Boosting customer engagement with marketing translation services
Targeted translations can be an easy win for customer engagement, using the right playful, serious, corporate, or approachable tone and context that makes a customer feel that they are among friends and establishing a rapport with a brand that shares their values.
The challenge of inaccurate translation is perfectly summarised in a notorious mistake global bank HSBC made, side-stepping the importance of professional translation and missing that a phrase in a prominent marketing campaign said, ‘do nothing’ rather than ‘assume nothing’.
This seemingly minor error cost the business millions (£6.8 million, in fact!) and caused severe damage to the brand reputation.
Consumers felt alienated and disenfranchised by an international company that hadn’t paid attention and seemed to undervalue their business.
Expert translation services are fundamental to organisations that want to improve engagement, reputation, and market share with customers who need to be able to access content in their native language – and the opposite approach is the best way to prove how powerful this point is.
The value of accurate commercial translations
Unprofessional translations in any marketing exercise can be more damaging than not attempting to localise web pages, content, or social media feeds at all.
Translating text into another language may appear simple – but the process involves a comprehensive rewrite to target the needs and language differences between different cultural groups. A ‘copy by numbers’ approach is insufficient and, in this case, easily demonstrates why even one mistranslated word can be disastrous.
Around 75% of online users worldwide do not speak English as a primary language. This statistic means companies must invest in reliable translation to reach new demographics and carve out a niche audience in diverse countries while demonstrating the value they place on each consumer group.
People are considerably less likely to spend time on a website where product or service details are unavailable in their language or have been poorly translated.
One misspelt word (particularly if it is heavily featured) can cut online sales by as much as 50%, rendering advertising budgets redundant.
Benefits of content localisation for international marketing
Localised content, correctly translated to reflect the tone, meaning and interpretation of the target audience, means that:
• Brand language is consistent across all outreach content.
• Customers can understand and properly interpret all text.
• Product or service details are clear and accessible.
• Legal terms are explained without potential misinterpretation.
The link to engagement is far broader than increasing interest in large-scale advertising promotions. It ensures that all the data you publish is relevant, from using local measurement units and payment methods to currencies – your content is authentic, useful, and informative.
Brands keen to improve engagement, click-throughs and market share need to show that they respect each culture, society, or country they expect to do business with, ensuring a positive reaction.
Five ways quality translations improve customer engagement
There are many ways you can use consistent, reliable marketing translation services to improve reach and engagement in each jurisdiction or country in which you trade.
1. Global translation for social media
Social media is a big part of customer engagement – it is available on any device, anywhere, and consumers appreciate the interaction they get through social media, which does not exist in the same way on conventional digital web pages.
Optimising and translating social media pages can create a cohesive presence around the world, connecting with audiences in key markets and tailoring the language and content of the text each visitor sees depending on their location.
Big brands such as Starbucks and Coca-Cola use this localised branding translation services technique to grow multi-million audiences, ensuring the content they put out there is relevant, accurate, and designed to encourage more visitors to follow, like, share or interact.
2. Increasing brand reputation and credibility
High-value content is a priority for search engines, which emphasise informative, useful content over anything related to advertising and promotions.
As a global business, you need to ensure your content strategy is aligned with each target market, using native language translations to bring the same added value, credibility, and industry expertise to each audience.
The best approach is to blend localised, professionally translated content with backlinks, endorsements and guest pieces written by local influencers or contributors to back up what you say and authenticate your brand presence to the specific market you want to engage with.
3. Localised customer support
Localised content can transform your customer service and make it significantly easier to simplify the customer sales funnel without needing to address queries or concerns at each step – and throwing up continual barriers to buying.
Translated content ensures that customers can make informed decisions without additional support, which adds to the perception of a trustworthy, reliable brand that will deliver on its promises.
Around 56% of consumers will buy a product if they can review detailed information or specifications in their native language – and this is more important than having a lower price with content they cannot clearly understand.
4. Accessing gaps in local market provision
One of the often-overlooked aspects of localisation and translation is that it introduces a secondary benefit by pitching your brand and outreach content to a local market where you may face a very different competitive or corporate landscape than at home.
Skilled translators, particularly those who are accomplished in specific sectors, will be able to provide insights into nuances, brand perception, or the way your content, tone or text may come across when translated into a different language used by a different culture.
5. Tailoring translations for consumer audiences
Finally, let’s not forget that the nature of the content you publish will be inherently different depending on the platform – blending video marketing, email content, social media posts, website landing pages, promotional advertising and on-page information.
