Developing a bilingual marketing strategy
There’s a whole world out there that offers a wealth of growth opportunities for your business. Don’t let the complexity of different languages and diverse cultures deter you from taking your business global.
Speaking to a target audience in their language conveys respect, builds loyalty, and engages them on a deeper level. This is because language is an essential part of who we are as humans, and when people feel acknowledged for who they are and where they come from, they notice. Therefore, in our increasingly globalized and multicultural society, it makes sense to create a marketing strategy that allows us to connect with as many potential customers as possible in their language.
Expand into new markets with a multicultural approach.
Language is fundamental to who we are as humans.
It’s how we communicate and, in many cases, a signifier of who we are and the communities of which we are members.
That’s why it’s essential for marketers to communicate in their target audience’s language whenever possible.
Before you develop your specific marketing strategy, it’s important to reassess your company’s marketing goals. Creating bilingual marketing is not as easy as dubbing your videos or even adding subtitles.
Bilingualism generally comes with biculturalism, which means you will need a separate marketing strategy to grow your audience.
Developing marketing campaigns that connect with audiences in more than one language means going beyond some last-second translations.
A bilingual campaign needs to be built from the ground up.
Why bilingualism matters
Bilingualism in marketing matters for one simple reason: It matters to your audience.
If you are trying to reach an audience but are unwilling to communicate with them on their terms, your campaign isn’t likely to be effective.
If you’re not thinking in more than one language, your campaigns aren’t going to connect in the way you want them to.
Here is the importance of bilingual content marketing strategies and why brands should take it seriously:
Bilingual Content Opens Up Opportunities for Cross-Border Business
Bilingual Content Can Improve Your Website’s Search Rankings
Bilingual Content Improves Brand Loyalty/Sales
So, how can we ensure that we do it right? Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Cross-cultural competency
The difficulty of communicating not only has to do with language barriers but also with cultural styles. That’s why the first part of creating a marketing strategy in a different language requires extensive knowledge of the target culture. What are their customs and traditions? Are the same words used in different contexts? Cultures shape the way individuals think and interpret the world around them. Therefore, when the need to communicate in another language arises, especially in marketing, we should leave no stone unturned or otherwise the risk for potential misunderstandings and awkward translations increases.
Build from the ground up
The temptation with bilingual marketing campaigns is to simply build a campaign as you ordinarily would in one language, then translate. This is wrong.
They aren’t just carbon copies of one another or word-for-word translations, and because a fun play one words in one language will likely fall completely flat in the other.
To build an effective bilingual marketing campaign, you need to consider different languages as entirely distinct audiences.
Don’t translate, transcreate
The next step is making sure that while we maintain cultural specificity, the tone, intent, context, and voice of your brand aren’t lost in translation. This is the ultimate goal when creating bilingual content. The way to achieve this is by transcreating.
The term “transcreation” describes the process of adapting content for a given target audience to make sure that it resonates with the intended effect. The process may or may not include translation.
The idea with transcreation is that you’re not exclusively translating, and you’re not only adapting either. You’re doing more than that. In many cases, you’re rewriting from scratch to get the same concept or message across.
Very often, marketers will send a project over requesting translation and don’t even think about the fact that much of their copy might actually require transcreation or creative adaptation.
Focus on the tactical, not just the strategic
Strategy is important when it comes to developing bilingual marketing campaigns.
But so are tactics.
That’s because building a campaign in more than one language requires several tactical decisions that affect how your audience experiences it – particularly if you’re running online or social ads.
For example: Will you create separate campaigns for each language? Or would you rather just create a campaign in both languages then say use English and Arabic language ads for it?
It might seem like a small decision. But this will have implications for whether or not you will need to set up separate targeting and split your budget across numerous campaigns.
In conclusion
Bilingual marketing strategies can give your business that extra dash it needs to increase brand awareness and this can be very lucrative when done right, but there is an increased room for error when we assume that translating is more than enough. This s why you need to think of all of the parameters when deciding on your next bilingual marketing strategy.
Here at Bananir we have extensive experience in multi language marketing campaigns and strategy. Contact us today to help you with your next marketing endeavor.
