translate

It is impossible or at least hardly doable for any professional company to achieve success in foreign markets without translating the external communication into other languages. External communication consist of for instance advertising, newsletters, brochures, web content, social media posts and other marketing related content. When intending to enter new markets you should consider translating your external communication into the language(s) of your target country or countries.

While having your external communication in English you may ask ‘Why?’, as ‘so many Internet users speak English nowadays’. Even though the latter is true, it does not mean that you should not care about the other languages your recipients speak. After all, English is the native language to only 30 percent of all Internet users.

The need to understand what you buy

As you want your product or service to be attractive to potential customers you probably put a lot of effort into increasing traffic and conversion rate at your website or webshop. What you might not know, is that as much as 75 percent of Internet users prefer to read web content in their native language. Even if your potential customers know English or French, they still prefer a website that is translated into their own language.

Moreover, it has also been proven that most of the visitors do not make an online purchase if a website or webshop is not available in their native language. Hence, people do not buy what they do not understand! This is of extra importance when offering pricey products or services. With high value purchases consumers want to be even more assured about making a payment, the return possibilities and warranty than in case of low value purchases.

You only make first impression once

When consumers read your external communication, for example your website or webshop, it can cause several reactions. They might be interested, have a neutral opinion, dislike it or even criticize the external communication.

To make a good first impression and to lead people to your product or service you should have a precise translation into their native language. Why? Do you remember a website with bad translation or with language related mistakes? It is very likely that your answer is positive. You probably also remember that this kind of website did not seem trustworthy to you and you quickly navigated to another website. That is exactly why you should already know that creating a good first impression is crucial to convince potential customers to choose your product or service instead over the ones of the competitor.

Five characteristics of a good external communication translation

Knowing that if you want to reach foreign clients you should use their native language, you finally decided to have your external communication translated into other language(s). How to start? We have created a practical set of rules that will help you to build trust among the potential customers in foreign countries:

#1 Target Language

First decide into which language(s) you want to translate your external communication. You can best start with translation into one or two of languages first and then have your communication translated into multiple languages.

#2 Choose carefully

Remember you do not need to translate all your external communication. You can choose to translate descriptions of best-selling products or services and the related advertising content only.

#3 Be productive

Use the most productive type of translation, like for instance Human Automated Translations. This prevents you from having to pay for the same text twice, and allows you to have a native proofread your text.

#4 Do not forget social media

When translating product or service descriptions and basic information about your company, do not forget to include the social media content. Potential customers like to see that your social media account is active and foreign potential clients have higher tendency to respond to your Facebook or Twitter activity in their native language.

#5 Include reviews & comments

Want to go all in? Then opt to also translate customer reviews and blog comments. No less than 70 percent of online consumers were found to trust reviews and messages of other online customers.