Globalisation may have become a dirty word politically recently, if the results of the U.S. presidential election, the Brexit referendum in Britain and some European election campaigns are anything to go by. But the public mood in some quarters is unlikely to have much effect on the global economy and the demand for translation services which are growing as businesses around the world compete for the world market.
It goes without saying that to sell the things you have to sell you have to be able to communicate with who you want to sell to. In the past, this was almost always the people who lived where you were based or in any country where the same language was spoken. Now, mainly because of the way the Internet has made online marketing so much easier, smart businesses have jumped on the potential to increase their sales by appealing to a wider market.
Getting your business ready for a truly global market is a multi faceted process and involves not just translating your marketing messages literally into the languages of your target markets. You will need marketing translation services that are equipped to deal with localisation techniques. Localisation is a term that means adapting your messages in a way that is best understood by the people in a particular community. It includes not just translating from one language into another but using the idioms, slang, expressions and cultural nuances that every community is familiar with. It’s a marketing technique which is really just an extension of something which many businesses are already aware of when marketing in the home language.
To take a simple example, if you are trying to sell kid’s toys, the language used in the marketing messages must appeal not just to kids, but their parents as well. If it’s female cosmetics or fashion clothing which is being marketed, the language used will be aimed at the age and gender it is intended for.
Going global just extends the practice of adapting the message to fit the market. The only problem with this is that it may not be easy to appreciate just what language best suits a foreign market. The slogans, brand names and language that work at home may not be what make a similar market react favourably half the world away. That’s why you need professional marketing translation services that have translators with their feet on the ground in different places. In fact, if you are going to market your products in many different countries you need to deal with a large translation agency that can handle your multiple translation and localisation needs.