WWW. Remember, that means worldwide web. As a marketing mechanism, it is second to none. The potential that the Internet brings to localized content presentation means that you can effectively communicate with anyone, but at the same time the Internet generates an expectation of immediacy. Delays are not forgiven when it comes to marketing content presentation. Simultaneously, you need to ensure that all content across all media remains consistent. Most organizations will have marketing collateral in various formats (web, print and so on) with shared content. When an update is applied to one set of media in one language, such as print catalogs in English, you need to ensure that the update is applied to others quickly and efficiently in all languages.

The solution for most web marketing and web point of sale platforms is some kind of content management system (CMS). Hundreds are in the marketplace, and M-CMS (multilingual CMS) creation and deployment are not a technologically challenging exercise in and of themselves. Pricing is such that solutions are available for most levels of business, right down to the small and medium-sized enterprise market. But an M-CMS does pose unique coordination issues, especially when a user is trying to maintain consistency of content across multiple media. So, how do you analyze the benefits of the various offerings? What should you be looking out for and what are some of the pitfalls? Here we will discuss some of the issues and what to look for in a good M-CMS.

Time-to-market
Online, time is of the essence. Web users expect immediate results. It is in the nature of the beast. Traditional multilingual web deployment has four stages. First, the content developer (the marketing manager, for example) writes the content, such as a product description update. This is then passed to the webmaster for updating the website in the master language. Once the master update has been applied and checked, the content is then translated into the target languages and passed back to the webmaster for updating the foreign language content. This creates four potential choke points where communication can break down or conflicting priorities and sheer workload can lead to delays: the development point (marketing manager); the deployment point (webmaster); the localization point (translator); and the deployment point again for localized content.

In a multilingual situation, an effective CMS should allow the content developer to also deploy the content. The content developer should be able to add/edit content on the website directly with no specialized HTML knowledge. Likewise, when moving from deployment to localization, the localizer/translator should not require any specific HTML knowledge. He or she should also be able to work directly in the CMS.

So you can reduce potential choke points by half at least when using a good CMS. The key here is that the CMS allows direct, unfettered access by the person who writes the content in whatever language it needs to be deployed. But you must ensure that individual user access can be limited to the areas that the particular operator requires to complete the job at hand. We have seen the use of such systems reduce time-to-market of online content by over 50%.

Operator error reductions. Every time data changes hands there is the chance of an error occurring. Different platforms, different application versions and plain operator error are significant problems. Using a directly editable CMS reduces the number of people who have to handle content, thereby reducing operator error.

Translation cost minimization. The cost savings of direct website editing cannot be ignored. The ongoing requirement for a webmaster for updates and/or maintenance is eliminated. Aside from structural issues, the site should run without webmaster input. At the same time the technical knowledge requirement of the translator is reduced. This can be of benefit in two ways: outsourced translation expenses can be reduced and, where available, you can make use of in-house language skills so that noncritical edits/updates to content can be resolved without recourse to external translation services.

Coordinating between web and other marketing media. Perhaps the next biggest issue is one of coordination and “marketing collateral logistics,” for want of a better phrase. When you are working across multiple languages, coordinating multiple media updates can be problematic, and inconsistency of content across media and languages is a common issue.

For example, an international education provider has multilingual marketing collateral in the form of web, printed brochures, DVD and PowerPoint presentations that are distributed through resellers globally. The provider needs to release updates to course outlines. Web content is updated and localized via the CMS, but what of the other marketing collateral? Does anyone know where this exact content is replicated? Is the content cataloged and cross-referenced between media? Does the marketing manager for Thailand have to manually check to see where the English content occurs in the Thai marketing materials?

A well-designed M-CMS will provide a method for the linking of content between media and languages. One structure is to have within the M-CMS an editable media catalog. Itemized within this catalog are all of the organization’s marketing materials. It is then a simple matter of linking content from the M-CMS to content in other media. Whenever an update is applied to web content, the relevant coordinators can then be alerted automatically, and they can decide whether the other collateral needs updating. All marketing materials can be kept consistent, or updates can be collated for bulk application within a cycle. The important thing is that there is a central collation point for edits/alterations (software driven) that can be accessed by the relevant staff in order to make the decisions about applying those edits (people driven).

Recycling translations. The media management system described above will ideally be done at the lowest level — that of individual content blocks — rather than at the screen or section level. Why? There is a cost implication here again. If you can link individual blocks of content to individual media items, you can recycle translations. It is not uncommon for organizations to pay for the translation of exactly the same content into the same languages multiple times because they had no way of coordinating the same content between different media.

Customizing Content and Look and Feel
True localization requires customized presentation of content tailored for a particular market. Will the colors of the German site work for the Thai site? Do you need to change the whole look and feel? Is the lead article or content on the French site appropriate for the Vietnamese site and, if not, can you change it? You should consider this in your CMS purchasing decisions as there are options available. A true M-CMS will allow you to present a unique image for a specific market (something we call “re-skinning”), but the content remains consistent and trackable. Look for a CMS that allows you to present a fully localized (that is, a unique look and feel) web presence for each target market.

Rebrandability. If your organization works with multiple distributors, you may want to consider rebranding options for the M-CMS. Most distributors will have your content on their site(s) in one format or another. The issue concerns the quality of their presentation. Most organizations will have a brand charter of some sort or another, but enforcing one via e-mail is another thing altogether. Are your distributors damaging your brand online with poor quality presentation? Why don’t you provide your content in the appropriate format to your distributors? Much as corporations provide printed matter (brochures, pamphlets and so on) to distributors, you can do the same online. You can maintain the image and brand presence you require, but rebrand the site in your distributor’s name. Essentially this is the same as customizing the look and feel. It involves re-skinning the site to reflect your distributor’s requirements while you maintain control overall of the look and feel.

Cross-platform compatibility. Ensure that whatever CMS you look at, both the front and back end are cross platform (Mac OS 9, Windows 98 or better and so on) and cross-browser (v4 or better in IE, Netscape and so on) compliant. By this I mean that website visitors or content editors/translators should have full access to all the functions of the site, irrespective of what kind of computer and browser they use. Nothing’s worse than trying to localize for Japan and finding out that the CMS does not display content well (or worse, doesn’t work) on a Mac. Don’t lose a single site user because he or she is running on a different platform. Likewise, don’t expect translators to change their computers because your CMS doesn’t support their platforms. It is rarely a cost-effective option for them, and you may just lose the best person for the job.

Finally, ensure that the CMS generates a site map on the fly. This helps create a good SEO result by producing a concentrated set of links for a spider to reference.

Statistics. As the website is part of a marketing strategy, you need statistics that allow you to track performance. All statistics packages should be able to report traffic by site segment (in our case, a segment will be a specific language site), but there is other information that is just as valuable. The key statistics to be concerned with are the following:

1. Reporting by country.
The two main methods are to resolve the user’s IP address to determine his or her domain (.com, .net, .uk, .jp and so on) or to use a GEO-IP database to match the user’s IP address to a country. The first method is flawed due to large numbers of .com and .net domains being used around the world. The second method is far more accurate, yet also not 100%. This information is especially valuable when you want to track visitors of a particular language site coming from countries where this language is not the first language. For example, you may want to know how many visitors from the United States view your site in Spanish and to compare with how many visit from Spain. This will allow you to make decisions about the level of localization you go to, such as dialects, as well as to design custom content for the target market. It is preferable if the statistics package also allows you to view top pages, paths through the site, search engine referrals, time on site, average page views and conversion rates on a country-by-country level.

2. Analyze traffic from regional search engines.
Look for a system that analyzes traffic from any search engine in any language and can provide key information such as average page views and conversion rate for each search term in addition to the number of referrals. Many statistics packages, while working well with the “big 3” (Google, Yahoo, MSN), struggle when dealing with referrals from engines that are less well-known in the English-speaking world such as Daum (Korea) or Yumyai (Thailand).

3. Can display double-byte characters.
One of the key data sets you need to track is search keyphrases. These statistics need to be multilingual capable. Check very carefully and ask to see working examples of those in all your target languages. Some statistics packages just produce unintelligible results.

4. Can display multiple sets of double-byte characters on the same page.
When you are working with a website featuring multiple sets of double-byte characters, it is preferable if referring search terms are converted into UTF-8 format so you can read both Japanese and Arabic, for example, on the same page.

To host or to be hosted. Look for hosting options that suit your current scale of operations, but have the capability to expand in the future. You don’t need to do everything yourself. Look for a system that can be flexible, that is, can be hosted by you or the vendor or a third party. Give yourself the maximum flexibility.

Vendor hosting generally comes with some significant benefits. Most hosted M-CMS solutions will provide ongoing updates to ensure the system is current. And as server configurations change and are updated, the host is responsible for testing and ensuring M-CMS compliance with server updates. A good hosted solution will also provide backup of all your data, although you should still back it up yourself as well.

One issue to consider seriously with hosted solutions is database integrity. Some hosted solutions have multiple clients’ content stored in a single database. It is preferable that the content be stored in separate independent databases to ensure that there is no chance of data corruption.

Functions. Some of the other functions you may require in a standard M-CMS configuration include secure login zones for agents/ distributors; affiliate management systems; file upload/download facilities (such as PDF files); version tracking (archiving of older versions of content); online shopping cart editability; integrated content word count (content block by block, page by page and so on); ability to set maximum file size/page size (to prevent overlarge files affecting download speed); and automated image sizing so that you can upload images and have them resized/optimized for the web on the fly.

M-CMS solutions can save your organization considerable time, energy and money. Of all your marketing collateral, the M-CMS should be the simplest to manage and the fastest to update; therefore, it can be viewed as the pivot from which all of your other marketing collateral can hang. As such, the M-CMS should provide systems for integrating/coordinating with other materials and needs to deliver a platform that is efficient at the operational end (content entry/localization) and effective at the consumer end (site visitor/user).

Click here and you will see a comparative table with the different types of Content Management Systems.