Why is translation important in global marketing sector?

by Target Language Translation Services

- August 27 2021

As a company becomes more international and looks for new target groups, translations become very vital for its business. Translations of web pages, product packaging, product descriptions, publications for social media and promotional campaigns, among other tactics, have to sell, charm and win over your target market. Communicating marketing messages and materials in other languages is extremely hard. Marketing messages have one specificity that characterizes them and makes them complex; they are created to generate a certain reaction in the mind of the person reading, watching or listening. They indeed come with a particular style, imagery and universe created around it, which sometimes makes them hard to be translated precisely, especially knowing that each language is linked to a particular culture.

For this reason, keeping the message universal and in only one language is not the most appropriate strategy: it will not be understandable by everyone and not culturally suitable for every market, which means reaching less potential customers and even potentially harming your brand image. Therefore, it is vital that you translate and adapt all your marketing material correctly.

Why is marketing translation essential?

Business which plan an international expansion aim to keep the same impact and momentum in the targeted foreign markets as they had in their home market. The objective is to be just as successful in other countries, if not more. To do so, an in-depth study of the target market and audience is necessary before starting the translating process. Then, it needs to be decided which language to address the new target group in. As a universal language, English is a compromise, because it's the most widely applied online language. However, local takes precedence over universal, as people want to do business in their own language and are much more responsive to messages in it.

What's more, the translation of marketing materials actually means more than just translating, it often implies localization and transcreation. Localizing the marketing strategy according to the target country is vital and knowledge of the culture and the population is just as important as the language to choose the right words to address a new audience. Transcreation involves recreating the message and adapting it to the target culture and target consumer needs, not relying on literal rendering, while maintaining its core intended meaning. It is essential to have good knowledge of the product or service and of the market, but above all, it is vital to have the common sense to be able to recognise when a phrase needs to be adapted.

In fact, these are very professional services, especially transcreation, and so it is often critical for businesses to work with a transcreation agency, which is able to cover the service in multiple languages.

The purpose of marketing documents such as brochures, flyers, advertising scripts among many others is to support sales and reach new target groups which such materials are aimed at. Their efficiency is therefore crucial to succeed in a market and earn customers’ trust.

Translations of the marketing documents and materials have to transcribe the original, core message and its style precisely, but still have to be tailored to each local culture. This has to be done after thorough market research and with full awareness and knowledge about the product or service offered as well as the local market and the local culture, which can directly impact consumer behaviour.

Efficient marketing translation services can be very helpful to increase revenue and brand recognition when running international marketing campaigns. However, errors in the translation of a marketing campaign, or a lack of cultural research can quickly result in a negative company reputation. Negative branding abroad can make a business fail within foreign markets, create a drop in sales or even cause severe money losses.

Marketing translations are a significant part of business internationalization and truly require knowledge, data and specific information which consequently require prior research, not only of the targeted market, but also the culture and language that comes with it. It requires linguistic skills, marketing skills and writing skills for a translator to do a great job.

Commonly established ways of implementing multilingual marketing

Hiring an employee who knows the local language

One of the most common ways to provide marketing-related translations is to hire an employee working in the target market who is a native speaker of the target language, knowing the local culture and the product being marketed. However, this method also brings some challenges. If the employee has no background in marketing, he or she may lack the skills to produce the required creative content and translation may take a very long time.

Finding a marketing agency

Advertising agencies rarely have their own translators, so translations are outsourced either to freelancers or to translation agencies. In this case, the marketing agency deals with the creative side, and a freelance translator takes care of the translation. The strength of this model is that marketing experts are familiar with the ins and outs of search engine marketing. However, there may be poor or non-existent utilization of translation technologies as the translations are handled as one-off projects with various parties.

Having translations done by a translation service provider

Another viable option is to outsource multilingual marketing translations directly to a translation service provider which has a large network of translators that a local translator can be guaranteed in almost all countries. A challenge may be that the translation service provider needs to take time to familiarize itself more thoroughly with the services of the client company.

Maintaining a company internal translation team

The rarest approach is for a company’s own internal translation team to handle with multilingual marketing translations. The strength of this approach is that the message stays consistent across all languages. The challenge of this arrangement is price: maintaining a separate translation team is an expensive investment.

Common mistakes in global marketing translation

In the business world, many aspects are easily taken care of in terms of global marketing by spending huge amounts of money on campaigns, but not so much care is taken over the translation of this content. When this happens, mistranslated elements of a marketing campaign, or a lack of cultural research can quickly lead in a negative company image. Negative branding abroad can make a business fail within foreign markets, fail to grow sales or even cause severe money losses. Here are some common mistakes in global marketing translation:

Social media overlooked: A simple mistake in this area can entirely change the meaning of a campaign and, sometimes, end up damaging your image.

Without localization: Unfortunate misunderstandings will be created if all possible meanings of a word have not been considered.

SEO underestimated: Mistakes in descriptions, names or links can penalize your business.

Email marketing Neglected: If you do not pay attention to the content of your emails, they may end up in the spam tray.

Marketing translations consist of a rigorous work and takes time, research, insight and marketing skills as well as a certain knowledge of the target culture. Global marketing is therefore closely linked to translation, and vice versa. Translators must have the required knowledge and experience not only in the targeted culture but in the marketing field as well, and marketers cannot translate their materials precisely and adapt them to the target market without the specific skills of professional translators.

At Target Language Translation Services, we are able to help you tailor your marketing messages to different cultures and markets to increase chances of succeeding abroad. Does your company need help in producing multilingual content or with creative translations of marketing texts? Are you looking for a translation partner to conquer new markets? Please contact us, and our experts will help you find the services that best meet your needs.

This article is reprinted from Acolad, TALK BUSINESS and Marketing Week.

If there is a copyright, please inform us in time, we will delete it right the first time.