Page 26 - index
P. 26

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS






Multilingual marketing:

Translation is the most


fundamental step in

personalization




Smartling, a company that uses technology to transform  Almost half of respondents (49.34 %) report that five
the way content is created and consumed, just released percent or less of their customer base is located out-
the results of a study that exposes the current state of side of the U.S.
multilingual marketing.
 Of the 105 respondents who are marketing to multi-
The translation management software company polled lingual audiences in some way, only 15 % are very
more than 150 marketers at INBOUND 2015 to learn confident that their messages are resonating with
where their organizations stand in terms of targeting them.
prospects and customers who don't speak English as
their native language – both in and outside of the U.S. Organizations are putting the "mass" in mass
communication – not making it personal
Given the global nature of e-commerce and the tremen-
dous revenue opportunities it represents, the results are It's widely acknowledged that no one size fits all – es-
surprising. Key findings of the survey revealed: pecially in marketing. Yet, despite that fact, marketers
are still limiting their content strategies to one language
Content is king – but the multilingual marketing cof- and are predominantly applying only one translation/
fers are empty localization practice.

Every savvy marketer knows that personalized content  Half of all respondents (52.6 %) are either not trans-
and messaging are crucial to engaging prospects and lating at all or are only translating into one language.
customers, yet a low percentage of the marketers sur-
veyed are dedicating any dollars to campaigns tailored  The majority of marketers (86 %) admit that they
for multilingual audiences: generate U.S.-centric content and then translate it
for a particular market. Only 14 % of organizations
• 48 percent of the marketers surveyed have no budget create original content, and employ local/native mar-
at all for translation outside of the U.S. keters in the countries where they are seeking to
• 59 percent of respondents – nearly three out of five – expand their business.
do not have any money allocated to reach multilingual
audiences within the U.S.  Among the companies that are translating, a few still
rely on machine translation (8.6 %); many rely on
"Brands that want to resonate with consumers all over human translators (42.1 %); 14.5 % use both; and
the world need to do more than just 'think' globally. others are beginning to use translation management
They need to dedicate budget and resources to a truly software (4.6 %).
global approach to their marketing efforts," said Judd
Marcello, vice president of marketing at Smartling. Marcello added, "Translation is the most fundamental
step in personalization. However, traditional language
Brands are walling themselves in – not taking inter- translation practices are often disruptive to the busi-
national expansion seriously ness process and that deters a lot of marketers. Many
see only two distinct approaches – human translation
Smartling's research also exposed the fact that few or- services and machine translation. It's time to challenge
ganizations surveyed are conducting business outside conventional wisdom if brands want to effectively en-
of U.S. borders today, despite the fact that 13 lan- gage customers in a personalized way on a global
guages together cover 90 percent of today's online scale. Multilingual content management software is
spending power. Those who do serve overseas markets absolutely essential to doing just that. It combines the
are not focused on creating native brand experiences essential human element with innovative technology to
for prospects and customers. give brands the ability to easily add languages, reach
new markets and ensure native experiences across all
their touchpoints."◊
By MediaBUZZ
26 Asian eMarketing - November 2015 eCommerce & Customer Lifetime
26
   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31