Make your business become glocal

Surely you have heard about the new trend of being Glocal, but what does it mean?.

“Thinking globally, acting locally“.

Glocalization is a combination of the words “globalization” and “localization.” The term is used to describe a product or service that is developed and distributed globally but is also adjusted to accommodate the user or consumer in a local market. 

Often, glocalization campaigns involve culturally friendly media and ad campaigns to encourage the acceptance of foreign products among a local audience.

It works better for businesses with decentralized management structures and
those competing in various cultural settings on global levels. Glocalization is a big investment but it pays great dividends. It gives local businesses wider access to a bigger target market in different cultures. The process enables different countries to compete more effectively in the global market.

It extends to localizing ad campaigns and marketing thrusts to make them friendlier to local consumers, to encourage them to accept the products that come from a different country.

But maybe you ask yourself, how to bridge the gap between global and glocal:

These are some actions that you can take to position yourself for glocal success. 

First of all, you have to empower local teams: It’s tough to succeed as a global brand without authentic intelligence about your local markets. You need marketers familiar with individual regions to translate your global brand to local dialects, nuances and cultures.

Here are a few ways to enable this:

• On-demand access. With so many different time zones, your teams around the world need 24/7 self-service access to information, systems and content. Otherwise, they will struggle to give their unique audience what they need, when they need it. 
• Flexible content. Give your teams access to the sell sheets, brochures and collateral needed to communicate your brand. But, also let them make adjustments that accommodate the needs of their market. 
• Analytics. Give your teams the tools they need to understand the content and initiatives that perform best in their market. While anecdotal feedback and qualitative information are helpful, teams also need hard data to guide their decisions and support or disprove their assumptions.

Once you have your local teams empowered, you need to connect them with a global framework.

You have to establish rules and processes that unite and apply to each and everyone that touches your brand. You should provide top-down direction via:

• Brand guidelines. Document a set of brand rules, or standards, that explain how your brand works. 
• Global strategy. Ensure you have a global strategy, to guide your marketing and content efforts. 
• Global process. You must establish top-down processes to connect and align the workflows of your people and tools.

Today’s customers expect more from your brand. They expect you to deliver better standards of quality, social responsibility, and personalization than ever before. And, while they expect a certain level of consistency from your brand, they also need you to tell your story in a way that hits home.

It’s a delicate balance, but with the right global guidance and local considerations, you can connect the two worlds and position your brand head and shoulders above the competition.

At NeverEndingTourism we use a glocal approach, we are a team of global specialists distributed in Europe and America. We have local experts for the selection and advice of producers in each Mediterranean region, marketing specialists for the analysis of each market in which the products are sold and professionals in logistics and technology to guarantee our “glocal expansion”.