Going the Extra Mile - Enhancing Global Sales Through Multilingual Strategies

Most businesses only leverage a fragment of their potential audience. Your product and brand benefits may be universal, but they will only reach as far as the audience is willing and ready to pay attention to your sales and marketing strategies. About two-thirds of the global population are now active Internet users, opening up international markets for brands across geographic regions. But, this potential audience only matters if you can effectively connect with new markets in ways that matter to them—through multilingual strategies.

Research tells us that most consumers will only consider brands that offer content in their language, which makes multilingual strategies an essential component in enhancing global sales. An organizational commitment and a focus on the correct strategy can go a long way toward long-term sales growth and success. This article will explore the importance of multilingual strategies, provide tips for overcoming challenges, and offer examples of effective strategies.

What Are Multilingual Strategies?

Multilingual strategies are initiatives designed to communicate your core value propositions and messages across multiple languages. The goal is to make your sales and marketing efforts more relevant to potential customers, either global or domestic.

Effective multilingual strategies, of course, go beyond simple translation. Instead, they consider the cultural and audience nuances connected with the language the content is translated into. When undertaken effectively, this approach creates a personalized experience for customers across the globe.

5 Reasons Multilingual Strategies Matter

The core rationale behind prioritizing multilingual strategies is simple: your customers expect it. Research consistently shows that they will be much more likely to engage with content personally relevant to them. More specifically, focusing on multilingual strategies unlocks five core advantages for your business:

1. Market expansion: With only 600 million people speaking English as their mother tongue globally, multilingual strategies unlock new audiences in some of the world's largest markets.

2. Building trust: Content and conversations in your new audience's language can build brand trust, particularly if you can demonstrate knowledge of and comfort with local nuances, cultures, and customs.

3. Improved engagement: Localized content builds cultural connections, making it more likely to resonate with your audience. Users are also more likely to engage with it.

4. Better user experience: There is a reason why most customers prefer content in their language: it makes for a more fluid online and user experience, ultimately predisposing them to look more favorably at your business and brand.

5. Enhanced sales: Localization consistently increases sales because of the above benefits. A more relevant experience that can penetrate more deeply into new markets significantly enhances your revenue potential over time.

3 Challenges to Overcome in Creating Multilingual Strategies

Of course, the above benefits are only theoretical. Simply running with a multilingual strategy as you look to tap into new markets is not guaranteed to succeed. Success or failure depends on your business's ability to overcome the common challenges connected to the concept. The three most common challenges of multilingual strategies tend to be:

1. Translation Quality and Nuance

Authentic, strategic multilingual efforts have to go beyond simple translations. The translations used in any strategy must be high-quality enough to seem natural for your audience, including correct grammar and the proper terminology.

The process tends to be even more nuanced than that. Cultural influences can change the meaning of a text significantly, like the general implications of the color white in Western and Eastern cultures: purity and death, respectively. A multilingual strategy of any type can only succeed with full consideration and implementation of these nuances.

2. Effective Use of Visuals

Especially when introducing new or different products to new audiences, visuals can be invaluable in getting a complex message across quickly. But again, these visuals can change depending on cultural nuances and context. Organizations need an effective localization process that considers the cultural context and implications of any visuals used in their multilingual strategies. Images, videos, graphics, symbols, and icons require close consideration before integrating them into a plan to unlock new audiences.

3. Extending Beyond Sales

Finally, multilingual strategies can fail when designed solely with sales results in mind. Instead, they have to extend through the entire customer lifecycle, creating a smooth customer journey from first exposure to continued product use over time.

4 Examples of Multilingual Strategies to Enhance Global Sales

With these benefits and challenges in mind, it's time to consider how to leverage multilingual strategies more closely to enhance global sales for your business. The most common examples include content localization, customer support, and ad and lead campaigns.

1. Content Marketing Localization

We have already mentioned content localization throughout this guide—and for good reason. As perhaps the most common multilingual strategy, content localization helps businesses of all sizes communicate their message to new, global audiences.

The benefits of localized content marketing are extensive. It not only builds both credibility and engagement but can also help in more technical areas. For example, localized content can improve search engine optimization in international target markets. As a result, you increase the chances of surfacing your content—and, by extension, your business—to your new audience segments.

2. Multilingual Customer Support

Another common multilingual strategy is extending your customer support abilities into multiple languages. Phone, email, and live chat support play a significant role in helping new market audiences get answers and resolutions to questions and issues they might encounter.

Multilingual customer support is especially beneficial in the eCommerce realm. International customers may frequently have questions about shipping, pricing, customs fees, etc. Brands that provide those answers in the users' native language will gain significant credibility and increase their chances of converting first-time and long-term customers.

3. Multilingual Ad Campaigns

Ad campaigns can also benefit from a more localized, multilingual approach. In nearly any channel, ads will perform better if they can get across their core message not just in the audience's native language but also in a way that makes sense according to their native culture.

Of course, the challenge of consistency becomes especially relevant with this type of strategy. A multilingual ad campaign leading to English language content or customer support will immediately lose traction. But, when done right and within their larger context, multilingual ads can unlock new audiences in both international and domestic markets.

4. Segmented Lead and Email Campaigns

Finally, like ad campaigns, engagement campaigns aimed at current prospects can help keep an interested audience engaged and increase their likelihood of buying. Moreover, because prospects already have a relationship with your brand, they will be more likely to engage with the longer-form content and appreciate the more natural user experience.

Building Multilingual Strategies to Enhance Your Sales

Multilingual strategies have become an immense opportunity to drive brand awareness and sales, especially for brands looking to expand beyond English-native domestic audiences. But to get there, you have to get these strategies right. Subscribe to VTQ Magazine for more global marketing insights.