4 Tips to Help Market a Multilingual Website
It is important to stay abreast of the latest digital marketing trends. Multilingual websites can be one of the best ways to expand your market reach both locally and globally with non-English speakers. But this goes beyond a basic Google translation of your website. You need to market your multilingual content, and these tactics can help.
It is important to stay abreast of the latest digital marketing trends. Multilingual websites can be one of the best ways to expand your market reach both locally and globally with non-English speakers. But this goes beyond a basic Google translation of your website. You need to market your multilingual content, and these tactics can help.
1. Translate Using People, Not AI
Google Translate and other translation AI have come a long way, but they are not as good as human translation, especially for Spanish. Automatic translation can leave viewers confused as to what your site is offering, and you’re at risk of the translation insulting the reader in some instances.
Hire someone who is bilingual to translate your content and marketing material. Online marketplaces like Fiverr make it easy to find inexpensive skilled translators.
2. Marketing Material to Touch on the Pain Points of Each Language
If your website is for a criminal defense lawyer, you may want to create a page that is geared to Spanish speakers like this “Abogado criminalista” web page. That will allow you to clearly explain information, like complex legal issues in their native tongue.
Different languages can have different pain points than English speakers – such as Spanish speaker immigration considerations, for example. Crafting a clear message that speaks to them in their native tongue can really make your business stand out.
In the U.S., the Spanish speaking market is a large and growing force. For example, in Los Angeles, you’ll find that 43.6% of people speak Spanish, so it makes sense to offer websites and marketing material in Spanish, if you don’t want to miss out on those clients.
A survey from 2005 through 2009 found that Hispanics and Latinos accounted for roughly 47% to 49% of the population.
In the criminal defense attorney example above, government data shows that Hispanics account for 32.2% of the incarcerated population. These are examples of factors you should explore when developing marketing materials for your business segment. Focusing your marketing material is not universal – it must hit on the pain points of each demographic.
3. Social Media Marketing in Multiple Languages
Social media is key to digital marketing. You should be using social media to reach your demographic in as many languages as you can. You can do this on one account, or you can follow in the footsteps on Nike.
Nike has a different Instagram for the company’s Tokyo demographic.
The company posts all marketing material on Instagram in the target language, and this allows the company to be able to specifically target the Tokyo demographic. When you start adding content to a bilingual website or create pages for each language, you should be promoting this content on social media.
Perhaps you created a blog post in English about promoting content on social media. You can have this content translated and placed on your Spanish site or blog. This content should be cross-promoted on social media.
You can even link to both posts on your main social media account to offer multilingual content to English and Spanish speakers.
4. Separate Mailing Lists
When a person signs up for your mailing list, they expect to receive content in their target language. Are you creating mailing lists based on language? You should be if a large portion of your demographic speaks a different language.
By being able to separate recipients by language, you’ll be better able to craft newsletters and offers that convert. Some email marketing systems even support multilingual email templates in one workflow.
Language preference will allow for a truly unique experience when receiving your newsletter or offers. It's the perfect way to stay connected to all of your website’s visitors in a more intimate, personal manner.
But you may find it easier to maintain two separate lists, based on your site’s language, to market to your audience.
Key Takeaways
- Depending on your business segment, multi-lingual websites and marketing can offer a great untapped opportunity to grow your client base.
- In many U.S. business segments, the Spanish speaking market is a large and growing, often has much less competition than the English speaking market.
- Adding Spanish language pages to your website is inexpensive and easy.
- Adding Spanish speaking staff is easy as well. In many instances, companies already have Spanish speaking staff they may not even know about or utilise.