Not only can you place your business operations in front of tens of millions of potential new customers, but you can also use this information as a viable means for eliminating or at least getting around up to 99% of your competition in the online markets. 

How do you build a full multilingual marketing campaign online today and why is it important?

In this article, we will show you how to establish your online marketing campaign on an international level. 

As we enter the new digital age, more people are going to be living, working, and shopping online. The only question that remains is will you go where the customers are and succeed, or be left behind to satisfy yourself with the crumbs that are left? The question now is how. 

Translation and the Languages of the Internet

Why is Multilingual Marketing so important online now?

The first thing that needs to be demonstrated will be based on an integrated dataset compiled largely from information found on the Internet World Statistics website and factored in with information from the W3Techs website, both of which specialize in the aggregation of internet statistics. 

Putting all of the data together, we can see that there are actually eleven primary languages on the internet, though the last two only comprise about 1.5% of internet content. Collectively, however, these eleven languages make up more than 98% of all of the content online today. 

This means that using translation services to translate into any other language outside of these top eleven languages means that you are now in direct and indirect competition with less than 1% of all of the content online. This immediately makes it substantially easier to rank well on the search engines, though your content will appear on the foreign language search engine results page or SERP. 

Digging a little deeper into the additional data found on those sites, we can also see that there are about 24 languages with more than fifty million speakers and about 85 languages with more than ten million speakers. Furthermore, all of these languages make up less than 1% of online content. 

In other words, you can use translation services to put your products or services out in front of literally tens of millions of new viewers who do not have much to see online in the first place and offer them products and services they cannot find elsewhere in their own languages. You have also greatly reduced your competition online all at the same time.

How to use Translation and Localization to Begin Building a Multilingual Marketing Campaign

How do I build a successful multilingual marketing campaign online?

The first place to start for making a successful multilingual marketing campaign online is with a website translation. This is going to serve two primary purposes. 

The first is to use the website translation to provide a foreign language audience with a sufficient amount of information to give them an idea of what you are selling and why it meets their needs. The second reason is to begin making your website visible on the foreign language SERP. 

It can be tempting to use many of the translation plugins or extensions but this is generally not a good idea. Not only are there likely to be a great many translation errors, but the site will also not rank on the foreign language search engines. 

One very common mistake is to presume that the viewers will be searching in English to find information in their native language. If there is no website translation, there is no way that the foreign language audience will be able to find your site, to begin with. 

Translation, Localization and Multilingual Marketing

Do I need to use translation and localization services to build a successful multilingual marketing campaign?

The translation services will ultimately be used for all the marketing materials, but rather than looking at this as a chore, it is helpful to view this as an opportunity. Language translation services will ensure that all of your marketing materials are in a language that the audience can understand. Localization is the means by which you can establish a direct and personal relationship with the target demographic. 

No matter what your native language may be, there are going to be linguistic and other variations in different parts of your country that are reflected in speech and other forms of communication. One of the most important parts of any successful marketing campaign is developing a personal relationship and understanding with the target market. 

This is perhaps one of the most compelling reasons for finding a professional translation agency as they should be able to guarantee both the translation and the localization services they provide. Any errors in translation services will reflect poorly on your business, and even according to the AMA or American Marketing Association, these personal relationships are imperative to maximize your multilingual marketing campaign.

How to Use Translation and Localization for Video Marketing

How do I build a multilingual video marketing campaign?

When it comes to video marketing, you will want to use video transcription services and make srt files or closed captioning for your video marketing campaign. You will not want to use subtitles as they are restricted to one language and cannot be indexed. 

Srt files are indexed by the search engines, and along with the reduced competition, will help your videos be more visible. This extends well beyond just the foreign language SERP though, and for many different reasons. 

The srt files will greatly increase the number of keywords that your video will rank for. However, there are some caveats here and some additional information that should help to make your video marketing campaign more effective. 

There should never be more than two srt files per video with one being in the original language and the other using the video translation for a single, second language. There should be separate video channels created for each language in order to allow people to find the channel to have all of the information readily available in their own language. 

YouTube does allow for content creators to upload the same video to numerous different channels without any penalties being incurred. Now not only will the video tags be in the relevant languages and all of the content gathered together, but the entire channel will be recognized as being established specifically for the desired language pairs. 

The srt files being indexed will increase the number of keywords the video ranks for in the relevant languages. This will result in the video enjoying increased ranking on the relevant search engines, and at the same time increase the likelihood that the video will be placed in the recommended video listings from YouTube.

Translation, Localization and Social Media Marketing

Do I need a multilingual social media marketing campaign? 

Social media marketing is an important part of any successful online marketing campaign but those social media ads can become expensive in a hurry. Once the website translation is complete, including the necessary landing pages and other relevant information in the select languages, social media can be effectively used without the need for expensive advertising. 

That is not to say that social media advertising should not be pursued, but only a point of understanding that it may be overly expensive for someone who is still in the process of building up a multilingual campaign online. It is easy enough to search out content on the social media platforms that are in the desired language and to join pages and groups that are posted and maintained in those languages. 

There may also be other social media platforms that are more localized and restricted to only a few geographic areas or even to specific languages. A little bit of research can go a long way in terms of building a direct and beneficial relationship with the expanded international target audience.

At this stage, you may want to continue using one of any number of professional translation agencies or you may simply want to hire a local through the freelance boards to create and maintain accounts on the foreign language social media activities. 

Videos are among the most commonly shared posts on most social media platforms and as long as you are actively involved in foreign language communities online, there should be no objection to posting or promoting your videos, content, or even your products and services that provide answers or solutions for the target markets. 

How to Create an Effective International Content Marketing Strategy

Do I need to create an international content marketing strategy? Why? 

It has long been held that “content is king” but this is a somewhat simplistic overview. There is one key factor that is just as important in the translation services as it is in the content itself. It is not the content that is important, so much as it is the information that is conveyed. 

Once the website has been translated, the video channels and social media accounts created and there is a solid basis, you will need to create a content marketing strategy. Learning how to create an effective international content marketing strategy will include a comprehensive approach including both translation and localization services. 

It is also important to differentiate between website content creation and a more comprehensive content marketing strategy. Your website content strategy may include focusing on different minor problems that are resolved by your products or services, but may also include a large volume of more generalized but relevant information.

The real purpose behind your international content marketing strategy is to focus on closing deals and increasing the return on investment or ROI through effective communications. Why was this step saved for last? Did you ever wonder why marketing firms are so expensive? Did you ever wonder why marketing firms generally have the ability to greatly increase the ROI? 

For any of your multilingual marketing content, you are most likely to fare better with a professional translator that not only specializes in localization but also in marketing. Ad friendly words may not fare so well in translation and the last thing you want to do is to attract a hungry new audience to your site, only to lose them because of poorly translated marketing content. 

Add all these steps together, use professional translation and localization services, and build up your multilingual marketing campaign as resources allow, and you should be quite capable of retaining your current market, reaching an expansive and hungry new audience, and greatly increasing the profitability of your international multilingual marketing efforts.

By Shiela May Pulido