by Sam Martin-Ross is UK Managing Director of digital marketing agency, Eskimoz
When Coca-Cola launched its soft drinks in China, the brand rendered its name phonetically as “Ke-kou-ke-la”. Unfortunately, after printing hundreds of signs and marketing materials proudly displaying this branding, the company discovered this phrase translated to “bite the wax tadpole”.
Similarly, following the launch of Parker Pen’s ballpoint pen in Mexico, they opted to translate their English language slogan – “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you” – into Spanish. Due to an oversight, Parker mistook ‘embarrass’ for the Spanish word ‘embarazar’, meaning to be pregnant. The result saw the Spanish slogan announce, “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant”.
The takeaway? Developing content and messaging internationally is tough and even big brands struggle with the complexities of creating multilingual messaging and content when entering foreign markets.
Why is multilingual content important?
Tapping into international markets requires far more than simply making your products or services available to audiences in those countries. According to one study, 76% of consumers prefer purchasing from websites with product information displayed in their native language. A further report from payment portal, Stripe, found that three quarters of the top 450 European ecommerce websites have lost both customers and money due to inadequate translation at the checkout page.
The goal of content marketing is to craft messaging and information that engages and resonates with your audience, boosting the authority and visibility of your brand across your marketing channels, and making you more discoverable on search engines. But when it comes to doing this across various countries and languages, as our Coca-Cola and Parker Pen examples illustrate, direct translation isn’t always the way to go.
The importance of content localisation
Creating effective content for global audiences – that is, content that carves out consideration within your target demographics and gets you noticed in the SERPs – goes beyond simply ‘lifting and shifting’ your existing content from one language to another.
While a direct translation of your content may be a useful starting point when building a multilingual content strategy, it often won’t go far enough. Effective content must resonate with your audience, and this means properly adapting it to fit the linguistic nuances, conventions and cultural expectations of a particular market. Sometimes, a direct translation of a piece of messaging simply is not possible within your target language, or where it is possible, conveys a very different meaning to the one intended.
Branding that relies on humour, puns or similar wordplay will be all but lost if not properly adapted, while content written with the cultural norms of one market in mind may come across as insensitive or incongruous when directly translated to another.
That’s where localisation comes into play. Localisation works by significantly adapting your content to the nuances of both the language and the culture in question, ensuring your content and messaging is being conveyed optimally in your chosen language. It digs much deeper into the phrasing, structure, linguistic conventions and cultural norms expected by audiences within a given market, producing tailored, quality content for each of your target languages.
Tapping into native talent
The goal of your multilingual content strategy should be to create authentic, compelling content geared towards each of your target international markets. It’s therefore essential to work with native professionals who not only understand how your content can best be adapted to your required language but can also integrate this with best practices in content marketing, optimising it for on and off-site SEO, and ensuring your branding and messaging remains intact.
It’s tempting to think that with the advancement of translation tools and AI, producing content in multiple languages is as easy as running it through a translator and then perhaps hiring someone to tidy up the results, but the reality is that poorly translated content such as this can do serious harm to both your brand and your credibility.
Working with native professionals on your content strategy enables a collaborative approach between both the marketing and linguistic considerations of your content, and allows you to access local insights into your target markets, creating more compelling content in the process.
Final thoughts
A truly successful multilingual approach to content marketing should aim to resonate with the cultural diversity of your target international audiences. It does, however, require a substantial investment, both in terms of time, resources and native expertise.
Understanding the importance of localising your content for international markets doesn’t just allow you to more easily sell your products within those markets, it’s a core aspect of building trust and credibility as a global brand.
