As the world becomes more connected through globalization and digital platforms, advertising revenue has been steadily increasing in recent years. That is, until March 2020 when the pandemic changed consumer spending habits almost overnight. But it seems consumers are ready to return to their carts, and companies should be taking notice.

Is your company optimizing your marketing dollars to make the most of current consumer spending trends? Since only 20% of the world speaks English – and only a fraction of those are native English speakers – you may be missing out on key audiences or limiting your growth potential if you’re not considering global audiences in your marketing and advertising plans.

Use these four tips to create an inclusive plan that connects with people personally through accurate translation and thoughtful localization.

Do your research

Many companies have invested in market research, but it’s probably time for a refresher. If you’re refining your messaging or expanding into new markets, take a close look at your audiences, especially as the way people consume information and purchase products has changed throughout the pandemic. 

Consider the people you’re trying to reach. Where do they live? What languages do they speak? Does your current messaging resonate, both culturally and linguistically? How do they prefer to receive advertising messages? To answer these questions, you may need to facilitate focus groups, interviews, or surveys. 

If this feels like a big undertaking, let us know! We have helped companies across the globe develop and implement localized marketing plans, and our team is staffed with experts who have a deep understanding of cultural nuances and preferences. Not only can we provide you with expertise on global audiences, but we’ll manage the legwork if additional research is needed.

Localize your strategy

With your updated market research, you’re ready to start thinking strategy. Make a plan for each individual market with messaging, tactics, and timing that make sense for those who fit in your demographic. During this phase, evaluate each message and piece of collateral to determine your translation or interpreting needs. 

Before you go all-in, consider piloting your plan in select markets or testing your ads to find what resonates most strongly. Monitor your ad performance and adjust your strategy as needed.

Translate your messaging

As you roll out your plan, it should be a seamless experience for your consumers. Translate messaging accurately and consistently at every consumer touchpoint to make it easy for them to understand and engage with your product or service. Be sure to consider website translation, as 40% of internet users said they won’t purchase from a site that’s not in their native language, as well as both digital and print materials.

Keep in mind that translation, subtitles and voiceover, and desktop publishing require a bit of lead time, so build those timelines in your plan. We can provide you with a quote for timing and cost in a matter of minutes.

Engage the experts

Revamping your marketing strategy to account for cultural complexities and localized preferences may feel overwhelming, but we can provide end-to-end support. From understanding your audience and creating a plan to translating your messages and implementing in local markets, we’ve got you covered. Visit our website to learn about the full suite of services we offer and let us know how we can help you make the most of your advertising budget in 2022.

English may be the world’s lingua franca, but just 26% of all web searches are conducted in the language. That means website localization matters more than ever when you want to launch in a foreign market. Yet in order to get the biggest return on your investment, you’ll need to optimize your pay-per-click (PPC) ads using a method known as transcreation.

 What Is Transcreation?

Simply put, transcreation is the combination of translation and creation. It’s often used in marketing to adapt the message to the target market when a more direct translation wouldn’t work.

For example, take Swiffer’s famous slogan, “When Swiffer’s the one, consider it done.” In order to keep the rhythming couplets in Italian, it was changed to “La polvere non dura, perché Swiffer la cattura.” Directly translated, the Italian version reads, “The dust doesn’t last because Swiffer captured it.”

Now, given the limitations of PPC ads, you can probably already see why transcreation would boost your ROI. But the process typically goes well beyond coming up with a catchy slogan. Below are three other factors that go into a successful PPC translation.

 Multibyte Characters

Character limits make it difficult to write effective PPC ads in English, let alone translate them.  

And while every language presents unique challenges, Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean make writing PPC ads exceptionally difficult. Why? Because they use multi-byte characters.  

Most languages use an alphabet with a limited set of text symbols, punctuation marks, and special characters. When that’s the case, one byte (or unit of information) is enough to represent each symbol. However, some Asian languages use more complex ideographic characters as well as single-byte characters. Translating those texts involves a combination of single-byte and double-byte (or more) characters, which increases your limitations.           

Search Engine Rules

In addition to character limits, search engines prohibit certain words in PPC ads. Using one of these forbidden words will result in an automatic rejection. To make matters worse, the list of words varies by country and language. What works in the U.S. may get your ad rejected in France, for example.

Keywords

Last, but certainly not least, are keywords. By using the right keywords, you boost the odds that the search engine will serve up your ad. But you also need to consider how competitive they are in the target language. If you choose keywords with the highest search volume, your ad may rank lower or you may drive up bid costs. 

And remember to block negative keywords in the target language, too. If you don’t, you may target too broad of an audience, which may lead to overspending.  

The Benefits of Professionally Translated PPC Ads

As you can see, PPC translation requires an in-depth knowledge of the language, target market, and SEO best practices. Fortunately, a professional translator who is well-versed in the PPC space will help you: 

• Rank higher in the search results
• Increase web traffic
• Improve brand credibility
• Increase your campaign’s ROI

Consider it a relatively low-cost way to put the finishing touches on your website localization project.  

How INGCO International Can Help

At INGCO, our international SEO team is well-versed in website localization, SEO translation, multilingual keyword research, and more. We’ll take your vision from concept to completion in over 200 languages—including those tough-to-translate PPC campaigns.

Ready to launch in a new market? Contact us today to get started! 

Translating marketing content is very specific to each brand.

For example, taglines. Taglines are essential marketing content and belong to the heart of each brand. Nike’s “Just Do It” will always be Nike. But translating “Just Do It” clearly is an opportunity for either great success, or great failure.

Brand voices are typically developed over time, sometimes after years of thought-provoking and challenging creative work. A lot of clients take a very hands-on approach to developing their global brand voice and this is where translating marketing content can get especially tricky. Most international organizations rely on a strong content localization partner to help develop this creative content.

Similar to copy writing, a translator can translate even a 3-word tagline about 250 different ways. Remember Nike’s “Just Do It”? We know that these 3 words can be construed endless ways in a variety of languages. Only the client and the creative team will have the knowledge to properly guide the localization team to effectively create copy that sounds as if it was originally written in the target language.

Tips to Translating Marketing Content

At INGCO, we make sure that all of our clients have clear expectations when requesting translation and localization work. We would never “blindly” translate anything that is marketing related; our translation team would have no background on how you created your content. At a bare minimum to make a project successful, we need a brand/style guide and our linguists would need to work with the creative team that did the copy writing.

True localization is a mixture of science and magic — the science is taking the words from one language to another. The magic is sprinkling on all of the cultural nuances and brand specifics that make this content unique to the client, all the while mindful of the end reader. The translator “gets” the thinking patterns of the end reader and is able to create copy that sounds like it was originally written in that language, but that takes a lot of work and a lot of effort, not only from the linguists, but from the creative team and the client. It’s essential that we work closely with the client to get buy in, otherwise no one will be happy and the end user will end up confused.

In the development of global brands, localization obviously has been there from the beginning. In order to effectively translate marketing content, we need to understand the brand voice from the beginning as well.

Looking to translate marketing content or just ask some questions? Contact us now to get more info!

A website conversion is the single most important success factor of your online marketing strategy and goals. Website conversions mean that your visitors – your potential customers – do what you want them to do, be it buy your product, call to register for your course, download a whitepaper, or fill out a form.

Developing a multilingual website requires the same website conversions. High quality translation and localization are essential, but getting your customers to buy your products or services is why you are in business.

Did you know? Search Engine Watch describes multilingual keywords as “the vital link between what people are searching for and what is on your website” and advises those looking to boost their global site’s visibility to employ a translation agency or local professional with cultural insight and language skills to help identify keywords that will resonate with local audiences.

 

1. Invest in target-market Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Successful multilingual website conversions rely on quality keyword research specific to your target market. Keyword searchability is essential so that your ideal customer finds what they are looking for in their native language when searching for your product or service. Have you ever searched for something and the web results show something completely different? Your computer will show you results based on the keywords entered by the person that placed the content onto the internet. The keywords I use to look for a new car are most likely very different than what a car buyer will use in Germany, for example. Target-market SEO researches the keyword your preferred buyer uses to search for your products and services. Keyword-specific searches for your target market are essential for understanding the mindset of your customer and essential for multilingual website conversion success.

2. Follow in-country best practices

Your website is your brand; releasing your brand to the internet opens your company or organization up to the world. You owe it to yourself – and your future clients – to make sure your website, your brand, shines. This is equally as crucial for multilingual websites. You must ensure that your multilingual website follows the same standards and best practices so that your brand shines for your potential customer. Multilingual best practices include:

• Check links
• Check images
• Check downloads
• Check contact forms
• Check browser compatibility

These checks must be done before going live with your multilingual website and also should be completed on an on-going basis. Upholding best-practices ensures that your future clients and customers have a high-quality experience on your website which will lead to increased website conversions.

3. Invest in high-quality translation

First and foremost, you must invest in high-quality translation completed by professional translators. The quality of the content that your future customer reads on your website determines whether or not they will continue reading about you, or move on to the next company. Have you ever opened a webpage that is ridden with spelling errors? I have, and I exit out as quickly as I can. Poor translation is even worse. Not only are there spelling errors, it just doesn’t make sense. The global marketplace is huge and your company faces more competitors than you likely realize; make it easy for your customer to buy but making it easy for they to understand what it is your are selling. Have you ever tried putting shelves together with directions that were clearly not written by a native-English speaker? If you are like me, it’s much easier to toss the directions and figure it out on your own. That’s precisely how a poorly translated website appears to your future clients. It’s easier for them to just leave and find someone else than muddle through the mess. And no, Google Translate will not work. Read more about that here. Investing in high-quality translation is key to multilingual website conversion.

Did you know? Google actually penalizes machine-based translations when it comes to SEO.

 

INGCO International is the leading translation, interpretation and global marketing service provider for 200+ languages worldwide. They are based in Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minnesota and employ leading industry experts for all of their global communication services and work with organizations such as 3M, Cargill, and Buffalo Wild Wings. Reach out for more information.

Marketing translation experts work with a variety of mediums from marketing brochures and promotional pieces and print and on-line ads to website content. Marketing translators are expert marketers with exceptional language and cultural skills to make your message stick for your target market, wherever in the world they are! The powerful content and imaging they create speaks to your customers’ heart and mind to engage them deeply in your products and services.

Marketing is created to inform, attract and sell to your clients. Marketing translation does the same thing except to a different language, a different culture, a different destination. Marketing is communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling that product or service.

Marketing techniques include choosing target markets through market analysis and market segmentation, as well as understanding consumer behavior and advertising a product’s value to the customer. From a societal point of view, marketing is the link between a society’s material requirements and its economic patterns of response. Marketing satisfies these needs and wants through exchange processes and building long-term relationships. Marketing blends art and applied science (such as behavioral sciences) and makes use of information technology.

INGCO International offers a full range of marketing translation services for all of your marketing and advertising needs like:

• Corporate brochures
• Newsletter campaigns
• Direct marketing campaigns
• Presentations
• Corporate websites
• Advertising campaigns
• Branded content
• Web banner ads
• Google AdWords
• Marketing reports
• Whitepapers
• Case Studies

Reach out to us to get more information on our translating, interpreting and global marketing services in 200+ languages across the globe!

Today marks our very first “Fact or Fiction Friday”.  Each Friday we will post a trivia question pertaining to language, interpreting, or translation. Today’s trivia question is: In Japan, four (shi) and nine (ku) are considered unlucky numbers. Fact or Fiction? 

In Japan, four (shi) and nine (ku) are considered unlucky numbers.

Fact or Fiction? 

In Japan, four (shi) and nine (ku) are considered unlucky numbers because the words sound the same as those for ‘death’ and ‘pain or worry’. Because of this, some hospitals don’t have room numbers 4, 9, 14, 19 or 42. Forty-two (‘shi-ni’) means ‘to die’, 420 (‘shi-ni-rei’) means ‘a dead spirit’ and 24 (‘ni-shi’) is double death.

Can you guess where Mabel is this week?

Mabel is in Istanbul at the Topkapı Palace.

Sultan Mehmed II built the Topkapı Palace after he conquered Constantinople in 1453. The palace is impressive not only for its size, but also its importance in history, especially for the Ottoman Empire between the years 1478-1856. It was the official center and home to the sultan for 380 years.

Topkapı consists of tree- shaded courtyards, each serving a different purpose and opening onto one another with monumental gates. Functional buildings surround the courtyards. From the time of its construction, the palace developed constantly with alterations and additions made by each sultan. 
When the sultans moved to the ostentatious Dolmabahçe Palace in 1853, Topkapı lost its importance as the official royal residence and was left to deteriorate. It finally regained its former unpretentious beauty after fifty years of continuous restoration in the Republican era. Most of the objects exhibited in the palace today are unique masterpieces.

Topkapı is the largest and oldest palace in the world to survive to our day. In 1924 it was turned into a museum at Atatiirk’s request. Situated on the acropolis, the site of the first settlement in Istanbul, it commands an impressive view of the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara. The palace is a complex surrounded by 5 km of walls and occupies an area of 700,000 sq. m at the tip of the historical peninsula. When it was used as a palace, it served more functions than one usually associates with royal residences. Although it was the residence of the Sultan, the sole ruler of the empire, it was at the same time the center of the administrative affairs, the place where the council of ministers met, and the treasury, mint, and state archives were located there. The highest educational institution of the empire, the university of the sultan and the state was also here. Therefore it was the heart, the brain, and the very center of the Ottoman Empire. Much later, the harem (private quarters) of the sultans was moved here too.

Of the sixteen empires founded by the Turks, the Ottoman Empire was the longest lasting and the largest. It lasted for 622 years ruling over the Asian, European and African lands surrounding the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Peoples of different races and religions were united under its rule. The only other empire in history that governed such vast lands for such a long period was the Roman Empire. 
Thirty-six sultans reigned during this period, and starting from early 16th century, they also became the religious leaders of the Islamic world as caliphs.

Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople, is the only city in the world that straddles two continents: Asia and Europe. While not the capital, Istanbul is Turkey’s largest city with a population of about 13 million.

Turkish is the official language of Istanbul, Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The large Kurdish minority also speaks Kurdish. English is also widely spoken in Istanbul, which often surprises its visitors.

Common Turkish phrases:

If you are looking to communicate with clients in Turkish, give INGCO International a call! We would love to assist you.

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Can you guess where Mabel is this week?

She is at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, South Dakota.

Mount Rushmore, the President’s Mountain, is located in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This iconic site houses a series of four sculptures depicting the faces of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Led by the sculptor Gutzon Borglum, work on the project began in 1927 and was finally completed in 1941. Over the span of that time over 400 workers erected the sculpture removing a total of 450,000 tons of rock in order to create the enormous carved heads which reach a height of 60 feet.

Mount Rushmore was named after the lawyer Charles E. Rushmore, who traveled to the Black Hills in 1884 to inspect mining claims in the region. When Rushmore asked a local man the name of a nearby mountain, he reportedly replied that it had never been named before, but from that point forward would be known as Rushmore Peak (later Rushmore Mountain or Mount Rushmore).

In 1991, Mount Rushmore celebrated its 50th anniversary after undergoing a $40 million restoration project. The National Park Service, which maintains Mount Rushmore, records upwards of 2 million visitors every year.

The territory that would become South Dakota was added to the United States in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The first permanent American settlement was established at Fort Pierre by the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804.White settlement of the territory in the 1800s led to clashes with the Sioux, as some of the land had been granted to the tribe by an earlier treaty. Nevertheless, the territory was incorporated into the union on November 2, 1889, along with North Dakota. Due to a controversy over which state would be admitted to the union first, President Benjamin Harrison shuffled the bills and signed one at random, with the order going unrecorded, though North Dakota is traditionally listed first. Today, a major part of South Dakota’s economy is fueled by tourism–visitors flock to the state to see Mt. Rushmore. Famous South Dakotans include newscaster Tom Brokaw, senator and vice president Hubert Humphrey and model-actress Cheryl Ladd.

Prior to becoming a part of the United States South Dakota was inhabited by Native Americans. The Arikara people dominated South Dakota up until the 1700s when the Sioux arrived and drove the Arikara from the area and inhabited it themselves.

The Sioux Indians came to North America from the continent of Asia about 30,000 years ago. The name Sioux means “little snake”, which was given to the tribe by the Chippewa Indians. Generally, the Sioux Indians were nomadic, meaning that they never really stayed in one place for a long amount of time. They typically followed the pattern of the buffalo, assuring them that there would be food and clothing wherever they traveled.

In 1991, Mount Rushmore celebrated its 50th anniversary after undergoing a $40 million restoration project. The National Park Service, which maintains Mount Rushmore, records upwards of 2 million visitors every year.

_{Original image found on google.com}

Can you guess where Mabel is this week? 

She is at the Chalk cliffs of Germany in Jasmund National Park.

The chalk cliffs on Germany’s Rügen Island rise 330 feet or more over the Baltic Sea. These ancient structures are made almost entirely of the skeletons of calcite-covered plankton called coccolithophores, deposited by the trillions during the Cretaceous period. Sediments like these actually give the Cretaceous its name: Creta means “chalk” in Latin.

Not surprisingly, German is the official language in Germany. It is also the most widely spoken one in that country. The German language is also commonly spoken in Austria and Switzerland.

It is a significant language beyond Germany as well, with up to 100 million native speakers and about 80 million non-native speakers around the globe (especially language students in France and Eastern Europe.) Additionally, German is an official language of the European Union and one of the three working languages of the European Commission. Over 15% of all EU nationals speak the German language.

Although German is the official language of Germany,. Actually, there is more than one protected minority language in Germany: Danish, Frisian, Romany, and Sorbian.

Germany’s long history dates back to the early Middle Ages: The first texts in Old German (a form modern speakers would not recognize) come from the 9^th century AD. The modern language in Germany didn’t develop until the 1700s.

Linguistically, German belongs to the so-called West Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Its closest “relatives” are English and Dutch. However, the differences found among these languages is significantly greater than most know.

Here are some common phrases in German:  

If you are looking to communicate with your clients in German, give INGCO International a call! We provide German interpreters, translations, and global marketing services. 

Original Image found on Google.com

Can you guess where Mabel is this week? 

She is in Alaska, looking at the northern lights. 

Vibrant blues, pinks, greens and yellows sway in the sky, marking the path of the dancing aurora borealis. The shimmering opus can be seen swirling in Anchorage‘s starlit skies as early as 8 p.m. during winter months. Also known as the northern lights, they can be incredibly bright, multihued and fast moving.

A little bit about Alaska: 

Vitus Bering, a Dane working for the Russians, and Alexi Chirikov discovered the Alaskan mainland and the Aleutian Islands in 1741. The tremendous land mass of Alaska- equal to one-fifth of the continental U.S.- was unexplored in 1867 when Secretary of State William Seward arranged for its purchase from the Russians for $7,200,000. The transfer of territory took place on October 18, 1867. Despite a price of about two cents an acre, the purchase was widely ridiculed as “Seward’s Folly”.

Alaska’s name originated from the Aleut word “alyeska”, meaning “great land”. Alaska is the largest of the 50 states. It is more than twice the size of Texas, the next largest state.

Situated at the northwest corner of the North American continent, Alaska is separated from the coterminous 48 states by Canadian territory. Life zones in Alaska range from grasslands, mountains, and tundra to thick forests. The annual daily mean temperature in Juneau (Alaska’s capital) is 41.5 degrees F.

Diverse and abundant wildlife are central to Alaska’s economy and people. Over 1,000 vertebrate species are found in the state, sometimes in huge numbers. More than 900,000 caribou roam in 32 herds across vast tundra landscapes. On the Copper River Delta alone, five to eight million shorebirds stop to forage and rest each spring on their way to arctic breeding grounds. Alaska has 32 species of carnivores, more than any other state.

 All of the languages but two found in Alaska today are related to two major language families. These two families are Eskimo-Aleut and Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit. The exceptions are Haida and Tsimshian. These are both languages of Native groups who lived in the Pacific Northwest.

The table below gives statistics from the 2000 census for language spoken at home for persons 5 years and over.

Tune in next week to see where Mabel is headed next! 

Original image found on google.