A Beginner’s Guide to Multilingual Marketing

Multilingual Marketing means the translation of the marketing language/ medium as per the target audience, without the change in the tone or meaning conveyed upon by the marketers. An approximate population of 8 billion People globally do not communicate in a single language. While the most common language medium is, English it is still not the only medium in which people interact.

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Languages like Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Bengali, Russian, and more are widely used amongst people to communicate. Not globally, even inside of a country there can be diversification in the native languages as per the regions. India for instance, has approximately 121 languages and a whopping 270 mother tongues across its states and union territories.

Companies, which focus on growth, can never be successful if only a single communication medium is followed. This is where Multilingual Marketing has gained its importance. Multilingual Marketing is more so important for Multi-National Companies (MNC), as it helps in breaking the language barriers and communicating with ease their offerings for the customers.

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In this article, we will cover all possible aspects of Multilingual Marketing.

Advantages of Multilingual Marketing:

1. Adherence to People’s Preference:

Although in today’s world most people understand and communicate in more than one language, they remain most comfortable with their vernacular languages. Brands understand these human traits and as such market their products as per the native languages of the region. Furthermore, a company can lose a large market share of the people who only speak in their natives and the website does not support it. Thus, multilingual marketing is necessary for constant lead generation and sales volume. Amazon, for instance, has developed its website in a way that several Indian languages are supported on it. Users can change the website as per their comfortable language.

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2. Competitive Edge:

Business is becoming more and more competitive these days as they face competitors in almost each vertical of their offerings. Having a multilingual marketing approach can help businesses to grow despite facing competition. Multi-language marketing strategy helps businesses to achieve volumes in areas unexplored or least explored. Once the company can gain an edge over the local suppliers, it can then focus on the profitability part of the sales. Online Milk Delivery Company Country Delight is a perfect example. The company roped in Bengal Actors for marketing in the native Bengali language, once they decided to enter West Bengal for businesses.

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3. Reduction in Operational Costs:

Multilingual Marketing can help reduce costs with marketing associated with different regions. Instead, of launching several advertisements, camps, and promotions individually for every region, a simple website change is more desirable. Allowing for multilingual website operations is a much more cost-effective means of marketing, than any other form of regional marketing. It also offers an expanded reach to newer target audiences and consequently better sales. RoI or Returns on Investment is also high in this case.

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4. Region-Based SEO:

Today’s digital marketing strategy is incomplete without Search Engine Optimizations (SEO). Keywords are the most important and the basic part for conducting any kind of web optimizations. With multilingual marketing, it is possible to make website optimizations basis regional specific as well as language-specific keywords. This helps in driving a more qualified sales traffic onto the site, better sales per click ratio, and overall a better marketing of the brand. It also helps in developing geo (geographical location) specific URLs.

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Many companies opt for a generic URL and then add a subdomain structure as per the geographical location of the customer. Xiaomi, for example, has the main domain mi.com and then subdomains such as mi.com/in, mi.com/uk, and more.

5. Establishing Trust:

People tend to trust more the companies that offer products/ services in their languages. Multilingual Marketing assures the customers that the company values their beliefs and that these companies are here to stay for a long time in the future.  Online customers especially focus on these small value additions, and companies should do all that they can to garner maximum trust amongst their customers. This helps in creating a wonderful customer journey and a potential loyalty towards the organization.

Implementation of Multilingual Marketing:

Creating content and then getting it translated into multiple languages, without losing its core message is the focus of successful multilingual marketing implementation. This adaptation of the marketing content is possible in the following areas:

1. Brand Website:

The website is a gateway of a customer to the company’s online offerings. It will be very displeasing for a customer when the shop he/she enters doesn’t have offerings in the person’s native (or understandable) language. Customers are likely to skip the shop and move onto a different shop, for a more personalized and intuitive shopping experience. Companies would not like that happening with their sites. Therefore, it is essential that websites be optimized as per the location/region they are operating in. Color Coding and Payment Mechanisms also vary from culture to culture. For instance, people still prefer cash or UPI to other payment methods. This is the reason why major e-commerce companies like Amazon, Flipkart offer COD (Cash on Delivery) and UPI facilities on almost all of their offerings.

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2. Social Media:

While a majority of the world uses apps like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp as their preferred social media platforms, these are not only social media platforms. Countries like China have other platforms like WeChat, Tik Tok, QQ. If marketers, do not optimize their offerings as per these sites then they will lose large sales. Multilingual marketing brings in the required flexibility onto a company’s website, and in greater picture onto the entire marketing strategy of the company. This helps the company to succeed in every region it enters through region-specific social media marketing techniques.

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3. Location-Specific Collaborations:

The main aim of any marketing strategy is to bring in more leads and result in more sales. While endorsing national and international level celebrities for brand collaborations is acceptable for a wider audience. The regional co-operations matter the most in the case of small states or localities. These local celebrities enjoy a loyal fan base compared to their national counterparts. The impact that these celebrities can have on the sales of a particular brand is unprecedented. Brands these days focus on these influencers to become regionally popular as well. For instance, people in southern India tend to prefer the bus over other means of transportation even for long distances. Travel company Abhibus banked on this by collaborating with southern cinema star Mahesh Babu as their Brand Ambassador.

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Road Ahead:

The relevance of multilingual marketing is set to expand even more in the times to come for a range of factors:

• More and more companies going big and globalized, the effect of globalization.
• World getting connected with the launch of new communication mediums over the Internet like online calls, chats, and video conferences.
• Increasing Internet density and potential to rise further as more and more countries adopt high-speed internet services like broadband, 5G.

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• Rise in Work from Home (WFH) and Hybrid Work Models, the effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

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• Restrictions on Business Travels and Content Filming, pandemic after effects.

Conclusion:

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Interactions with the Internet have changed dramatically over the years. Customers can not only access information from anywhere and about anything, but also can order anything from around the world. Nowadays, most big multi-national corporations offer shipping across the world for their products. Thus, it becomes almost important for businesses to hold on to their grip on the market share by adopting multilingual marketing strategies.