Marketing

5 Must-Knows When Marketing Your Brand in Latin America

If your company is marketing to Latin America, don’t let the prospect of developing non-English creative become too daunting. Armed with a few of these tips, you’ll be off to a successful start.
Author —
June 24, 2019
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Looking to build brand awareness outside of the United States? With the Mundo PMMI media brand for Latin America, OEMs can easily reach packaging, food processing and industrial automation professionals in 20 Spanish-speaking countries.

Mundo PMMI includes:

  • A dedicated Website at www.mundopmmi.com
  • Print and digital advertising opportunities surrounding the upcoming Enlace EXPO PACK event and year-round opportunities
  • Perspectivas, a monthly e-newsletter reaching 59,000 professionals in Latin America.
  • Ad targeting of the audience on Facebook and on 130,000+ brand-safe websites

5 Tips for Marketing to a Latin American Audience

If your company is marketing in Latin America, don’t let the prospect of developing non-English creative become too daunting. Armed with a few of the tips below, you’ll be off to a successful start.

Be prepared for some length differences if you’re translating content from English to Spanish. Inherently Spanish text will run slightly longer than the same text in English, so be prepared if you’re working with an existing layout that you may need to adjust headlines, captions or other tight spaces. And if you absolutely must have the same piece of collateral combining both languages, avoid mirror-image layouts to lessen the likelihood of unintended open space. Instead, vary the size and position of your photos.

Consider a seamless experience with your creative. There’s nothing more frustrating for Spanish-speaking prospects than clicking a video and discovering the content is in English. Taking the extra step of providing Spanish voiceover and/or captioning is important to keep prospects from feeling alienated.

Need help finding voiceover or captioning assistance? Don’t just settle for a nearby staffer who took Spanish in high school. Project-based hiring sites such as Upwork.com and Guru.com can be a great way to access professional translation at low cost with dialect appropriate to the region targeted.

Pro Tip: Here are some frequent missteps seen with common industry phrases to help when assessing quality of translation:

Don’t just send copy off for direct translation. Take a few minutes to make sure your text is simple and direct to minimize the likelihood of different meaning across languages. Avoid idioms or jargon: You’ll want to be literal instead of offering “early bird” discounts or a solution that features “the best of both worlds” in forming and filling.

Also, don’t forget to read your landing pages with an eye toward accessibility. Remember that while search engines may translate site text for readers automatically, they won’t change typography within your images. By keeping typography off of your art, whether photos or charts, you’ll support a viewing experience that works equally well in Spanish as English.

Avoid the one-size-fits-all marketing strategy. To get messaging right, it’s particularly important to have strong communications with your sales team on the market’s needs rather than simply translating what works best at home. For example, which is more appealing to the majority of the market, latest technologies with advanced features or entry models with easy-to-use functionality?

Note that PMMI offers a variety of global business intelligence reports to aid in understanding market needs. For a guide to global markets and latest research and analysis on packaging machinery market trends in Mexico and other countries, see https://www.pmmi.org/business-intelligence/international-research.

Focus on frequency of message. Lastly, if you’re new to a market, it will be particularly important to invest in ongoing branding to grow familiarity with your brand. A one-off ad or e-blast around a show will not move the needle nearly as effectively as a planned series of efforts in front of the same audience throughout the year.

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