Multilingual Content: How to Get it Right

Introduction

If the key to globalization is communication, the key to your digital communications is the content.

Engaging content attracts, retains, and sustains a customer base, while undifferentiated materials risk being overlooked. This directly impacts clicks and conversions and can impede growth.

To engage with consumers, your campaigns, landing and product pages, blogs, and all social media content must be concise, understandable, clear, and relevant. It’s important that it resonates with your user and potential foreign customer. A thoughtful content strategy that is aligned with marketing objectives is an excellent first step to optimizing multilingual content.

"To engage with consumers, your campaigns, landing and product pages, blogs, and all social media content must be concise, understandable, clear, and relevant."

Lizzie Fox, Global Marketing Manager

Effective communication must also be provided in your potential audience’s native language to encourage interest, meaning, and follow-through. Ideally, you should localize your marketing, promotional and administrative materials.

Globalization frequently involves multiple markets and languages. This means localization requirements often include numerous content types, volumes of content, and diverse multilingual cultures and contexts. In addition, each content type, such as website localization, has unique translation requirements and translating at scale with numerous linguistic inputs requires resources.

Crucially, localization is only as good as the source content.

So, how do you get multilingual content right?

The Secrets to Engaging Content

Sound and engaging copy should be simple, understandable, relevant, and to the point to enhance a positive customer experience. It should also be informative, entertaining, or topical. Marketers must keep up to date with market and consumer needs, preferences, and directions. Ideally, they should be anticipating the next trend or demand.

Your website has a significant role to play. Your site provides a potentially engaging and functional introduction to your brand, offering product information, chatbots, blogs, and reviews. Engaged consumers will first look to your website or social media sites for industry or category news and updates and informed thought leadership.

So, it’s clear. Strong, up-to-date, and novel content is obligatory for competitive differentiation.

However, if your consumer or user can’t understand or won’t engage with your content, it doesn’t matter how good or relevant it is.

"Globalization is about international presence with a local feel. This localization means talking to consumers in a way they understand—the local way."

Kristina Møller, Localization Expert

Localization: Essential for Global Growth

Globalization is about international presence with a local feel. This localization means talking to consumers in a way they understand—the local way.

Talking to your consumers and encouraging them to talk to other consumers about you, means speaking to them in their language, the language they feel comfortable with and heard in. This will also help generate positive word of mouth.

While many believe that most Internet users can read and understand English, the reality is that this only applies to 25% of web users. Moreover, research shows that up to 60% of users claim they will rarely or never buy from unlocalized websites. This rejection directly impacts sales, image, and your global bottom line.

In addition, according to the Unbabel Global Multilingual CX Report, communicating in native languages contributes significantly to customer loyalty. Over 7 in every 10 consumers claim allegiance to brands offering support in their language. Furthermore, two-thirds of consumers feel it’s imperative for brands to provide native language end-to-end customer experience, and would be prepared to switch to a brand that does this.

A robust and considered localization strategy and well-localized website enhance online search engine optimization and visibility. This boosts customer attraction and acquisition.

Getting Translation Right

With different content types and profiles, choosing the appropriate translation is vital.

Consider your product text versus legal content. Remember your user-generated content in reviews and posts as an increasing number of consumers—almost 8 out of 10 (77%)—regularly or always read reviews.

So, it’s essential to localize content in the right way. For example, consider localizing:

• User-created content: Accuracy is less important than speed for reviews and posts. Use machine translation to make this vital user-generated content understandable globally. Typically, machine translation engines use machine learning to improve across iterations, allowing affordable and reliable scaling.
• Catalogs and product pages: Product and service descriptions typically contain significant content duplication. This repeated text also warrants the use of machine translation, as this method can leverage translation memory, reusing previously translated words and phrases.
• Home and service pages: For these hardworking, highly discoverable pages, tone and accuracy are paramount. They require high-quality translation and sympathetic localization. Usually, good outcomes rely on a team of expert translators and country and subject matter experts.
• White papers and e-books: This high-profile, information-dense content requires superior quality translation, usually On-Brand Translation. Native-language speaking industry specialists are best.

Optimized content deserves appropriate translation and localization, so rely on your trusted language solutions partner for the best input and outcomes.

Optimize Your Multilingual Content With Straker

Your online content is your primary brand ambassador. Maximize your impact by optimizing your multilingual content, one distinct content type at a time.

Straker is a global language solutions partner offering AI-driven, humanized machine translation with translation memory and an extensive network of on-the-ground native language speakers and local subject matter experts.

Contact Straker today to schedule your multilingual translation consultation.

"Optimized content deserves appropriate translation and localization, so rely on your trusted language solutions partner for the best input and outcomes."

Lizzie Fox, Global Marketing Manager