The IoT Is Ushering in a New Era of Multilingual Communications

How to Deliver and Localize Your Message in Several Languages

The future also promises to bring a growing emphasis on quantifying and measuring buying behaviors, and using analytic tools to determine metrics of success. There will also be a focus on "chunking" -- the act of converting words or phrases from one language into another where no parallel term exists -- by "chunking up," "chunking down" or "lateral chunking." Also on the horizon: an emphasis on more proactive rather than reactive localization; a drive toward more native feeling; the transition toward greater review than preparation time; and the much-increased use of video.

Progressive companies

What do CMOs seek in the "ideal" agency?

The agency serving in that consultative role should be highly tech-savvy, fully conversant in the workings of digital marketing and able to deliver translation services on a real-time basis.

For example, a Miami-based communications agency specializing in high-end luxury real estate recently sat down with its translation agency to decide how to address regionalization of its glossy marketing pieces. The translation agency had some questions: Were the pieces destined to be read in Mexico, in Colombia or in Chile, for instance? The translation agency then suggested that some of the articles be published in Mexico City, Bogota, Buenos Aires and Lima, and others locally in Miami.

It's a brave new world, in which digital marketing clients will increasingly know that to go far, they will have to work with translation agencies that can meet their needs in this new era of multilingual communicatio