Marketing is a business of communication, and content plays a vital role in sending consumers the right message. If you market products to a foreign audience, the success of your marketing content depends on your ability to effectively translate the material within the context of your consumer’s language and culture. Just as within your organization conducting HR translations is crucial for communication, so too are marketing translations for reaching an external audience.
In a report from Common Sense Advisory, 52.4% of consumers said that they only purchase from sites that display information in their native language. But there is more to meeting a customer’s needs than just publishing content that’s in their language; you also have to consider the cultural differences which may exist between different populations that share the same language. For example, you can adapt your marketing content to a Spanish-speaking audience, but you still should consider how well the translation will fit in different Spanish-speaking countries.
In this post, we are going to look at the most pertinent points to consider when adapting content for your foreign audiences.
Start with Accurate Translations
In most cases, you will be starting with source content that’s been written in English. However, only about 20% of the world’s population speaks English, and only a small fraction of that percentage are native English speakers. If you want to be successful in foreign markets, you have to take your English source content and translate it for these different audiences.
By converting your content into the language of the consumer, you are taking a step that will help you to communicate with the audience more effectively. Furthermore, it shows consumers that you are interested in communicating with them on their level, which can help your brand build a better connection with the customers in that market.
When it comes time to interpret your content, you need to make sure that you use quality advertising translation services. Some companies may try to save money by opting for machine translation, but this can lead to poor results and messaging. While these services may work well for simple translations, machine translations have yet to grasp the full nuance of language. This, unfortunately, can lead to mistranslations or even content that sends the wrong message.
Editing and Proofreading
Beyond hiring a linguist to translate the content from the source language into the target language, editing and proofreading can help to further refine the translation. While the translation may take the original text and convert it to a different language, the job of the editor and overall proofreading process is to make sure it reads as if it was originally written in the target language.
By using an editor who shares the native language of the overseas audience, you can make sure the messaging is appropriate for the audience. They can also check for things like word usage and grammar. Having the content proofread is a smart move because it does more than make sure the content is accurately translated; the proofreader also checks to ensure that the information serves its intended purpose for the target market.
When adapting content for a foreign market, there’s more to keep in mind than only making a word-for-word translation of the English source content. You also need to adjust the translated content for cultural differences that may exist across different countries. A failure to account for cultural changes can diminish the effectiveness of the content or even lead to a situation where it sends a message that is offensive to consumers or embarrassing to your brand.