Multilingual Content Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide
Businesses that offer multilingual user experience see more conversions, particularly an increase of 70%, than those that don’t. These statistics are unsurprising as people are now more connected than ever and can easily shop from stores overseas. Thus, getting customers to trust your brand is more than just attracting them with an interesting web design. You need a thoughtful approach to multilingual content creation to make your brand appealing.
Crafting a multilingual SEO strategy may be challenging, as you have to be skilled in working with content in other languages. You’ll find that there’s more to it than simply translating words or phrases from one language to another. You need to consider nuances and even dialectical differences. So, use our comprehensive guide to make your work easier.
Why Is Digital Multilingual Content Marketing Important for Businesses?
Whether you market to several countries or focus on one only, chances are your customers are people from different cultural backgrounds and speak other languages. If you design your content for English speakers only, you may end up missing out on potential income and lots more benefits. Instead, you should take active steps to ensure you are not alienating customers. In fact, you can double your sales rate by up to 100% by making your content multilingual.
Since not everyone speaks English, you should offer multilingual support to get a leg up over your competitors. But that’s not the only effective strategy; you can also buy backlinks and invest in SEO quality to help increase search rankings and attract even more sales. The results of this combination are higher customer retention rates, improved brand credibility, and more revenue.
Challenging Multilingual Content Creation: How to Deal With It?
Multilingual content marketing should be a common practice for all websites, but it still can be challenging. Here are a few hurdles you may face trying to reach a wider audience:
- Cultural nuances. When you translate your content from one language to another, you may not always be able to convey your message to people of different nationalities and backgrounds. So, consider this aspect and try to use ideas that have universal appeal.
- Cultural boundaries and taboos. Something that is harmless and even funny in one culture can be offensive in another. For example, it may be a good idea to show an ad featuring a love story in many countries, but the plot may be perceived as offensive in some cultures.
- Brand voice consistency. It’s an important factor as you don’t want to change your unique personality depending on the target region. For example, if your brand voice is humorous, trendy, and youthful, try to stick to the same style no matter what.
- An increased budget. Of course, multilingual content creation costs are often higher than those for writing articles or making videos in one language. The expenses depend on the approach you use: whether you want to have a team for each target region or use an AI. Besides, human translation is far more reliable than machine translation but requires more time and money.
How to Create Locally Relevant Content in 5 Steps
We all know that localization of marketing material is now the standard for any thriving business that has consumers in different regions. So, how do you ensure that your content conveys the message you envision? Here are some tips:
#1. Know How to Woo Your Target Audience
How can you create content that your audience will resonate with if you don’t know them? Sure, you are thinking of keyword research first, which is essential, but you need to dig deeper than that, especially if you are in a niche market like mobile app marketing. For example, Appinstitute.com recommends encouraging customer feedback, the approach that fits your multilingual content strategy as well.
Start your research by uncovering pain points, favorite online haunts (so you know which content delivery strategy to use), their values, cultural preferences, etc. Knowing is only half the battle. Then, you’ll have to ensure that your content aligns with customers’ needs and shows respect for their culture without compromising your core message.
#2. Introduce Your Brand to Your Local Audience Properly
When creating locally relevant content, you should build a rapport with your customers. People tend to buy from those they trust, so take steps to introduce yourself and your brand to your target market. How do you do this? Create a detailed “About Us” page. Use this space to describe your service, the story behind the business, and why you do what you do. Remember to show the people behind the company. Thus, you’ll earn trust.
#3. Use Locally Relevant Examples and Give Contextual Details
Your content should always consider the region you are targeting. While it’s okay to use global icons and universal references, it’s far more effective to mention local examples the audience can relate to. Still, stick very closely to your core message and brand voice. Use local references that can be translated or adapted for another region without hassle.
#4. Be Sensitive
Creating locally relevant content can be tricky when you are not a native of your target region. You should be sensitive to cultural nuances and differences. Choose colors and designs that have a multicultural appeal and avoid those that do not translate well into the culture. Also, consider featuring females with suitable clothing in some regions to avoid offending the viewers or readers.
Also, translations can be hit-or-miss and sometimes even lead to undesired compromise or lost meanings. For example, certain symbols and colors have different meanings depending on the region. So watch out here and choose professional services so as not to run into avoidable issues.
#5. Use the Right Tools and Get Help From a Local Team
AI tools have their place in global multilingual content marketing, from researching and scraping the web for opportunities for getting more link mentions to translating. Still, you need at least some team members who know the local community in depth. Sometimes, it’s expensive or even impossible to get a local team, so you might find someone born in the region or one who has been living there for a while.
Apart from the language skills, they should be able to help you with the unique quirks, slang, and other language peculiarities. Even if you use a tool to do some part of the translation, you should always have a human read through the text to spot mistakes and finetune the content.
Conclusion
Knowing how to adapt your multilingual content marketing strategy to cover different regions is an advantage you have over your competitors. Of course, it’s not an easy endeavor, but once you make the effort and gain experience, you’ll get the desired results. Always focus on creating content that shows respect for your audience but don’t betray your core brand values and voice. Thus, people you want to attract will come to value your brand and relate to your message.
