Introduction Anna Bastek

• IoD Director of the Year 2012

• One of top 5 fastest growing language companies in the UK

• Won over 30 business awards

• Chair our UK industry trade body

• Write advice pieces for Guardian, Sunday Times and other publications

• Overseas sales make up over 30% of turnover • Now judging various business awards

International Digital Marketing

Practical Tips

Anna Bastek

co-founder and director of Wolfestone

30

_{Jan 2014}

How many of you sell to end clients?

How many use distributors/agents?

Agenda

• Checklist before you export • Language/cultural barriers • Website localisation

• Paid search - PPC • SEO

• Translation in 200 languages • Localisation • Transcreation • Voiceovers/Subtitling • Desktop publishing • Proofreading

• Interpreting (telephone, simultaneous, consecutive) • Transcription

The World Speaks English! – NOT!

• Only 27% of the internet is English speaking

• 72% of customers abroad would rather buy products that provide info in their own language

• For 56% of customers language is more important than price

• At least 20% of UK exporting companies lost business as a result of language or cultural differences

• Costing the UK at least £7.6b and possibly as high as £16bn in overseas trade

Language acts as a barrier to trade

Brand Blunder No. 1

‘Come alive with Pepsi’

‘Pepsi brings your

ancestors back from the grave’

‘It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken’

Frank Perdue’s slogan translated into Spanish as

‘It takes an aroused man to make a chicken

affectionate’

More mistakes:

• Brand name: Osram in Poland

• A German company entered Russian market with its sparkling water called ‘Blue Water’ - sounds like ‘to vomit’ in Russian and Ukrainian

• IKEA launched a kids workbench called ‘Fartfull’ failed in the US

• Transcreation means getting across the message and emotional impact

• Language is not just words – it’s concepts, metaphors and idioms

Never translate marketing messages!

Transcreate them!

• Wow Toys produce toys for UK market – all with cute names

• Targeted expansion in Germany – but names didn’t work there

• We helped re-name the toys to appeal to the German audience

• Harvey Harvester – Matze Mahdrescher

• Many of your competitors localise their websites • Get a country domain e.g. .de, .fr

• Where is the server? What browsers are popular? • Language expansion (eg. German by 10%, Japanese

up to 60%, Norwegian contracts by 10%)

• Remember about localising Alt tags, image names • Never extract the text for translation into Word –

use CAT tool to save time & money

Website localisation

You can save up to 30% by using Translation Memory Is your translation partner giving you savings?

• For large websites use website CMS plugin for updating language versions

• Have Analytics set up so you can analyse the keywords that are popular

• Localised units, currencies • What about videos?

• Take into account the layout, images, colours, concepts (eg. rugby) etc.

Website localisation

• O.K • ‘middle finger’ • One • Sexual insult • Hitch-hike • Directional

In Southern Sardina or Northern Greece unless you want to invite a fight. Same meaning as middle finger.

• Google Says using Google Translate can be against Google's Webmaster guidelines

• Your website won’t be indexed by search engines • You can damage your reputation in new markets • Your brand won’t seem serious or committed

• You might offend foreign customers

Can’t I just use Google Translate?

• Panda/penguin updates

• Because of the complexity of SEO in 2014 off-site is more difficult to manage

• Link building is still important, and should be done in the target language

• Don’t just translate keywords – research them! • Content is KING

• Support your distributors with interesting content and PR

• Share it!

Multilingual SEO (continued)

• 10% of overseas enquiries before translation

• Once one language had paid back the investment, they moved on to the next

• Website translated in to 5 languages • Doubled turnover year on year

• New export 25% of turnover

A Canadian company Group Anderson, well known in North America for its agricultural and forestry products, invested

$5,000 to localise its website into Polish, Russian and

German.

Turnover increase of $3 million in just one year in Eastern

Europe.

Example of website localisation ROI

Paid search – Localise your approach

Every country is different

• In Russia Google AdWords won’t work - they use Yandex to search

• Be careful about language!

Legal protection insurance companies becomes in German…

Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften

Think about capturing attention of your target customers – call to action, etc.

• Using a professional language company: all the relevant skills under one roof, quality should be a given. Use of technology will give you volume discounts, speed and consistency. Enquiry management system (email, tel.)

• Hire a qualified freelance translator with the industry knowledge and plenty of experience. Reliability issues.

• Use in-house staff – what is the true cost of them not doing their job? Can be false economy. Max £200 day savings

• Distributors. Be careful with brand consistency and quality. Are they qualified linguists? You have no control on the messages.

What options do you have:

Actions for you - branding

1. Decide whether or not it is necessary to translate your brand 2. Make sure your slogan delivers the same impact to your

customer country

3. Get multiple versions of your slogan from your language vendor

4. Check that all of your translations are culturally accurate and appropriate

5. Make sure your pictures and imagery are not undermining your message

Actions for you - website

1. Get a new domain

2. Analyse top pages – ask distributors? 3. Create new relevant pages

4. Localise colours and layout 5. Research keywords

6. Talk to SEO experts about on-site optimisation

7. Have a solution for responding to foreign enquiries 8. Generate content and use social media

Anna Bastek

[email protected]

Language drives us, excellence defines us.

• Marketing Manager at DS Smith

• Jade Tambini is Marketing Manager for the Recycling Division of DS Smith

• Vice Chair of the CIM in Wales

• Europe’s largest integrated packaging and recycling company

• Operating in over 25 international markets, the business has big plans for future

expansion

• Heads up Pelatis Online Ltd • Internet Marketing Consultant • Author

• Business Speaker

• He recently presented to sell out enthusiastic audiences in Rome, Sofia, Paris, Budapest

and London as well as many locations around the United Kingdom