If you own a business selling products or services to consumers and you’re thinking about exporting or selling to global markets, you may be wondering: how important is professional translation anyway? Can hiring a professional translator to translate my website, brochures or marketing materials into other languages really increase sales of my products and services?
Well, let’s put ourselves in your client’s shoes for a moment.
Imagine you’re passionate about scuba diving and you’re browsing the web looking to buy a pair of diving shoes. You come across a fast loading, content-rich website that is written in Swedish, German, Russian or some other language you don’t know or recognize. How do you react?
Do you look for an English version of the website?
Do you search Google for English press or articles about the company or its products?
Do you rely on Google Translate to provide a jist of the content?
These are things to keep in mind because these are the same things your potential customers may be thinking when they land on your English-only website.
Sometimes if you can muddle along and figure out a few words here and there, you might be willing to stick around a bit longer. Especially if this site’s content is unique and targeted toward a narrow niche. In that case, maybe you’ll spend another minute or two trying to “translate” the content and find what you’re looking for.
If you can “translate” some of the words, how long do you usually spend struggling to figure out what the website is saying? How long do you stick around before leaving and returning to your search page?
But most importantly, how likely are you to buy from a company if you can’t properly understand what you’re getting, how much you’re expected to pay for it, and any recourse you might have if the product or service does not live up to your expectations?
If you were buying insurance, mutual funds or an insulin tester, would you take a chance on a company whose product information wasn’t available in English?
Well, your customers may be thinking the same thing about you. It’s not likely that customers will want to gamble on a language they aren’t familiar with or they don’t understand well. Especially in fields like finance, insurance and medicine, it’s important to provide content in your customer’s own language. It also elevates your company above your competitors because it shows an awareness and respect for other cultures, language proficiencies and needs.
Let’s focus on marketing materials for a second. Ultimately, what’s the purpose of your marketing materials?
Maybe you said to introduce new customers to my company or my products. Or maybe you said you use marketing materials to entice current customers to buy from you again or stimulate repeat sales. Of course, all of the above are true. Marketing materials can help teach your customers about your company, your current products and services, any new products and services you have launched, or even your company’s mission, values, brand and value proposition. By helping your customers understand you, you make it easier for them to buy from you.
In today’s intricately globalized economy and world, English isn’t enough for your global buyers. So, YES translating brochures and marketing materials into other languages CAN increase your company’s product or service sales.
