Global brands need to promote themselves in different markets and sometimes the same campaign that’s translated in every language they need to address audiences seems like a great idea. But good translations – when good means you use the correct equivalent in a given language – is not enough to effectively communicate brand values, a campaign’s quirky message or a product’s benefits.

The next step to render a campaign local and to make it work for a certain culture is to adapt it. Translate, then adapt. It’s a two step process, but the latter seems to be forgotten way too often. Sometimes it’s budgetary constraints, sometimes it’s because people think it would sound cool and trendy, other times it’s just because people lack the experience of localizing global campaigns.

Words can often fool you. They sound and look close enough, the even express the correct meaning. But how different cultures use them in day to day expressions and phrases is worlds apart from one country to another. There’s a very good example for that and I have written about it in Romanian as well. Legendary vs. Legendar. The first word is in English, the second is its Romanian counterpart. They are spelled almost identically, they sound quite similar. The meaning is close. But Romanian usage of legendary is not the same. Surprisingly or not, very few things are legendary to us.

So remember, no matter how smart, cool or trendy a certain idea or message sounds in the language of origin, do your best to also adapt it after translating it!

Guest blogging is one of the best ways to get a blog or website known and target new audiences, we all agree with that. Welcoming guest posters is also a great way to provide fresh content to your readers and target the crowds the invited author already appealed to. By analyzing these two sides of the guest blogging scene, you can easily tell this is a win-win promotion practice.

No wonder it has spread throughout the blogosphere and it has created a need for the proper tools! A while back I wrote about the launch of My Blog Guest, a place where guest posters and blog owners could meet, connect and see how they could help each other out. It looked promising and I decided to try out Ann Smarty’s project and see for myself how it worked.

I started by asking for guest posts for Words of a Broken Mirror, the very PR and marketing blog you’re currently reading. Except for a couple of offers, most were spot on, with suggestions of articles that fit my blog perfectly. Even it the case of those whose ideas were not a perfect match, we managed to reach common ground and come up with a blog post idea that would work. After the initial hype around my form post on MyBlogGuest, which got me plenty of guest posts, some of the authors wanted to write more while new ones kept approaching me after finding my profile.

With TravelTweaks.com, I tried a different approach. Rather than waiting for people to come up with topics that I could approve, I used MyBlogGuest’s Article Gallery. This is a section where premium users post their latest articles. Bloggers accepting guest posts can then place an offer with an estimated publishing times, and the author chooses the outlet the fits best. In a few months I have published several dozen guest posts this way. I can do that with Travel Tweaks without looking like I have abandoned it only guest authors write there because this particular travel news site publishes 4-5 stories per day, features exploring certain destinations and the latest news in the travel and tourism world.

MyBlogGuest has a great system to get great guest posters the recognition they need – a voting system for those publishing their work. You can thumb up or down a certain author, letting future blog owners know just how good they are. To filter out one time users that only want to trash someone or vote for them just for fun, this system is restricted to users that are active on the MyBlogGuest forums.

Other than providing the obvious gathering place for those in need of content and authors of guest posts, MyBlogGuest also encourages members to connect on social networks and help each other promote their blogs and posts. It is also a great resource for guest blogging tips and best practices, helping newbies and experienced bloggers alike.

What I particularly like about the MyBlogGuest community is the willingness of members to help and how open Ann and her team are to suggestions, answering to questions and tips faster than I would have expected.

I strongly recommend it to blog owners in search for fresh views from new authors and to bloggers wanting to make a name for themselves and getting their blog news to guest posting.

Have you tried guest posting so far, from either end of the deal? How has it worked for you so far and what tools are you using?

If you want to create any kind of marketing literature, from personalized emails to brochures and flyers with samples attached to it, you must have a target in mind. That target is the public segment you want to address. That group of people needs to be properly selected and the message you want to convey needs to be build around their set of ideas, principles, likes and/or dislikes.

Now that you have your targeted audience and the envelopes you want to send out are ready, you need some contact details of real people matching the image of your prospect customer. Now, if you’re product is rather expensive and you want to select middle and top managers from local companies, that sounds like a great idea. But make sure they fit your initial profile! Having the money to buy your product is not enough

Let me introduce you to the real-life failure example that triggered this post. Vichy thought to send out samples of its newest products to all women managers in Bucharest (or maybe in other cities as well). So I got one of their nice envelops with nicely printed brochures and samples of a new foundation and cream. All nice up to now.

And the weird part kicks in: I AM 26!!! I really don’t need samples of a very effective anti-wrinkle product. Really! I might be worried about preventing wrinkles and fighting some small ones annoying me, but really, seeing the photo of a 50 something woman who’s in their main target won’t help make my mind about purchasing Vichy products! I’ll just think you’re not paying enough attention to what you’re doing or that those in your MK team handling this project suck. Or that you’ve selected a cheap subcontractor to get the contact details and that shows. If Vichy’s really, really lucky, I might give the samples to my mom. Then again, I might not.

The bottom line here: keep your audience in mind throughout every step of your marketing action. Just thinking of a great concept and writing the texts to suit your target won’t do much if you then get lost on the way and the message gets to someone who’s not even close to your intended public.