Episode 8 – Lee Densmer

Filipe Santos
00:00:00 – 00:01:09

What if I told you you’re likely leaving a lot of money on the table? Interested in an ROI of 6 times the average just leveraging global content creation and a bit of AI? We’re uncovering mistakes and supplying strategies for you to gain maximum impact in your campaigns. This is phraseology plus AI with your hosts, Felipe and Miguel Santos. As a digital marketing professional specializing in SEO for over 20 years, I’ve worked with companies from startups to the Global Fortune 500. Learn how to gain an unfair advantage with AI as we uncover tips, tools, and strategies. Lee Densmer is a dynamic, growth focused content strategist and owner at Globia, renowned for implementing content programs that amplify audience reach and substantially increase revenue. Her well structured content marketing approach has achieved 6 times the ROI compared to other marketing methods. Lee has an exceptionally robust understanding of the language services industry and excels in organizing chaotic content processes, which I I think everybody has dealt with at some point. Outside of her professional life at Globia, Lee is a linguist, a world traveler, and an outdoor enthusiast.

Filipe Santos
00:01:10 – 00:01:25

Highly regarded by peers, Lee’s strategic and tactical abilities make her a standout figure in her field. Don’t hesitate to contact her for expert tips and content strategy or language services. But with that, I will kinda pass it over to you, Lee, and, just feel free to mention anything I might have missed.

Lee Densmer
00:01:25 – 00:01:50

Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for that great intro. I I I don’t think I recognize myself, but I loved it. So I am indeed a content strategist, and I have 23 years in the translation industry. So what I do is global content strategy. What’s the content that you need for your home market, but also for other markets? And I think we’ll get into what that means as we talk. But I’m a content strategist kind of with the twist, the global twist.

Filipe Santos
00:01:50 – 00:02:17

That’s awesome. And I think that’s really critical now, especially as we’ve kind of faced change with AI. I think between that and the fact that companies have always wanted to go global and sometimes they did just didn’t have the right strategy or needed somebody like you to really dig in. So this is awesome. Cool. So, Lee, discuss the idea that online businesses inherently, like, distribute content globally. And even if they don’t plan to, maybe talk about the significance of adapting content for different markets.

Lee Densmer
00:02:17 – 00:02:17

Right.

Filipe Santos
00:02:17 – 00:02:19

So that’s basically effective distribution.

Lee Densmer
00:02:20 – 00:03:06

It’s a little accidental, but as soon as you go online and start publishing content online, it broadcasts everywhere. So you already have an audience that’s everywhere, that’s in Asia, that’s in Europe, simply because you’re online. You don’t know who’s hitting your website, but a lot of companies don’t even think about that. They are targeting their home market. They’re kinda hopeful they’ll grow abroad. Maybe they start seeing clicks from other countries or likes or customer support requests or action from other countries, and then they’re like, oh, we actually have a market in Spain. What do I do about that? And the idea is that you start with a global mindset. You start knowing that when you publish online, you’re distributing globally already, and you start thinking about what that might mean in terms of what you create, how you adapt it, where you publish it, because it’s different.

Lee Densmer
00:03:06 – 00:03:29

It’s not the same around the world. People don’t process content in English in every country. That’s the first obvious thing is that you have to translate it. People don’t use the same social media channels in other markets. People don’t search in the same way. Search is really different across markets too. So I talk to people about a global at first mindset. And right now, I think a lot of businesses, especially smaller ones, are kind of globally unaware.

Filipe Santos
00:03:29 – 00:03:43

Makes sense. Yeah. I I I know that I’ve worked in a couple of of companies where that is the case, and it it’s kinda like, yeah, there’s a huge opportunity. It’ll just happen. No. It won’t. It needs a little bit of a little bit of work and a little bit of, like, forethought. So I love that.

Filipe Santos
00:03:43 – 00:03:56

Right. That’s a perfect segue into kind of, like, how can we really explore global distribution then Mhmm. That’s often overlooked in these strategies? Like, how can we actually tackle that, and what what are some tips or advice that you have about that?

Lee Densmer
00:03:56 – 00:04:32

Right. So the first thing to do is to understand where your market could be. Where where do you wanna expand? Where do you really wanna focus? Because you don’t wanna focus on the world. That even sounds ridiculous when I say it. You wanna focus on your top value market. And you can know who that is by research, you know, where your product has a chance to do well. You can look at data, who is coming to your website, I mentioned it before, who’s interacting with you on social, who’s logging customer support requests. Like, where’s your activity? And then decide which markets you want to do, and choosing 1 or 2 at the start is the best way to go.

Lee Densmer
00:04:32 – 00:05:01

Then you need to get a handle on the activities and what it means to launch content in that market. And I mentioned translation is the first thing. Changing the words is the only the first thing, but it doesn’t go deep enough. So what you may need to do is actually adapt your content for that market. And I’m gonna give some embarrassing examples in a minute. I have a I have a list of terrible, terrible examples that are always fun. So adaptation is often required. And so if you think about American like, I’m American.

Lee Densmer
00:05:01 – 00:05:23

I write American content. I can’t not write American content. But what I write is so rooted in my culture and I don’t even know it. So if I’m writing for another culture, I need different images. I need different analogies. I need different references. I need different here’s an example. We use tons of sports analogies in American writing.

Lee Densmer
00:05:23 – 00:06:03

Hit a home run hit a home run, touch base. There’s a lot of baseball metaphors because we love baseball. But other countries, they’re like, I don’t even get that reference. So there’s a disconnect between what you’re creating for your culture and what another culture would want to hear about. It’s just a disconnect. And then so your brand isn’t connecting in a real way with another culture if you make those choices. So it’s about making different choices so that that other market cares about you, connects with you, resonates with you. So the baseball metaphor is a really great example of things you have to look out for when you’re writing content for other markets or things that you might need to change.

Lee Densmer
00:06:03 – 00:06:37

Colors are different around the world. Perceptions of colors. Red in, in Asian countries, I think, in some Asian countries means death or mourning, but a lot of brands in the US use red. Different colors have different connotations in different countries. You need to be aware of that. What else can I mention quickly? Design differs. So Americans like clean websites. But in Asia, if you’re adapting your website for another market, in Asia, they like I didn’t even wanna say clutter because to them, it’s not clutter, but they like very busy websites with a lot of images and a lot of text and a lot going on, and that would overwhelm an American consumer.

Lee Densmer
00:06:37 – 00:06:43

So that’s what I mean by adaptation of the content. And then, like that in? Yeah. Go ahead. Mhmm.

Filipe Santos
00:06:43 – 00:06:58

No. No. I I I love that because it immediately as funny as it is, made me think of the old, like, MSN page where it was extremely busy. But I think that’s the kind of experience because it it provides a lot of information at a glance. So it kinda depends on the audience. Right?

Lee Densmer
00:06:58 – 00:07:34

It totally depends on the audience. Right? And that that felt like more of a news feed than, like, a landing page or a website, like a shopping site. Right? So then when you gotta publish that content in for other markets, it’s natural to just try to push it out in the same channels. Right? But, like, there’s different search engines that are used in different countries. There’s different social channels that are preferred in different countries. So you need a different social strategy for your target market. You probably need a different promotion strategy. And in a minute, we’ll talk about the s a SEO strategy that that you need for different markets.

Lee Densmer
00:07:34 – 00:07:39

And then tell me when you wanna get to the funny and terrible examples because I have a couple.

Filipe Santos
00:07:40 – 00:07:44

We I think we can use that anytime. So if you wanna go into them, please feel free.

Lee Densmer
00:07:44 – 00:08:01

Totally. Okay. I have 3 here. So a little bit goofy. You’ll see. So one example that many people have heard of, there was a San Francisco ad company that was hired to localize the Got Milk campaign. Oh, boy. All of Americans in the nineties remember Got Milk.

Lee Densmer
00:08:01 – 00:08:06

Right? In Latin America, they accidentally translated that to, are you lactating?

Filipe Santos
00:08:08 – 00:08:09

I see.

Lee Densmer
00:08:09 – 00:08:41

Yeah. Right? That doesn’t work for the market. So that was the first problem is they just translate they translated the words. They didn’t adapt the concept for the culture. Another thing was that the ad campaign is a little bit offensive to Latin American moms and housewives and women because they don’t they don’t ever have to just run out for milk like Americans do. They’ve got the milk. They they’re getting it delivered or they already have it because they’re they’re better at planning ahead than Americans are. So the go out and get milk concept or are you out of milk concept doesn’t doesn’t land well with that culture.

Lee Densmer
00:08:41 – 00:09:11

So it was a misstep, and I’m sure that agency got fired, but it was it was a huge mistake. So one more or 2 more maybe. There was an airline called Braniff, I’m looking at my notes over here, whose big deal was leather seats. Like, we’ve got leather seats. And that was their they were trying to appeal to worldwide markets with that. But in Spanish, they translated their logo, their their tagline was fly in leather. They translated that into Spanish as fly naked.

Filipe Santos
00:09:11 – 00:09:11

Interesting.

Lee Densmer
00:09:12 – 00:09:28

Of that. Different? Yeah. That’s a different kind of airline experience. Right? I mean, not for everybody. So, I mean, mistakes like that are all over the place because they’re not careful. They’re not thinking about the market. They’re just translating. And, like, even worse, if you translate with AI, you’re gonna get crap like that.

Lee Densmer
00:09:28 – 00:09:33

That’s just not well thought out and even, you know, super damaging to the brand.

Filipe Santos
00:09:34 – 00:10:08

Yeah. I I wanted to, like, mention that too because that that’s a perfect segue into a little bit of the reasoning with AI tools and what where they could be helpful. Right? So I think to your point, we’re not it’s not ready for prime time, really. Like, it’s it’s mainly translating now a lot better than it used to. It used to be, like, really strict machine translations. I feel like it’s closer to, like, 70, 75 percent now, so it’s, like, much better. But you still need a human to edit it and make sure that the context is right and to ensure that you’re not missing certain, you know, translation translated words or or philosophies or themes. So I’m totally with you on that.

Filipe Santos
00:10:08 – 00:10:24

But I do feel like since AI can’t be put back in the bottle, this genie’s out, there are ways to kind of use it to just speed up your workflow, maybe help, you know, help your agencies or if you have in house talent that’s doing translations, like, understand where they need to go with it. Maybe give them some ideas also.

Lee Densmer
00:10:24 – 00:10:50

Right. Yeah. So a lot of people think about AI and large language models only in terms of translation. I’m gonna get to other ways to use it in a minute. But, yes, large language models can translate. They absolutely can. And for long tail languages like rare languages, it might be, like, the only shot at getting it done. So AI translation is better than no translation, but it always should be reviewed.

Lee Densmer
00:10:50 – 00:11:32

And you can, of course, prompt and train an LLM, so that is recommended, but a human should always review the output. So the translation industry has actually been dabbling in AI for, like, 40 or 50 years. It’s just that it’s it’s raised in prominence right now because of large language models, but neural machine translation is the most popular and most recent form of AI translation prior to large language models. Doesn’t work the same way because large language models predict the next word. Neural machine translation functions on neural networks. Anyway, I don’t I that’s deep. I mean, I don’t wanna go too deep. But we’ve been the local industry has been dabbling in AI for a long time, always, always backed by humans.

Lee Densmer
00:11:33 – 00:12:23

Humans are either training the model or reviewing the output or managing a glossary. So AI can I think I’m being long winded? AI can do translation quite capably, but it’s even better when the words already exist. So checking quality of an existing translation, cleaning up a translation memory. There are ways that you can apply AI to translated content that speeds it up and makes it better. It’s much better at working with existing content than generating content from scratch. So that’s where we’re at right now in the industry is using it on existing content. Another great use case is if you’ve got a Spanish translation that’s for Spain, you can use AI to convert that to the Spanish translation that’s appropriate for Puerto Rico or Mexico, because it’s existing content. You can just ask it to make the change and adapt it.

Lee Densmer
00:12:23 – 00:12:32

It’s not creating it from new. It’s just it’s just adapting it. So that’s an awesome use case, and it’s great for that right now, but not for creating from scratch.

Filipe Santos
00:12:32 – 00:12:42

I love that because you you kinda mentioned the the translation piece. And then before, you were talking a little about the, localization part of this. So how do you kind of, you know, pair those 2 together?

Lee Densmer
00:12:43 – 00:13:00

Yeah. I’ll explain the difference. So the three concepts I’ll explain are translation, transcreation, and localization. So translation is what you know it to be. It’s word for word. It’s substitution of this sentence for that one in the new language. It’s not creative. K? It’s a bit mathematical.

Lee Densmer
00:13:00 – 00:13:43

It’s why machines can do it pretty well. Transcreation is a more human process, a creative process where you adapt the message from one concept or emotion or nuance to another. It’s more creative. Hard to get a machine to do that. Localization is a deeper dive where you adapt the content, but, also, it’s there’s a lot of engineering and testing involved to make sure that your website functions. It’s where you get technical. So if you’re localizing a website or a piece of software, actual localization. Translation is just this much.

Lee Densmer
00:13:43 – 00:13:46

Localization is adapting it completely for the market.

Filipe Santos
00:13:47 – 00:14:12

Yeah. Thank you for breaking that down because that’s that’s a critical critical aspect for people to know and to, like, kind of take in because, it is different. And I think a lot of folks sometimes confuse them. And I don’t understand what the the differences are, but they are critical when you when you wanna have a successful campaign to understand them. Well, given given that and the importance of, like, cultural intelligence and global content marketing, how can someone who’s listening now take strides, kinda make things happen?

Lee Densmer
00:14:12 – 00:14:47

Yeah. So the first thing is to be aware that what you’re producing is home market content. Just today is the day that you realize what I produce is kind of in my own echo chamber. It’s American content because I’m American. So awareness of what it is that you’re actually creating. Then the second thing to get a handle on is where are your users or buyers or customers coming from? So that would identify the market that you wanna think about next. Right? 1 or 2 markets. 3rd thing is to understand what localization is, and we just explained it a little bit.

Lee Densmer
00:14:48 – 00:15:18

So what is localization? What do you need to do? How complex is it? What does it cost? You need to get a handle on, like, the scope of the adaptation. And only then can you really get started on adapting that content for a new market. There’s a there are some things to understand. Yeah. As a lot of companies, I think, are don’t have the global mindset at the front, and they get this far down the path, and they’re like, oh, we need to go back here. So I would encourage everybody who’s listening to start thinking about what it means to be global at the start as early as possible.

Filipe Santos
00:15:19 – 00:15:27

Really key. Really key. What are cultural and linguistic factors that you believe the audience need to be aware of?

Lee Densmer
00:15:28 – 00:15:53

Oh, oh, jeez. Okay. I’ve got an actual list because I didn’t I’m not able to do this from memory, but I wanna be specific. So there are a number of indexes where cultures differ. Okay? And a really great book that I’ll recommend is called the culture map by Erin Meyer. K? And in it, she talks about ways in which cultures different differ. So for example, levels of formality. Some cultures are really formal.

Lee Densmer
00:15:53 – 00:16:15

Some Asian cultures are really formal. The American culture is not. The German culture is somewhere in the middle. So we speak and talk and write informally, especially in IT and software. That, like, form of talking might not be appropriate for other markets. There are power and hierarchy differentiators across cultures. So in the US, we’re pretty democratized. You know? You’ve got access to the CEO.

Lee Densmer
00:16:16 – 00:16:40

Everybody talks to everybody. But in other cultures, there’s a power dynamic that’s part of their culture that you need to be aware of. Different religions. Religions are different from culture to culture. Family structures and how genders are viewed are different from culture to culture. So there’s all these components that make a and and the concept of culture is fascinating. And once you start to study it and learn about it, you’re like, wow. I’ll be darn.

Lee Densmer
00:16:40 – 00:17:10

Like and and those who travel start to understand how different cultures really can be, and it’s fascinating. But all those differences mean you need to take a different approach to marketing to that culture. You need to understand the differences that are culture and adapt your approach. So and that’s why you pay somebody to help you because none of us is an ex I mean, there’s bicultural people. There’s plenty of bicultural people. I’m not one of them. You’re probably closer to it than me. I was born in Peru.

Lee Densmer
00:17:10 – 00:17:26

I speak Spanish. I’m definitely not Peruvian. So most of us don’t understand another culture very well, and you don’t even understand your own culture very well because you’re in it every day. And then when you start learning about culture, you’re you’re it’s always kind of a fascinating shocker. Wait. What?

Filipe Santos
00:17:26 – 00:17:38

I think that’s why travel is so, like, so Fun. People just love travel, and it’s fun. Yeah. Because it just takes you out of your element. But at the same time, that’s businesses should always be there. Right?

Lee Densmer
00:17:38 – 00:17:57

Sure. That’s why I recommended that culture map. It’s quick read. It’s Erin Meyer. It gives a good overview of what I’m talking about. Has lots of examples about how teams failed to integrate because they misunderstood culture, problems that they overcame and how they overcame them just by learning about the cultural differences that I explained.

Filipe Santos
00:17:57 – 00:18:19

I I imagine the cultural differences are extreme and can be extreme based on where you go. But I’d love to also, like, kind of cross an additional complexity, which is do you how do you feel AI and its role could be kind of used in this kind of content, in this creation and then adaption for global markets? Like, how can we really take the benefits of what we have now and apply them?

Lee Densmer
00:18:20 – 00:18:54

Let me think that through. AI and culture. So we’ve already talked about how AI can help with actually getting translation done and actually converting from one language to another. And AI is also good in helping with some workflow automations. But as far as the cultural stuff, I think AI can be helpful to research buyers and to research to provide research on cultures. It can aggregate research. It can draw conclusions from research. It may even be able to give you some insight on how to adapt something for another culture based on that research that you have asked it to aggregate.

Lee Densmer
00:18:54 – 00:19:21

I use AI for research all the time, and it crosses my mind that that’s probably the most powerful use case here is to to use it to aggregate research about how a buyer in Japan of this demographic may perceive this or that or how you need to what you need to know kind of information, aggregating that information. And then a a human, a strategist, would need to extrapolate how to apply that knowledge to to content, to a a website or whatever.

Filipe Santos
00:19:21 – 00:19:27

Yeah. Absolutely. Do you have any, like, favorite tools? I I mean, I’m pretty agnostic, but maybe there are some better tools to do the research.

Lee Densmer
00:19:27 – 00:19:52

Alright. I pay for Chat GPT. That’s the only one I pay for. I like perplexity a lot. It I use them all. I kind of interchange between them, and I like Gemini too because Gemini quickly searches the Internet and scrapes anything it needs to to to bring you your conclusions or your research. So I use those 3 tools, perplexity, Gemini, and, you know what? I just heard a podcast. I’ll recommend this podcast for AI enthusiasts.

Lee Densmer
00:19:52 – 00:20:18

It’s a different format than yours. It’s like NewsBytes, and it’s called the neuron. So there it’s a Skype who gives you, like, news bytes, so what’s going on every day. Anyway, he was talking the other day about Llama, which is Meta’s new AI tool, and he says it’s better than all the rest. So I’m curious about this tool, and it’s showing up on Facebook. There’s, like, showing up in Meta’s tools. There’s there are buttons now on Facebook that you can click to access this llama that’s supposed to be the best out there. So there you go.

Filipe Santos
00:20:19 – 00:20:30

It’s almost like every week, there’s a there’s a better LLM or a better version. But, yeah, I have heard some things about llama, the new version of it, and I haven’t tried it out yet, but I I’m I’m keen to. It’s very interesting.

Lee Densmer
00:20:30 – 00:20:38

So, like, you spend your Saturday fiddling with, fiddling with LLMs and just lose your day, that’d be easy to do.

Filipe Santos
00:20:38 – 00:21:02

Absolutely. But in this case, like, we’ll kind of pull that out for everyone else and then give them perspective. Right? So like you said, it’s good to have news because things are changing constantly. But it’s also, like, from the the sake of, like, this podcast and and others that are, like, experts speaking about this, It’s really about giving people the tools that they need to succeed at really overcoming what we know as change because change is inevitable, but, here it is.

Lee Densmer
00:21:02 – 00:21:14

Right. Here it is. Yeah. Hey. I meet a lot I meet I meet 3 types of people. Right? I meet people who are AI enthusiasts like you and me. We like talking about it. We listen to podcasts on it.

Lee Densmer
00:21:14 – 00:21:37

We mess around with tools. I meet people who are AI I don’t wanna say haters, but they’re AI resistant. They aren’t they’re just not there yet, you know, and don’t really see how it can benefit their work, don’t trust it. So there’s the early adopters, maybe people like us, and then there’s the resistors. Yes. 22 classes of people. And then there’s plenty of people who are somewhere in the middle. But it’s interesting to talk with people.

Lee Densmer
00:21:37 – 00:21:43

Because some people light up. They’re like, it’s interesting. I love it. Tell me more. And some people are like, not this again.

Filipe Santos
00:21:43 – 00:21:59

Yeah. I kinda feel like you’re you’re right. You’re completely right about that. I feel like history repeats itself, though. So the funny thing is I’m sure this happened when cars came on from the horse and buggy. I’m pretty sure this happened when we started getting mobile phones. It’s like, oh my god. We’re gonna fry our brains with this new technology.

Filipe Santos
00:22:00 – 00:22:32

So we we can see that that stuff hasn’t really panned out, but the fear now is that we’ve been we’ve we’ve had these, movies and still, like, Terminator and, where the robots are out to get us. And this is AI. Right? So I think it’s there’s a fear for those that are hesitating. There’s the enthusiast like us just figure that, hey. I might as well be the first or one of the first ones to get into it so that I can understand it, and so I’m not as I’m not scared of it. Everybody else in the middle is just trying to figure out, like, where am I? Where am I in this compass? Like, where is the compass pointing me?

Lee Densmer
00:22:32 – 00:22:55

And that’s fine. It’s fine to be in that kind of it’s a messy middle right now. It’s messy. It’s fine to be there and keep your ears open and be willing to learn. The the bottom line is that every one of us knowledge workers, we’re knowledge workers, has to upskill. And I could talk about this forever. You’ve got to upskill. You’ve got to keep studying and learning and figuring out how to apply in your work.

Lee Densmer
00:22:55 – 00:23:01

It’s just gonna make you faster and more valuable to your employers, And there’s there’s I don’t really see any other choice.

Filipe Santos
00:23:01 – 00:23:40

I’m with you on that. I I think those that are lifelong learners definitely do better, and we also feel more satisfied with things because we have at least a little bit of control. Right? If you take that control away, then you become one of those that are might be fearing everything because it’s obvious it’s being enacted on you, right, rather than you kind of grabbing the reins on certain things. Yeah. So I think that’s a really healthy attitude. I appreciate that. I I’d love to kind of get from you, like, what you feel the beneficial aspects of artificial intelligence are right now. I know we talked a little bit about this, but getting into some of the benefits and some of the caveats or potential pitfalls of AI driven content strategies because you you’re all in this.

Lee Densmer
00:23:41 – 00:24:15

Yeah. I am. I am using right now AI more for execution than for strategy. However so by that, I mean researching, giving me title ideas, giving me topic ideas, giving me alternate ways to phrase things. However, there are ways that you can use it for content strategy, like buyer persona research is absolutely content strategy. Trying to extrapolate the top twenty things that a certain buyer cares about strategy. So you can ask an LLM by by prompting it with who your buyer is to give you insights about that buyer. That is strategy.

Lee Densmer
00:24:16 – 00:24:32

Still, a content strategist or a global content strategist will never be replaced. There still has to be somebody to do that prompting and gathering and then apply it. But I think the best content strategist and writers right now are are using AI to inform their strategy. It’s so much faster.

Filipe Santos
00:24:33 – 00:24:35

It is. It is.

Lee Densmer
00:24:36 – 00:24:54

So much and you can use AI to write a creative brief. You can use it to plan a content calendar. Now I’m not gonna tell you that it’s done. It’s 1 and done. You you’ve got something that you can use and refine and fix and tweak to to come out with something good. I would never build a strategy with AI and then hand it over.

Filipe Santos
00:24:54 – 00:24:56

Definitely. Yeah.

Lee Densmer
00:24:56 – 00:25:11

No. No. I wouldn’t. And and I and I think that that level of responsibility that I feel maybe differentiates me and people like us as a professional. Because, yes, I’m using AI. I feel like I have to. I feel like you want me to. Mhmm.

Lee Densmer
00:25:11 – 00:25:14

But it’s not all there is to it. I’m not about ready to let go.

Filipe Santos
00:25:14 – 00:25:42

And I’m with you. Like, there there was a lot of hype around prompt engineering for a good reason. Mhmm. You’re never gonna get the best output from the first time, especially if you don’t really understand how to give it full context of what you’re you expect as the output. This I guess even that the term garbage in, garbage out has been here forever, and it’s the same concept. You give it garbage, you get garbage. If you give it more context and better examples, it understands a little bit more how to deliver something that you actually want. So Right.

Filipe Santos
00:25:42 – 00:25:44

Yeah. Absolutely there with you.

Lee Densmer
00:25:44 – 00:26:02

And now chat gpt 4 has a memory toggle. You can tell it to I think this is new. You can tell it to remember things. Like, for example, you tell it to remember a certain buyer persona, and then it remembers everything that you’ve told it to. So that is just an example of how to use the tool, to refine the tool for your purposes.

Filipe Santos
00:26:02 – 00:26:15

And what’s crazy, what’s happening in the background is that everything that you’ve chatted with in in terms of its transcript is being fed back to it every single time. So it it feels kinda dumb. Right? Yeah.

Lee Densmer
00:26:15 – 00:26:20

Yeah. It’s like it’s like a baby. It knows nothing until you till you wake it up, and then it has to learn everything.

Filipe Santos
00:26:21 – 00:26:26

Yeah. But, like, from the from the user perspective, it’s easy. Right? It it like, we don’t see all that.

Lee Densmer
00:26:26 – 00:26:27

No. Yeah. Yeah.

Filipe Santos
00:26:27 – 00:26:38

Let’s talk a little bit about SEO again. Like, so let’s let’s mention maybe any insights that you’ve had for SEO as a global distribution channel and maybe the importance of that with multilingual search optimization? Like

Lee Densmer
00:26:38 – 00:26:38

Right. What

Filipe Santos
00:26:38 – 00:26:39

have you experienced?

Lee Densmer
00:26:39 – 00:27:10

What I’ve experienced is that a lot of companies who are aware of the need to adapt their content just translate their keywords and then use those translations. Either they translate the content and hope the keywords have carried over, or they translate the key never. They’ll just say that. Or they or they translate their keywords and then use them in the content. Either way, it gets you the same results. Because search behavior differs across the world in different countries. Search terms differ. You know? Here’s an English to English example.

Lee Densmer
00:27:10 – 00:27:48

If I use the search term sweater in content for UK audience, they don’t say sweater. They say jumper to to mean, like, something like what I’m wearing. So you have to do your SEO strategic research in that market for that market. There there is no one to one correspondence. You you start over for the new market with your SEO keyword research and strategy. And so you need to do that for a foreign language as well. You need to research in that market in Spain how people search for sweaters and pick the right word and optimize for that word. So and you’re gonna ask me how AI can help with that.

Lee Densmer
00:27:48 – 00:28:13

I’m not sure. I think that that is I use I use AI for some of my SEO research too. What are keywords? Share with me the top 10 keywords that have high volume and low difficulty. For example, suggest to me 40 keywords that are related to this seed term, you can do that in other languages. I’ve never played around with a large language model in Spanish, but that would be interesting. I have only ever played with it in English.

Filipe Santos
00:28:13 – 00:28:31

Yeah. I feel I feel like I I I yeah. I I played with it a little bit, and I think, like, it it’s interesting. You can create your own, like, small version or small model in a language. Have I gone deep into it? No. But have I have I tried a couple? Yes. And I think it’s it really depends on how it’s trained. Obviously, there’s a lot that needs to that’s left to be desired.

Filipe Santos
00:28:32 – 00:28:57

But, yes, if you’re looking for some kind of advantages in terms of being able to get over, like, some kind of bottleneck or kind of, like, get over, like, some some block, it’s really helpful. But there’s a lot of editing. There’s a lot of, like, you know, verifying and and checking that you need to do. And luckily, I have friends, that speak a lot of different languages. So to me, I can just kinda shop it over to them and say, hey. How does this look? Like, give me a percentage. Out of a 100, how much? So, you know, it’s very helpful to have that.

Lee Densmer
00:28:57 – 00:29:00

Yeah. The friends who speak other languages.

Filipe Santos
00:29:01 – 00:29:06

Yeah. You you need that. I think every company needs that, but but they they probably pay them. So it’s a little different.

Lee Densmer
00:29:06 – 00:29:06

I hope so.

Filipe Santos
00:29:06 – 00:29:26

Yeah. Like like, paying you to find the right people too. Right? What practical tips, Lee, can you offer for, like, shifting our mindset to prioritize this global content? Because and I I mean, from the beginning, because I think people may think about it secondarily, but we need it on the outside.

Lee Densmer
00:29:26 – 00:30:15

Right. If we’re talking about start ups, then I would encourage them as they build their product and start marketing their product to think about the global implications of being online. But a lot of our listeners are probably not start ups. And then like I mentioned before, you need to begin your awareness and then back up to look at your strategy, your content strategy, and decide what you need to do to make it applicable for your home market and your global markets. So there’s this concept of global English, which is a flavor of English that doesn’t exist. But the idea is that you write in such a generic way that everybody in the world who speaks English can understand it. And it translates super easily everywhere because it’s so generic. That is not the way I would go, not if you really wanna embed a market.

Lee Densmer
00:30:15 – 00:30:45

I would create English content that’s appropriate for your market and then, like we talked about, adapt it for your other markets, whether you need to translate it or not. I mean, obviously, for the UK, you’re not actually translating the English. You’re adapting it. So all that to say an awareness of what it means what content means and should mean for different cultures and the different ways that you need to adapt it for that market. It’s it’s it’s a lot of education and awareness up front. Before you can do a thing, you need to understand what’s going on.

Filipe Santos
00:30:45 – 00:31:11

So we take that into into mind. And like anything, I guess, the quality that you put in, the the time that you take to devise a good strategy, and then thinking about your markets and your your, I guess, the the profile of the audience a little bit better gives you a a template, right, to work with. So I guess what actionable steps would you say people should follow to initiate these efforts Mhmm. And to truly make it part of their DNA?

Lee Densmer
00:31:11 – 00:31:59

Right. I mentioned understanding where your customers or users or people are coming from. So looking at the data to understand where your potential markets are, understanding all the steps involved in adaptation and understanding what they cost. You can’t, you know, you can’t get any work done unless you understand the amount of time it’s gonna take, how much it’s gonna cost, what the actual effort is. So that I highly encourage companies that are serious about selling globally to engage a a professional group. They’re called language services providers. They run from small mom and pop shops to mega companies that are selling $750,000,000 of of this, but that can help you figure out what you really need to do to get your content set for another market, your content and your product. So engaging a professional.

Filipe Santos
00:31:59 – 00:32:21

I love how you also, like, previously mentioned the the global English aspect because it is really funny how we maybe use these phrases every day in our communication, but others, like in Australia, New Zealand, India, like, they’re they’re not they’re not they’re like, what does that mean? And likewise, like yeah.

Lee Densmer
00:32:21 – 00:32:29

Like what? It gets even worse when you translate it. Let’s translate something that’s already incomprehensible and just turn it into another language and hope for the best.

Filipe Santos
00:32:29 – 00:32:38

Yeah. It it reminds me of those, like, imaginary languages that kids used to have between between themselves, you know, like, trying to come up with a whole new language, that’s gibberish.

Lee Densmer
00:32:38 – 00:32:42

Yeah. That’s funny. There’s 2 more bad examples. Do you want them?

Filipe Santos
00:32:42 – 00:32:44

Oh, yes, please. Love those.

Lee Densmer
00:32:44 – 00:32:58

So Pepsi used to have a slogan. I don’t remember how long ago. That was come alive with the Pepsi generation. So come alive. They translated that into Chinese as Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.

Filipe Santos
00:32:58 – 00:32:58

Okay.

Lee Densmer
00:32:59 – 00:33:02

I mean, if Pepsi can do that, then what can Coke do?

Filipe Santos
00:33:02 – 00:33:02

Interesting.

Lee Densmer
00:33:03 – 00:33:22

You wonder. So that that that missed the mark. And then another one is Kentucky fried chicken. If you’ve traveled, you’ve seen Kentucky fried chicken. We were just in Vietnam and there was Kentucky fried chicken, which I don’t even need at home, but apparently it’s big in Asia. But for China, they translated finger licking good to eat your fingers off.

Filipe Santos
00:33:22 – 00:33:24

Yeah. That’s a great translation.

Lee Densmer
00:33:25 – 00:33:42

But think about it. Not all cultures lick their fingers. Like, that’s kind of gross. It’s gross in our culture, but you we all understand that to mean it was so good you licked your fingers. Well, too weird for other cultures. And then you translate it just like it’s written and you get something like eat your fingers off. Off. It just goes from weird to bizarre.

Filipe Santos
00:33:43 – 00:33:50

I love that example. And and it reminds me I think of was it Burger King that had the black burger? It was all black.

Lee Densmer
00:33:50 – 00:33:50

Oh gosh.

Filipe Santos
00:33:51 – 00:33:57

And in certain places, like, obviously, here, we were like, what? What is it made of? Why is it, like, all black?

Lee Densmer
00:33:57 – 00:33:58

Black. Yeah.

Filipe Santos
00:33:59 – 00:34:14

I mean, it’s cool, but, like, is it is it cancer inducing? Like like, these are the kind of questions that come up. But in other places, it was, like, fantastic. It’s like, this isn’t something new. So, really, it’s funny. Beyond linguistic aspects of it, it’s also like the the product itself has to, like, be made for the culture.

Lee Densmer
00:34:14 – 00:34:47

Exactly. So interesting about Starbucks and about Subway too. A friend of mine here where I live is the localization manager at Subway. So both companies, Subway and Starbucks, have adapted their menu and put things on their menu that are specific for local cultures. So, like, in Vietnam, Subway has a sandwich that’s like banh mi. It’s like the the Vietnamese national sandwich, which you could never get in the US, but they have to offer there’s my dog. You have to offer yeah. As a guest appearance there, you have to offer that in Vietnam because that’s what the culture wants, and that’s what helped the company succeed in Vietnam.

Lee Densmer
00:34:48 – 00:34:53

And same with Starbucks. You’re you’re gonna get a mango latte in Bali that you can’t get here.

Filipe Santos
00:34:54 – 00:34:56

Now I kinda want one.

Lee Densmer
00:34:56 – 00:35:12

On that sound. Yeah. So localization and changing products and content for other cultures is actually really interesting. It’s subtle. It’s nuanced. It’s tricky. It’s easy to get it wrong. It’s super expensive when you get it wrong.

Filipe Santos
00:35:12 – 00:35:15

Yeah. But that I I feel like that gives it so much more personality.

Lee Densmer
00:35:17 – 00:35:25

Getting it wrong. Like, I’m sure that I’m sure that the Dairymen’s Association isn’t very happy about the, are you lactating fiasco?

Filipe Santos
00:35:25 – 00:35:30

I’m sure What did they say? You you have to spend money to make money? Yeah. That’s taken completely the wrong way.

Lee Densmer
00:35:30 – 00:35:32

Completely the wrong way. Yeah.

Filipe Santos
00:35:33 – 00:35:51

Oh my goodness. Lee, are there any specific tools or, like, resources that you’d encourage some of the listeners to to use or adapt? I mean, we talked about, obviously, chat gpt. Are there any, like, specific tools or or ways that you’ve kind of gone about tracking the the global content, like, using global content, maybe tools that are very niche that you wanna mention?

Lee Densmer
00:35:52 – 00:36:35

Not really. I mean, we could get into software localization tools and all that. I don’t think I don’t think this I don’t think this audience maybe wants to hear all about the tools that are specific to the industry, and there are lots of them for automating the workflow. What I think I would point these listeners to is a resource, a research group and a resource called Nimdzi, and that’s spelled n I m d z I. And they provide a lot of research and articles and, blog good blog posts on what I’m talking about, the different aspects of of taking content global. And there’s a book, I love books, by a woman named Natalie Kelly. And Natalie’s an expert in going global, and her book is called I’ve got it on my shelf. It’s called Take Your Company Global.

Lee Densmer
00:36:36 – 00:36:45

So that is a really good book and a really good resource. It has some culture stuff too. So I recommend that website and that book for anybody who’s interested in what I’m talking about here.

Filipe Santos
00:36:45 – 00:36:58

Excellent suggestions. And and like you said, it may be good to know about some of those localization softwares, but it’s probably better to understand, generally speaking, how to think about it because then you can find the tool that fits you best. Right?

Lee Densmer
00:36:58 – 00:36:59

Right.

Filipe Santos
00:36:59 – 00:37:01

Right. And and the books are great.

Lee Densmer
00:37:01 – 00:37:26

Yeah. Loosely, there are tools that put all the translations in the cloud and leverage past translations. So plugs the old good stuff right in. There’s tools that automate the quality assurance. There’s tools that pull and push content from an enterprise’s content management system. So there’s there it’s a corpus of workflow and automation tools that make high volumes of content really easy to manage.

Filipe Santos
00:37:27 – 00:38:09

Amazing. Wow. I I I really appreciate you, like, sharing your expertise and kind of walking the folks through this. I mean, as we draw the curtains on this enlightening conversation with the lead engineer, it’s evident that the landscape of global content marketing is kind of undergoing a seismic shift regarding the age of AI. From decoding these algorithms to kind of crafting compelling narratives, Lee has kind of left us here with invaluable insights and navigating this dynamic realm. To stay connected with her and to know what’s going on in the world of content marketing, especially as artificial intelligence becomes more familiar. I would encourage you to kind of follow her and, check out her LinkedIn and Twitter. I would actually pass it to you to mention anything that you’d like to mention, Leigh.

Lee Densmer
00:38:09 – 00:38:24

Sure. I am on LinkedIn. I’m active on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. I’m the only Lee Densmer, so I shouldn’t be hard to find. And I do post every day, and I respond to direct messages if you have any questions about that. So that’s where that’s where I can be found.

Filipe Santos
00:38:24 – 00:38:33

Awesome. Well, with that, until next time, remember, ever evolving digital sphere, adaptation is key, and the possibilities are limitless. Thank you, Lee.

Lee Densmer
00:38:33 – 00:38:34

Sure. My pleasure.

Filipe Santos
00:38:36 – 00:38:59

Thank you for tuning in to phraseology plus ai. We hope that you enjoyed today’s episode as much as we enjoyed creating it. Don’t forget to sign up for our email list at phraseological.us. Give us a raving 5 star review anywhere you get your podcasts. Thanks in advance. Remember, stay curious, stay informed, and keep listening for more. Until next time, take care and happy listening.