Lost in Translation

How to Manage Marketing in English When No One Knows English

In September 2019, a small French SEO software company sent out surprise packages to hundreds of international SEO agencies. There were a variety of items in the packages, including a hand-written postcard from the team, small flags, stickers, VIP access to their product, and a condom with the company’s logo written on it.

For context, it should be known that the SEO industry as a whole has had a series of controversial #metoo moments involving prominent members of the SEO community over the last year, and this package, particularly the condom, was seen as completely tone-deaf. Naturally, many SEOs were talking about it on social media.

And so this French SEO software company spent the day justifying their marketing decision and ultimately apologizing for it instead of talking about their products.

To make matters worse, it was clear no one at the company knew English, and so all of the communication was being done through, most likely, Google Translate.

It was painful to watch a small company with, I believe, good intentions take such a big swing internationally and be woefully unprepared, especially when it came to language.

Seeing the quality of their responses, I kept wondering: If this had worked, how were they planning on engaging with interested potential clients? Which highlighted an even bigger problem: they would have failed either way.

Sadly, this kind of story is all too common.

Knowing English is Half the Equation

I work with small to medium-sized businesses in Poland to best address how they can use English in their marketing.

At a local level, the majority of my clients simply want to tap into the tourist circuit, as well as the growing international community. They can achieve this by creating a translated version of their restaurant menu to attract tourists, offering an English version of their website, or investing in locally targetted marketing campaigns through social media.

For the most part, these are businesses with limited resources and money to achieve these goals. So my job, in most cases, is to offer achievable opportunities for growth based on their business profile and budget.

But most importantly, I’m there to make sure they don’t make the most common mistakes when marketing in a language not their own and that they’re prepared to react accordingly.

There are a lot of moving parts to this and I’ll most likely be addressing them in future articles.

For this article, I want to address the businesses much like the examples I cited above who most likely won’t have someone like me on hand to help them.

And so in the absence of having someone who knows the language, here are two tools they could be using right now that would make their marketing a lot easier.

Grammarly

One of the things I always recommend to my clients with larger companies is to hire an in-house editor and/or content marketer and give them access to anything in English, from internal documentation to external content. Let them create a consistent voice for their company and make sure they don’t make any critical language errors, especially in their marketing.

Like it or not, people do judge something as simple as a spelling mistake. In fact, it’s been shown that spelling mistakes can cost millions in lost online sales.

It’s simple: if your website has a spelling mistake in it, what does that tell me about the quality of your service or product?

Since most of my clients won’t be hiring an editor, I always recommend investing in a tool like Grammarly.

Grammarly is a writing app that checks your spelling, grammar, and conciseness. It’s a nice tool to have in addition to the tools already in place for Word, Google Docs, and the like.

And while it’s free, I highly encourage spending money on the premium account, which opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

You can tell Grammarly what your goals are with the content you’re writing, which then allows the tool to provide you with a ton of information about your work in real-time. And then when you’re done, it’ll give you a detailed assessment that looks something like this:

There’s more too, but I don’t want to spend all day gushing.

It really is the next best thing outside of having a professional editor on hand, and for non-English companies using English, it’s an indispensable tool to have.

Social Jukebox

This is a big one for social media, particularly for LinkedIn (which continues to be massively undervalued), Facebook, and Twitter.

Social Jukebox is a social media tool similar to Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, but it has one major huge advantage, which I believe provides a massive edge for companies who want an English-based social media presence but don’t have anyone on hand who knows English.

Social Jukebox is a social media content generator. This means you can select a “jukebox” that has a theme related to your niche and have it post the content to your social media at the rate you decide on.

Here’s an example: let’s say one of the Polish restaurants I’ve worked with decides they’d like to have a Facebook or Twitter presence in English.

Using Social Jukebox, they can select a pre-made jukebox that’s about food.

This particular jukebox is loaded with 100 bits of content ready for Facebook or Twitter, including food trivia, recipes, and more. You can even add your own content if you want, or make your own jukebox.

Once the jukebox is turned on, you decide how often it will post to your social media channels. Every 5 minutes? Every hour? Every day? It’s completely up to you.

The point is, our hypothetical Polish restaurant now has a Facebook page that’s regularly putting out English content that’s related to its niche and without having to worry about posting something that will send the wrong message or offend.

It’s not a perfect solution, but I haven’t found another tool that can pull this off like Social Jukebox.

Wrapping Up

I’m always going to advocate seeking out professional help when it comes to your marketing, especially when using English as a second language to accomplish it. But I also know that the resources, for whatever reason, might not be available to make this a reality.

Even with these two tools, there’s still a lot of work to do, but you can be confident in knowing that you’re moving in the right direction.

Christian A. Dumais is an American writer, editor, and public speaker living in Poland. He specializes in brand marketing services for Polish companies and personalities looking to break into the English market. Follow him on Twitter: @PuffChrissy.