Keeping international consumers happy and boosting sales abroad

GearTranslations
4 min readDec 14, 2016

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So, your company has overcome the challenges of setting up a global supply chain by translating product information, legal documents and even investing in translation manuals. Finally your product is ready to penetrate foreign markets. Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the line. Yes, you’ve taken all the necessary steps in order to make it physically possible to sell abroad, but how well will it be received by international consumers?

The rise of global trade inevitably goes hand in hand with successful online marketing — the ability to supply your potential international consumers with all the information they need at the touch of a button. Search a product online, choose from companies with similar offerings from around the globe and have it shipped across seas to your doorstep in just a couple of days.

Globalisation has fuelled our desire for more choice — consumers are shamelessly greedy. Today, supplying to just one market destination isn’t enough. In order to compete with domestic markets, companies have to adopt an expansion strategy to penetrate new foreign markets, leverage sales abroad effectively and steal a larger size of pie.

What’s this expansion strategy? Speaking to the heart of international consumers. This entails not only language translations but the generation of online content that appeals to that foreign market. It seems obvious, but our startup, has learnt that if consumer brand experience is not consistent across all foreign markets, companies’ online marketing efforts are wasted. In order maintain effective brand communication with online consumers in every part of the world, companies need to develop multilingual social media campaigns by investing in translations and multilingual content creation. International consumers have to identify with the brand and understand its message otherwise sales abroad will struggle.

The Foreign Language Effect theory proposes that speaking to online consumers in a foreign language affects their purchasing decisions. Speaking to international consumers in their native language sparks emotions and feelings that cannot be provoked when using words and phrases in a foreign language.

Gone are the days where competitive advantages are solely price related. Now it’s about harnessing your most valuable marketing tool — online content — in order to fit the needs of each market destination and maximise consumer experiences! Think about it this way, let’s say a US company wanted to launch its product into the Chinese market but they were apprehensive about investing in translation from English to Mandarin for their social media campaigns. They could always start selling it cheaper in order to steer attention away from domestic brands. But consumer confidence always dominates. A company’s international consumers want multiple touchpoints so they can interact with the values of the brand and feel like part of its journey. Are Chinese consumers going to trust a foreign brand that does not translate to Mandarin or even offer multiple currency payment options on their website? In fact, international consumers value the ability to find information in their own language more highly than price factors.

So, before deciding to translate brand material, companies have to know exactly what is expected of them before they increase their online exposure into foreign markets. Cultural differences affect the consumer behaviour of each market. Immersing into the culture of the market destination allows you to understand how your international consumers behave and engage through social media. After understanding what they value, you can tailor online content and online marketing campaigns to help grow a community of loyal, engaged tribe of consumers. After all, consumers are the building blocks of your brand!

GearTranslations offers professional translations and multilingual content creation for technical sectors such as IT, Finance, Health, Safety, Legal, Pharma, and Manufacturing. Accurate, professional translations and creative content are a vital component in the internationalisation of your business to break down the language barriers that prevent fluid communication with international consumers, foreign distributors, and foreign suppliers in any market overseas.

We offer 24/7 access to our online platform, speedy delivery of up to 5 hours, a cloud-based back-up copy for all previous translations. Our personalised translation library means you can save costs in the long run and our unique algorithm lets you capitalise on each translation, transforming your multilingual content into valuable assets for your company.

We’re a startup that values expansion at a global level. We understand that internationalisation entails many challenges because we ourselves have been there too when we expanded into new foreign markets. So, are you ready to embark on the internalisation journey, launch into new market destinations, and drive sales abroad? Contact us. Our translation service and multilingual content copywriting is the door to expand your business! We have a team of talented linguists, software developers, and creative millennials ready to help you improve your multilingual communications.

Image copyright: Fotolia

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