Adapting Your International Marketing Strategy To Shifting Global Events
How businesses respond to the coronavirus pandemic will make or break their future potential. International marketing can play a key role in keeping companies afloat but how do they ensure their resources are focused in the right direction during a time of such rapid and unprecedented change? Read on to find out.
Few global events have provided organisations with such stark reasons to adapt their international marketing strategies as the coronavirus pandemic. Companies are pivoting their operations to meet drastically and rapidly shifting patterns of supply and demand.
You’d want to start as soon as possible as those who are already in a much more advantageous position in terms of knowing first-hand the importance of translation and localisation services for their global venture, especially under these times. For those who are already working with a translation company, they already know how much of a vital addition their contact is to the success of their international marketing venture.
What are translation and localisation services?
According to the World Health Organization’s Trade in Services by Mode of Supply data, the value of global trade in commercial services stood at US$ 13.3 trillion in 2017. Professional translators already provide a key role in enabling that trade, through everything from website translation to legal translation.
What is a translation company? It’s a business that connects companies with professional linguists who can deliver content in a range of languages. What does a translation company do? It converts text, audio and video content from one language to another.
What are localisation services?
The localisation definition encompasses much more. What does ‘localisation services’ mean? It means services that adapt materials to suit specific local audiences. It means ensuring that those materials feel as though they were created with that audience in mind originally.
Professional translation services often offer localization to their international business clientele. Why is localization used for translation services? Quite simply, because it can improve the efficacy of the translated materials, both in terms of the resulting engagement and in terms of maximising income for the business in question.
International marketing and the COVID-19 outbreak
When it comes the coronavirus pandemic, using an international translation company takes on a whole new importance. A reliable and proactive language translation company can help a business to redefine its international approach and the way that that approach is communicated, using input from native localization experts with ‘on the ground’ insights to ensure that the brand’s messaging is spot on.
The coronavirus outbreak has led to unprecedented challenges for business that operate across international borders (as well as for domestic companies of all shapes and sizes). Using the best translation company can help to adapt in the face of such immense challenges.
If, for example, you need a website translator to translate a website to English from Spanish, you need a translation company that is up to speed with the very latest developments in Spain. Life there has been transformed tremendously by the COVID-19 pandemic. An English to Spanish translation that fails to take that into account is unlikely to resonate massively well with the intended audience. Only by using an English to Spanish translator who is a resident of the target area can a business ensure that it factors in relevant local cultural considerations.
Coping with rapid change
Using a Spanish translator who also provides localization services may mean that you can connect appropriately with your Spanish-speaking customers, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. You also need to ensure that your international marketing strategy can flex very quickly. At the time of writing a quarter of the world’s population is in lock-down as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. That’s a staggering figure. Any company that can’t adapt its strategy rapidly enough is likely to struggle. The time for strategies that lasted several months – or even several weeks – is long gone.
A key part of flexing your strategy is responding to customer need in real time. This is where using a well-established translation company can really come into its own. What does a translation company do? It converts language. What is a good translation company, on the other hand? It is a language services provider that is always one step ahead of what you need.
Sticking with the English to Spanish example above, a decent translation company will not simply translate into Spanish but will also discuss the potential need to translate from Spanish to English in response to customer feedback. By being ready to translate to English using a native English translator rather than a native Spanish translator, the translation company will be right on the ball in terms of supporting those who use its services.
The impact of COVID-19 on businesses (let alone the global health toll) is quite incredible. At the time of writing, central banks in over 50 countries have cut their interest rates, while stock markets around the world have faced some of their largest one-day falls in decades. Travel restrictions are in place in more than 100 countries and the global travel, leisure and hospitality industry has all but collapsed.
Businesses that plan to succeed in this new and still-changing environment need to be able to move fast. That means adapting their global marketing plans at a moment’s notice, with decent professional translation services and localization services on hand to help them communicate their changes in the right way.
Author Bio:
Louise Taylor is a professional writer whose work focuses mainly on business, languages and international property. Published in a range of magazines and newspapers, her work shares insights into these industries with audiences around the globe.