Speaking to Your Customers in Their Language Pays Off

Are you considering doing business abroad? Looking to join the thousands of companies who have successfully taken the leap to serve new consumers in different countries? It is not just a smart move, it is profitable.

According to the US Chamber of Commerce, 95% of the world’s consumers live outside the United States. 95%! Billions of world consumers are at your fingertips when your company decides to go global. Tapping into the world market means developing a new strategy to overcome any cultural and language barriers. Ultimately, this means developing a translation strategy.

Targeting consumers

Before plunging into the deep end of taking your business international, you need to narrow down which countries are the smartest choice to penetrate, with what you are selling. What populations of people would buy your product and why? When researching consider these demographics: income level, education level, age, gender, employment status, and other factors depending on your product or service.

After all this research, let’s say you decided to break into the Mexican market, selling financial services to a specified demographic. Now what? What would you need to penetrate that market and appeal to those customers? Mailers? Brochures? Billboards? A website?

At this point, business translation services come into play to make your international transition much easier.

Overcoming the language barrier

One of the biggest challenges when going international is how to overcome cultural barriers in communication. To reach your new target audience, you must speak their language accurately and with cultural sensitivity.

The best strategy to overcome a language barrier is to partner with a translation service company, also known as a language services provider. The right language services provider will offer all the services you need to take your company global. Services like business document translation, translation of marketing materials, rush translation, and localization of your company website.

According to a Common Sense Advisory survey of 2,430 consumers in 8 countries, 72.1% of consumers mostly or always browse websites in their own language. 72.4% of these web consumers are more likely to buy products with information in their native language. This means that localizing your company’s website is imperative to the success of your business abroad.

International business partnerships made easy

Business translation services also have access to interpreters who specialize in business jargon. During your international transition, you will undoubtedly need professional interpreting as well, for a variety of reasons. For example, meetings with foreign business partners or meetings with local businesses.

Some translation services have interpreting platforms that allow for easy immediate or scheduled access to vetted interpreters. Over the phone interpreting costs less than face-to-face interpreting and can be accessed seamlessly.