Regional control, global reach: Locale-Based Publishing is here

Managing content across multiple regions can feel like spinning plates. There’s a frisson of excitement, sure, but also a constant risk of something crashing down. That's why we're delighted to announce the general availability of Locale-Based Publishing for Premium customers. 

This powerful new feature in Contentful gives you the control and flexibility you need to navigate the complexities of international content delivery with confidence — and maybe even a little bit of flair. Let’s take a deep dive into what it offers, and how it neatly snaps into existing best practices around content localization.

Say bonjour to Locale-Based Publishing (if in France)

With Locale-Based Publishing, you can say auf wiedersehen to the one-size-fits-all approach to global content launches. Need to update a product description for your French audience? Go ahead, without impacting any other region. Want to adapt your campaign in Japan for Golden Week? Not a problem. This feature puts you and your teams in full control, allowing users to:

• Publish content independently to specific locales: Enjoy granular control over your content rollout, allowing you to publish content to different locales on your own schedule and according to your specific needs.

• Stagger your content releases: Keep some locales in draft mode while simultaneously publishing the same content in other locales. 

• Gain a clear overview of your global content pipeline: This empowers you to monitor the status of your content across all regions and languages, ensuring a smooth and coordinated rollout.

• Control user permissions: Define and manage the specific access levels granted to local teams, ensuring they can only view and edit the content relevant to their region or responsibilities.

Let’s put all of this together in a sample scenario, e.g., your German team needs to make a last-minute tweak to their localized content. Instead of having to check in with your colleagues overseas and delaying your entire global launch — and all the grinding of gears this will entail — the local team can simply make the change and publish it to the German market independently. 

No drama, no delays, just more autonomy for regional teams with Contentful.

Addressing the fundamentals of content localization

As marketing professionals are no doubt aware, content localization goes beyond simple translation — it's about adapting your content to resonate with different markets and cultures. Think of it like tailoring a global marketing campaign for local audiences. While the core message stays the same, the way you present it might need to change.

There are two main approaches to managing localized content: field-level and entry-level localization. As organizing principles for a global content strategy, the differences are subtle but important:

• Field-level localization is good for translation, allowing you to amend specific elements within a piece of content. Imagine a product page where you want to translate the description but keep the technical specifications the same across all markets.

• Entry-level localization is good for regionalization, treating each translation as a complete, separate version. It's like creating a duplicate of your content for each market, where everything can be customized as needed, but this can create UX challenges for editors down the line.

The approach you choose affects everything from how your team works to how efficiently you can scale your global content operations. It's similar to choosing between a modular and a full-room furniture approach — both can furnish a room, but they offer different levels of flexibility and maintenance requirements.

Field-level localization

Field-level localization shines when you need granular control over your global content. It's like having a custom control panel where you can pick and choose exactly which parts of your content need translation.

Here's how it works in practice: Let's say you're managing a global ecommerce site. Your product pages contain various elements — product names, descriptions, sizing information, and care instructions. With field-level localization, you can:

• Translate the marketing description for each market.

• Keep technical specifications consistent across all languages.

• Customize size charts for different regions.

• Update pricing information independently.

The real power comes from viewing multiple translations simultaneously. Your team can see how content appears across different markets on a single screen, making it easier to maintain consistency and spot any missing translations quickly.

Entry-level localization

Entry-level localization takes a different path — think of it as creating a complete, separate version of your content for each market. If field-level localization is like customizing individual parts of a machine, entry-level localization is like having a dedicated machine for each market.

Let's look at how this works in the real world: Imagine you're managing content for a global financial services company. Each market has unique regulatory requirements, cultural preferences, and communication styles. With entry-level localization, you can:

• Create completely separate versions of your content for each market.

• Maintain clear boundaries between different language versions.

• Give local teams full control over their market's content.

• Ensure compliance with local regulations.

The strength of this approach lies in its clarity and governance. Each localized version stands on its own, which provides some degree of autonomy without worrying about impacting other markets. But like any approach, it comes with considerations. You'll need to manage multiple versions of the same content, which can increase maintenance overhead. Updates that apply across all markets will need to be implemented separately for each version. Plus, the user experience for editors can be overwhelming. 

Bringing it together with Locale-based Publishing

While field-level localization offers powerful flexibility for managing multilingual content, teams have historically faced a significant challenge: the inability to publish individual language versions independently. This limitation often pushed organizations toward entry-level localization, even when field-level would have been the better fit for their content structure.

With Locale-Based Publishing, content teams can combine the granular control of field-level localization with independent publishing powers for each language version. This means you no longer need to choose between content flexibility and publishing autonomy.

The bottom line

The path to effective content localization isn't about finding the "perfect" approach — it's about choosing the strategy that best fits your organization's unique needs. Whether you opt for the flexibility of field-level localization, the structure of entry-level localization, or a hybrid approach, success comes from aligning your choice with your team's workflows and business goals.

With Locale-Based Publishing, your organization is empowered to:

• Support market-specific promotional calendars and campaigns: Reach the right audience at the right time with the right message.

• Enable regional teams with independent workflows: Give your local experts the autonomy they need to excel.

• Reduce the risk of errors: Maintain complete control over your content rollout.

• Streamline your workflows: Simplify your international content operations.

And of course, your localization strategy will continue to evolve as your organization grows. Now you can stay flexible enough to adapt as your global presence expands.

Ready to take your global content strategy to the next level? For Premium customers to get started, get in touch with your Contentful admins to enable Locale-Based Publishing. Next, explore our Help Documentation for a deeper dive into the feature.

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