, and Windows to save time and upscale productivity.

That gives you a much better workflow and reduces the learning curve, even more so if you consider brand consistency. 

Enforce Brand Guidelines 

Brand Guidelines Enforcer is one of the best tools in the Desygner enterprise set. It sets the restrictions on edits. 

It’s about making your brand look consistent on all platforms. For example, imagine that you employ a new social media team, and their task is to create content for Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. 

Your social media team may use the same visuals but must edit them for their respective platforms. Each social media team member has to make specific edits, and you don’t want to risk uploading a poor visual on your pages. 

You don’t have to worry about it with a brand guidelines enforcer. It allows you to set how much users may edit each content asset.  

Also, you can restrict how much users may share without your authorization. That way, you can prevent any user from misusing your content. 

Customize for The Local Market 

Finally, Designer allows you to use the Marketing Localization Engine. The Marketing Localization Engine is an AI tool that helps you localize content for different markets in less time. 

Desygner AI helps you craft a template and multiply it for multilingual campaigns. Instead of building each template set for a different franchise location, let Desygner handle it. 

Marketing Localization Engine helps you localize content at scale and personalize it for specific markets. So, if you have to build 10 similar campaigns, it’s much easier to localize it with Desygner. 

You can tag assets, set specific rules for each market, and let AI multiply the templates. But, what matters more than that is how you use all these features together.

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Different Approach to Franchise Marketing

Sometimes, the best marketing isn’t about traditional marketing at all. Instead, it would help if you were looking at how to use what you already got. 

Trying to make performance marketing from the start could prove a waste of time and resources. It would be much better to set a foundation for your brand and establish it.

Performance Marketing is a Long-Term Game 

When people talk about digital marketing, they think about content marketing, SEO, or PPC marketing. These marketing methodologies make perfect sense for almost any business, but franchise marketing differs. 

When you think about a franchise, it’s a developed, branded business expanding through a hybrid ownership structure. Unlike a regular company, your goal isn’t to create a brand for your business but to introduce it to a new market. 

Paying ads or ranking for keywords creates additional confusion since you are competing against your company. And performance marketing makes more sense when you establish your presence in the market. 

Until you become a relevant force in the market, your goal should be to establish your brand. For that, you have to set the foundation. For that, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Set the Foundation

Building a foundation for a franchise is much easier if you use all content and tools available. It’s much easier to appropriate the content instead of developing everything again. 

Foundation is more than having enough social media visuals to publish for a month. Building a foundation is more about training employees, providing the team with a job aid on implementing the different tasks, setting up campaigns, and building a brand presence.

Then, consider creating templates for business documents. Once you have that, you have enough graphics, visuals, and templates for all business, sales, and marketing purposes.

Establish the Brand 

Clients won’t remember the messaging on your website, but they’ll remember the look of the document they have to sign. Creating memorable visual experiences is the best way to market your franchise. 

There’ll be time to optimize your marketing, but that comes later. With verified business formulas, you could achieve more with less if you have the right content. 

Get as much content as possible, create templates, and launch your campaigns. It’s all possible with Desygner.

Localize Your Marketing

Desygner is a solution that could help you localize your marketing efforts. Of course, there are other ways to market a franchise. 

However, there aren’t many other ways to be efficient and successful about it. To learn how Desygner could help you, schedule a demo with us. 

Content creation is much simpler with the right tools. It works so much better when you have five enterprise tools in a single app.

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The Concept of Multilingual Content Marketing and What it Means for Businesses

Multilingual simply means many languages. The concept of multilingual content marketing retains content marketing principles and objectives but in more than one language. According to Copyblogger,

“Content marketing means creating and sharing valuable free content to attract and convert prospects into customers and customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell; in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you.”

The important keywords by order of importance here are; attract, know, like, trust, convert and repeat.

Multilingual content marketing is a strategy used to scale business through blogs, videos, social media posts, ebooks, podcasts, etc., to audiences of different languages. Keep in mind that the content design for social media should match the one for your blogs to stay on brand.

If executed well, businesses can;

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1. Gain a Competitive Edge

The link between conversion rates of a customer presented with propositions in their localized language is very strong. Savvy marketers understand that multilingual interfaces on their websites present a huge opportunity because of the diverse customers you can reach with it. Remember, 72.1% of these customers spend more time on websites that are in their language. If your business should execute a multilingual content strategy before your competitors, you stand a better chance of increasing brand awareness which builds trust and credibility.

2. Generate Revenue and Sales

Stats according to AdParlor proves that localizing content for audiences is one easy path to increasing revenue and brand loyalty. The study on Fortune 500 companies showed a two times likelihood to ramp up profit year after year. This is because multilingual content marketing displays commitment, stability, and longevity, which dispels doubts from potential customers.

3. Trust and Retention

The backbone of content marketing is trust. You need to ‘speak your customers’ language’ using their dialect. Localizing your content not only ensures brand awareness in a wider spectrum; it creates an understanding through emotional communication. Such trust not only builds your business audience but also retains them. 

Multilingual content marketing presents a lot of opportunities for businesses that implement it with effective strategies. But without an agile, simple, and cost-effective approach, localizing marketing content can prove to be complicated.

Challenges of Multilingual Content Strategy

Marketing managers face challenges that are well beyond currency differences and language translation. Nuanced factors of culture, dialects, and interpretations make multilingual content marketing seem complicated. Here are some of the common challenges it presents to businesses.

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1. Challenge on Brand Messaging

With multilingual content marketing, it is challenging to maintain congruent brand messaging. Audiences in different localities have different values attached to products and services. This requires flexibility in brand messaging since you need a message that both resonates with the audience and your brand – in all interested localities. For example, cultures in most Asian countries uphold family-togetherness and homemade food. For commercial food businesses looking to expand, this will affect their marketing campaigns.

2. Challenge on Resources

Multilingual content marketing takes time and money because there is no one size fits all. You cannot just leave the work to a marketing team who is not specialized for a locality you wish to target. In fact, the best way to learn communication is by direct research with the local audience. This will take more time, brainstorming sessions, and split tests to ensure that your business will not only adapt to the new locality but also meet success in its campaigns.

3. Challenges in Branding 

Multilingual content marketing affects content and vice versa. For example, different color schemes can mean other things in different countries. Muslim countries see green as a holy color, but you can’t say the same for China; it denotes infidelity. In Ireland, it means good luck. Red in places like China and Korea is part of color themes for luck but may signify danger in others. Changes in characters, such as Non-Latin scripts, can also affect the orientation and layout of designs. Again, affecting the structure of creating marketing materials. The challenge here is to ensure that marketing materials are correct and current at all times. Most often, it requires reshooting ads, promotional videos, and redesigning banners, to properly represent messages that will stick with your audience as well as address market-specific differences.

4. Lack of Infrastructure and Tools

Multilingual content marketing is pretty much an emerging field, and there are only a few tools to support the unique demands for a dynamic content strategy. However, it is no setback because we constantly learn and provide dynamic solutions for multilingual content marketing and localization needs.

Everything you Need to Know About Strategy

Deciphering the challenges in multilingual content strategy can be a hassle, but the results are rewarding. Consistent representation of brand messaging across different locales can guarantee market expansion and an increase in revenue. Here are step-by-step strategies on how to start localizing your brand.

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1. Understand your Core Message

Implementing multilingual content marketing is something you can only get right from the start. You must have a core message to properly adapt your marketing to a new target market. You should have consistent content on your blogs, social media channels, and other media outlets. Having a solid core message will ensure that you do not stray off the guard rails when you need to adapt content.

2. Researching the Audience 

You need to research your new market if you want to communicate values better and position your brand in a new target market. The research goes beyond just language. Preferences, jargon, dialects, values, and culture will help you understand your target audience’s pain points and equip your marketing team with relevant data they can use in developing a campaign.

3. Creating or Localizing Already Existing Content

This is the bulk of the work. Businesses can choose to create new content or translate already existing content and make sure they pass an emotive message in that locality. A huge disconnect exists between translating words and translating meaning. Brands struggle with translating content to relay messages in the audience’s localized tone and voice. They also struggle with maintaining their brand perception and message, which makes multilingual content marketing all about finding that delicate balance between being compelling and being understood. Make sure the source can be localized; otherwise, content needs to be created from scratch, which is expensive and time-consuming. Understand the source and identify when it’s ok to translate and when it’s a must to localize. Address market-specific differences, e.g., holidays, cultural attributes to symbols, colors, etc.

4. Multilingual Glossaries and Style Guides

After proper research, you can find the company and industry terms or phrases, abbreviations, commonly used terms, and forbidden terms that will form the brand’s glossary and style guide structure. Glossaries contain the approved translations for each localization project or campaign. It saves time, ensures consistency, and gives teams a single reference when translating campaigns. While creating a multilingual glossary can take time to create in the beginning process, it is a valuable resource for any localization project. It tells you what the terms mean, how to translate them, and whether or not they should be kept in English. You can also ensure that all content is created according to brand values at all times using Brand Guidelines Enforcer.  

5. Global SEO and Marketing Channels

Search terms change from language to language. This will affect headlines, captions, hashtags, and more deeper changes into the technical side of things. The right SEO strategy will most likely affect the structure of every other content produced. So, endeavor to make it part of the research process. This will make it easier to adapt your brand’s core message across all languages and localities and ensure a streamlined workflow.

6. Keep Everything Organized

With different terminologies, style guides, color palettes, and marketing channels, organizing assets is unavoidable. Multilingual blogs, emails, newsletters, social media content, outbound links, inbound links, and segmentation can be organized using a Digital Asset Management system. This helps internal teams collaborate with all organization’s assets from a centralized location to create and maintain content frameworks that ensure a good end-user experience.

7. Right Tools

Using the right tools to manage all your translations in one place is vital. The right CAT (Computer-Assisted Translation) and TMS (Translation Management System) tools will help coordinate your team of project managers, designers, editors, and translators to increase translation accuracy and speed up content production. One of the essential features to look for is the ability to create workflows. More content means more translation projects. A system that automates some of the processes involved in managing translation enables scalability no matter how much content a business produces.

Multilingual Content Marketing is a Walk in the Park with Desygner’s Marketing Localization Engine

At the core of producing localized content is coordination. You need to be able to manage changes across every content. You also need to coordinate vendors, translators, editors, content creators, designers, social media managers, community managers, and other stakeholders. It becomes more complex because most of these teams are located in different parts of the world. Hence, you need the right tool to solidify your strategy by keeping things simple, efficient, and easy for teams. Desygner’s Marketing Localization Engine is designed to streamline this process, and here is how.

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Structured AI Support for Campaigns

You can easily set up campaign structures for multilingual campaigns. By indicating your organization’s requirements and creating a set of templates to be used for campaigns, the AI tailors the content for your users to ensure you maintain the campaign goal across every locality. You can also set up as many sub-workspaces as needed to localize your content automatically.

Automated Customization

Personalized multilingual content speaks to the needs of your target audience, but with a multilingual strategy, it is a hassle to personalize content for every audience segment. Desygner’s Marketing Localization Engine uses AI to automate the personalization of tagged texts, images, fonts, and icons. All you need to do is properly tag the regional assets or individual libraries, and the campaigns will be created as drafts, waiting for your review before publishing.

AI Learning to Improve your Campaigns

Our Marketing Localization Engine is one of the best in the market because it is an all-in-one solution. Campaign changes are recorded to further improve future campaigns. If any changes are made, the Marketing Localization Engine will easily offer options to implement the change across all materials. While you can use the machine translation feature, which creates and improves its memory of repeated words, you can integrate other 3rd party CAT tools. Even more, its content management and Digital Asset Management feature helps to create a content framework that can be managed and accessed from a centralized location which enables you to have everything in one place as opposed to multiple stand-alone tools that slow down operations.

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Desygner’s Marketing Localization Engine supports organizations that want to solidify their multilingual content strategy and establish a global presence. Join our clients by requesting a demo so we can better understand your unique needs and expectations.

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