When you’re marketing to a foreign audience, you’re probably aware of the need to tailor your promotion both to their language and their culture, lest risk generating less-than-optimal results. As such, we’ve been seeing more and more websites who are trying to expand their reach beyond the English-speaking world take part in marketing initiatives that use language translation and similar technologies to their advantage.
If you own a website and hoping to broaden your customer base by taking on potential buyers in far-flung countries, here are a few things you can do to get there:
1. Custom websites in the foreign language. There’s no getting around it, you’ll need a custom website in the local vernacular to appeal to those you are trying to reach. Whether you do this through a full-on language translation job or a simple update using a translation software, a website will be one investment that will pay for itself many times over.
2. Local search engines. While Google, Yahoo and MSN rule as the search engine of choice for majority of English-speaking users, many web users prefer their local counterparts to the search giants (e.g. China). If you’re angling for a piece of the action in China, for instance, you’ll need to submit your site to the local search engines to derive the best results.
3. Web communities. If you want to sell in Germany, make it a point to participate in local discussion forums and other online communities to promote your site. Don’t wait for the customers to find you. Instead, find them, pursue them and do the best you can to get your word out.