Robin Campbell-Burt

This blog post is part of a series leading up to our webinar: “Five fundamentals of a cyber security PR program in EMEA”. To attend, sign up today.

Native English speakers can easily assume that everyone speaks their language, as almost every country in the world prioritises it as a second language for their citizens to learn.

However, different countries in EMEA have societies with differing levels of language proficiency – especially in a business context. This is a critical issue, depending on the markets in EMEA that you choose to target.

Northern Europeans often speak English better than native speakers, while Mediterranean countries tend to have a much looser grasp. African and Arabic countries will have a reasonable level of English – but this is usually dependent on their historical ties to the UK and the number of ‘expats’ based in the country.

There are four top things to consider when it comes to navigating foreign languages:

English or local language?

For press liaison all written interaction for pitching stories, news releases etc should be in the local language. Supporting materials such as white papers, infographics etc should also be in the local language where possible.

This goes for marketing material as well. Nothing says ‘afterthought’ like trying to communicate with someone in their second language.

The best advice in this area is to appoint a local marketing and public relations agency in that country and listen to their advice. Don’t just view them as a hub for distributing what you have produced centrally.

If they advise that certain content needs to be translated it will be for a good reason – so pay heed!

The best use of translation companies

Your marketing and public relations agency will not be able to translate everything that you send them. While they can handle some everyday items, more in-depth white papers and other supporting material will likely need a professional translator.

The complex and industry-specific language of cyber security means that you need a translator with that specific experience. Your in-country agency should give you the details of some translation companies that they trust for you to consider.

Alternatively, you may want to get in touch with the local translation industry trade body for that country. They tend to have members detailing the correct expertise and with whom you can get in touch. Sorting a good translation provider can take some time so it is important to line one up well in advance.

Approving foreign language content

Approving content is usually straightforward when in English. However, your senior decision makers will not likely have the proficiency for other languages.

Content approvers need to review two things. Firstly, whether the content is technically accurate and communicates your message. Secondly, it needs to be constructed in a coherent way with good grammar.

The best approach is to ask a local internal operative to review for technical proficiency and whether it is communicating the subject that you would like it to. For structure and grammar my advice is to trust your marketing and public relations agency as this (should!) be their area of expertise.

Either way, you will probably need to revise your approval processes to a certain degree for EMEA.

Native spokespeople

Finally, journalists in many countries will only conduct interviews in their own native language. For webinars, podcasts or other verbal content, a native speaker should also be preferred. If you lack a native spokesperson, you can try and get around this by only submitting written commentary to the press and keeping your marketing generally focused on written content.

If you are taking your outreach seriously, you really need someone local with first language experience.

The best approach is to make sure that experience in speaking to the media and supporting the development of verbal marketing content is a component of the job description for the VP sales or other operatives that your organisation is appointing to the country. That way there is no need to hire extra people with this skill set further down the line.

Sign up to our webinar on launching EMEA PR campaigns to find out more about language considerations as well as other issues you need to think about when looking to promote yourself in the region.

This blog post is part of a series leading up to our webinar: “Five fundamentals of a cyber security PR program in EMEA”. To attend, sign up today.

‘EMEA’ is a big place. There are 44 countries in Europe, 54 in Africa and 16 in the Middle East (depending on how you count them). So, when you are asked to construct a PR campaign in EMEA you’ll need to get a lot more specific about what this exactly means.

This is especially important when it comes to budget. One of the most common issues I have when I consult with US cyber security businesses is a desire to cover more countries than their budget can realistically achieve.

Typically, the company board will list a number of countries in the EMEA region where they wish to increase sales. Then the head of marketing will be given a singular budget and told to devise a campaign that includes those target countries.

The first difficulty to overcome is mindset. People think EMEA PR will be one single campaign. In reality every country has its own media and often its own language – EMEA is not singular but very fragmented. Your budget will need to be split between each target country, and this reduces the economies of scale.

Secondly, the cost of doing public relations varies significantly between each country. The UK, Germany or France are larger countries with a greater diversity of media publications. It therefore follows that a greater spend will be needed in these countries over ones that have a much thinner media landscape to target. Furthermore, salaries of PR specialists vary considerably in different parts of EMEA. This also has a big impact on the budget that you need to allocate and must be carefully considered.

Often, the temptation will be to stick with the assigned target list of countries and only allow for a slim budget in each geography. Unfortunately, this is a worse than useless approach. Below a certain threshold, the PR agency that you have appointed simply will not have enough budget to make inroads to build relationships, develop stories, and secure the type of coverage you want to see. You will then face serious questions on the ROI from your internal stakeholders.

So, what can you do with a limited budget to achieve maximum results?

1) Be prepared to push back

Set out what is realistic to the board from the start. Marketing and public relations cannot be everywhere at once, it needs to be targeted. If they still insist, be bold. Do your research and speak to potential partner agencies to figure out what it will really cost. Push back and put forward the best way to get the best results.

2) Flexing between retainers and projects

Long-term success depends on building relationships with journalists and this takes time. So, PR agencies will say that they need the same retainer month in, month out. However, you can still flex. Look at having a base line retainer in target countries but then have the flexibility to put some booster project funding in at specific times of the year. This could be around an upcoming event, a significant white paper that you are publishing etc. This will help maximise coverage levels and give extra resource for when it matters.

3) Focusing on target publications, rather than target countries

You could also consider bringing together a top target list of 20 or so publications. These would be the most significant media channels that align with your business goals, hit your target audience etc. You can then allocate budget to focus on reaching these publications in a more direct way. This can sometimes help in keeping the budget focused and reducing the number of PR agencies that you need to appoint. However, this tends to be more useful to help you manage expectations internally about what you can achieve. Ultimately, you can’t escape the fact that with a limited budget, media coverage will have a limited role in the success of the wider business objectives.

Sign up to our webinar on launching EMEA PR campaigns to explore the issue of budgets as well as the other top headaches and considerations that you will need to address to guarantee success.