Multilingual Marketing
Multilingual Marketing: Why You Need It
In a global economy, you must address an international audience to grow into a major market player. Size doesn’t matter; demographics do. So whether you’re an independent boutique hotel or a chain busting over continental divides, you can capture and convert entire new market segments simply by speaking directly to them, in their own language
The number of non-English speakers using the Internet is spiking, while the number of anglophones online is leveling off. Furthermore, the hottest new activity goes way beyond French and German. The Latin American and Asian markets are heating up, just waiting to be tapped for online bookings – if you can talk to them.
That presents more than just an opportunity to find a brand new audience: it will be a critical differentiator for online marketing when the English language just doesn’t speak to everyone. By tackling multilingual marketing head on, you can:
- Increase total market penetration without sacrificing domestic
- Increase foreign market conversion ratios (often dramatically)
- Access new customer bases
- Enhance or establish international reputation and branding
Multilingual Marketing: How to Get Started
- Examine the data & strategize: Back every single decision and strategy with hard numbers. It doesn’t make sense to market to everyone, everywhere. Instead, we use hard data broken down by language, country, city and bounce rates to determine which international visitors you can target most profitably. It’s important to remember that different cultures approach the Web differently; not all will trust online booking as easily as Americans, for example. But online marketing can still grab them – you just have to know how to speak their culture.
- Test, measure and refine the strategy. Conduct test campaigns to optimize multilingual campaigns very quickly, rather than betting the house on a costly linguistic overhaul. We use this information to fine-tune the campaign, to make sure when you dedicate serious resources, you will receive serious results.
- Use local/native speakers to translate your site and campaign materials. As with English, speaking a language is far more than just knowing the words. It requires the ability to tap into culture and emotion to use psychological cues to drive action. It is simply impossible to deliver the best return on your investment if you translate content without the context that only a native speaker can provide. Using skilled locals is also the only way to avoid embarrassing and costly blunders.
Multilingual Marketing: Our Services
If you are embarking on a multilingual campaign, please be aware that a substantial investment is required. There is no cheap way to do this right. The only way for people to bring the costs down is to use word translators, which are the cancer of the multilingual marketing business.
MULTILINGUAL WEBSITE CONTENT CREATION AND TRANSLATIONS
We use native speakers to create landing pages, translate entire websites or create dedicated new sites for your international audience – all with the express aim of raising the conversion ratio among international customers.
MULTILINGUAL PAY-PER-CLICK AND SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Similarly, we run search marketing campaigns crafted by skilled native speakers. Our campaigns are also optimized for the intricacies and eccentricities of international ad and paid placement programs, which don’t always play by the same rules as our own Google.com.
OPTIMIZATION FOR INTERNATIONAL SEARCH ENGINES
Virtually every foreign market has a unique search engine aimed at its own linguistic base: Yandex for Russia, Baidu for China and Naver for Korea are just three examples. They all differ in reach, ranking algorithms and design.
FOREIGN MARKET ONLINE TRAVEL AGENCY STRATEGY
As with search engines, international and non-English online travel agencies cater to very clearly defined audiences, and as a result, their offerings, procedures and placement policies work differently.
EMPHASIS ON FAST-GROWING MARKETS IN ASIA, WESTERN AND EASTERN EUROPE AND THE MIDDLE EAST
The cutting-edge markets are sometimes the trickiest to work within. For example, China represents an enormous burgeoning market of affluent travelers, but working within the Chinese government’s restrictions on search can create delicate challenges when marketing there.
Contact us to start working on a mobile marketing strategy for your hotel and reach the untapped potential!
