{"id":409,"date":"2015-08-09T13:17:11","date_gmt":"2015-08-09T13:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/?p=409"},"modified":"2023-04-13T13:11:40","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T13:11:40","slug":"speak-to-global-customers-in-their-own-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/speak-to-global-customers-in-their-own-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Speak to Global Customers in Their Own Language"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-entry\">\n<div class=\"post-content\">\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-410 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/blog-grpahic-300x213.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"213\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/blog-grpahic-300x213.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/blog-grpahic.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Do you struggle to reach customers beyond your own country\u2019s borders? If targeting clients in other countries seems daunting, there is one simple step you can start with: Translate something.<\/p>\n<p>You have to speak the language of your customers. And that isn\u2019t just an overused metaphor. It refers to actual languages \u2014 like Spanish, French, or Chinese.<\/p>\n<p>If you assume your customers\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/2012\/05\/global-business-speaks-english\/ar\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">speak your language well enough<\/a>\u00a0to skip the translation step, you\u2019re wrong.\u00a0<strong>In fact, there is an undeniably strong link between in-language content and a consumer\u2019s likelihood of making a purchase.<\/strong><br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nWe at Common Sense Advisory\u00a0surveyed 2,430 web consumers in eight countries\u00a0to learn about how language affected their purchasing behaviors. We found that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>72.1% of consumers spend most or all of their time on websites in their own language.<\/li>\n<li>72.4% of consumers said they would be more likely to buy a product with information in their own language.<\/li>\n<li>56.2% of consumers said that the ability to obtain information in their own language is more important than price.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That\u2019s right.\u00a0<strong>More than half of consumers are willing to pay more if you are willing to give them\u00a0<\/strong><strong>information in their own languages.<\/strong>\u00a0Did you just open up a new browser to check out your favorite competitor website and see how many languages they offer? If not, you should.<\/p>\n<p>Can you get by with English in Europe? You can if you\u2019re carrying a camera, but not if you\u2019re carrying a briefcase. A 2011 study from the European Commission corroborated Common Sense Advisory\u2019s findings. The study was based on a Gallup\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/public_opinion\/flash\/fl_313_en.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">survey of language preferences<\/a>\u00a0[PDF] among internet users in 23 E.U. countries and revealed some remarkably similar findings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nine out of 10 Internet users said that, when given a choice of languages, they\u00a0<em>always<\/em>\u00a0visited a website in their own language.<\/li>\n<li>Nearly one in five Europeans (19%) said they\u00a0<em>never<\/em>\u00a0browse in a language other than their own.<\/li>\n<li>42% said they\u00a0<em>never<\/em>\u00a0purchase products and services in other languages.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep in mind that while many Europeans are multilingual, according to this study they still strongly preferred to buy in their native languages.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, translation isn\u2019t the only thing that companies must do to reach a global customer base, but it\u2019s certainly one of the fastest, easiest, and most frequently overlooked. People tend to assume that it will be much more complicated to buy translation than it really is. You can outsource a project in a matter of minutes to more than 26,000 translation companies or thousands of freelancers that make up this US$33 billion industry.<\/p>\n<p>Still not convinced? Consider the fact that the translation market grew throughout the recession. That\u2019s hardly a coincidence. Smart companies know that putting all your eggs in one basket is bad for business. So is putting all of your marketing content in just one language.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you struggle to reach customers beyond your own country\u2019s borders? If targeting clients in other countries seems daunting, there is one simple step you can start with: Translate something. You have to speak the language of your customers. And that isn\u2019t just an overused metaphor. It refers to actual languages \u2014 like Spanish, French, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[48,128,7,74],"class_list":["post-409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commercial","category-government","tag-bilingual","tag-customer-experience","tag-language-testing","tag-language-translation-native-speakers"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2279,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions\/2279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}