Companies all over the world invest a lot of time and effort in their ideas and products. If these initially only concentrate on the regional market, the door to opening up international markets will be open after the first major successes at the latest. In order to communicate with the new customers, however, previous successful ideas and concepts must first be translated into a wide variety of languages. A mammoth project that needs to be properly planned.
Marketing translations: 5 keys to success
Transferring national success to the international arena is not easy. There are numerous stumbling blocks, especially when it comes to translating the marketing content – five of them, and the ways around them, are now to follow.
Critical handling of the original content
Just because a marketing idea works well at home doesn’t mean that the concept will also take off internationally. Before translating, you should therefore critically examine the existing content and consider whether the language, content, images and tonality are also suitable for the desired target audience abroad.
There are seldom universal concepts that work worldwide. However, existing content can be modified by a real expert in such a way that it also enables international success. An important first step in the translation process that must be done before anyone else.
Get to know your international target audience
Which groups of people would you prefer to address or inspire for your product abroad? For example, do you concentrate on young people or rather on the older generation? Do you want to address academics or the “simple housewife next door”?
The audience determines the language of your marketing concept. It is therefore extremely important to tailor marketing messages to this target group. This can have an impact on the selected language, images and many other details and therefore forms the basis for the translation process.
Time and funding
Translating marketing content might not sound complicated in theory. In practice, however, you will quickly realize that this endeavor requires a lot of patience and time. At least if you value quality and want to present your company professionally.
Do not compare the translation of marketing content with the “simple” translation of texts or documents. The work is extremely multifaceted, because: Marketing content is an all-encompassing term. Not only do you have to translate “offline material”, such as flyers, but also adapt everything relating to the online area – from website content to social media profiles, there is a lot to do here.
With so many different points on which your translation team has to start, it makes sense to create a set of guidelines. In particular, to translate certain (important) words, such as parts of the advertising slogan, identically in all channels. This is the only way to maintain an overview and a uniform style – even with large teams.
Be careful with advertising slogans and keywords
The experience of internationally successful companies shows that global slogans – that is, slogans that are used in the same language in every country – are real rarities. As a rule, it is necessary that these too are translated in order to get the message across to the international audience.
The problem: a literal translation is not always the right way, because even fantasy names abroad can have a (negative) meaning. It is therefore often necessary to change the advertising slogans during translation and localization, or at least to adapt them slightly.
Incidentally, this also applies to keywords in SEO translations – simply relying on what works nationally could quickly become a dead end abroad. The search behavior of people counts here, so that the important keywords for the new market can vary more or less strongly.
View the results as early as possible
Get an idea of the translation team’s progress early on. This ensures that everything is moving in the direction you want. Waiting until it is completely finished usually only creates additional problems, because: Editing the material is very time-consuming. Time that you can invest in other important things if you step in early.
