In today’s globalized business environment, creating multilingual content is essential for reaching and engaging with international audiences. According to a study by NImdzi, 72.4% of consumers prefer to purchase products in their native language, and Common Sense Advisory found that 55% of consumers are more likely to buy a product with information in their language. These statistics highlight the importance of developing a multilingual content strategy in order to expand your customer base and increase revenue.
Creating multilingual content can present a number of challenges, including the need for accurate translation, cultural sensitivity, and the added complexity of managing multiple language versions. Additionally, creating and maintaining multilingual content can be time consuming and costly.
However, there are also many benefits to creating multilingual content. For example, it can help to expand the reach of a business or organization by making its message more accessible to non-English speakers. Additionally, it can help to build trust and credibility with non-English speaking audiences by demonstrating a commitment to inclusivity and cultural understanding. Furthermore, it can also help to increase the SEO of the website, as it targets the multilingual audiences who are searching in their native languages.
Overall, creating multilingual content can be a valuable way to expand the reach and impact of a business or organization, but it is important to carefully consider the challenges and resources required to do so effectively.
By translating your website, product descriptions, and other marketing materials, you can make it easier for people in other countries to learn about your products or services. This can help you attract new customers in those markets.
57% of webpages are in English; this represents a massive opportunity for sales in countries where English is not the first language.
Post-translation DTP services are crucial for our clients, as different languages and different linguistic rules could negatively impact the final design. For example, once the text has been translated, it might end up much longer or much shorter in comparison to the source language, so the translated text may not fit correctly into the original layout. An expert DTP team will adjust the spacing, resize the images, or fix the design to fit the translation into the original layout of the document. Certain languages will also need to have the font adjusted as some fonts do not support all the characters used in different languages.
At Jonckers, we have established our own DTP Center of Excellence, allowing us to provide low-cost, competitive, outsourcing solutions that adapt to the needs of our clients. What really sets us apart from other translation agencies is that we can adapt to the DTP software and systems used by our clients to offer a 360° service.
Are you struggling with a large number of poorly-designed files after your content has been translated? Does it seem like the translation and design quality of your documents are suffering? If so, you’re not alone.
Providing information in a customer’s native language can improve their overall experience with your business. According to a study by the Common Sense Advisory, 72% of consumers said they would be more likely to buy a product with information in their own language, and 56% said they would be more likely to buy from a website that was translated into their own language.
When a business takes the time to provide information in a customer’s native language, it can improve the perception of the business and increase trust and credibility. This is especially important in markets where the dominant language is different from the language of the business.
Our partnership enables Microsoft to offer personalized service, support, and training to their clients in up to 47 languages to drive customer loyalty and gain repeat business. As Microsoft needs to support their customers, they need the customers to understand the support, otherwise the content is useless. Also, the company and brand reputation hinges on the quality of visible content. Our diversity and inclusion directives also require us to communicate across language barriers to be inclusive.
“We don’t just feel like another client, we feel that you are invested in making us successful.”
Pei Wang
Sr. Content Program Manager
In this case study, we’ll explore how Microsoft safeguards its reputation, how their corporate culture influences communications, and what types of content Microsoft CE & S regularly translate.
“After many years working together, we’re still delighted with Jonckers’ service. We value high-quality translations, a competitive price, and high-speed turnaround, and Jonckers delivers on all three. No one comes close to their pricing and quality level. Other teams are asking us to manage their translations through Jonckers, as they love the quality, speed, and service with Jonckers.”
Charlene Douglass
Knowledge Management Leader
By providing information in a customer’s native language, you can increase the chances that they will understand and engage with your business. This can lead to higher conversion rates and ultimately help you grow your sales.
Hand in hand with this exponential growth, globalization, and the enormous variety of products sold, product localization and accessibility to all global customers became a huge challenge. Amazon needs to localize billions of words monthly to bring their products to the buyers and inspire them to buy. Jonckers is proud to be one of Amazon’s trusted localization providers.
We have localized almost 400 million words for Amazon in multiple language combinations and delivered within the right turnaround times characteristic of the e-Commerce environment. [Adendum – in Jan 2023 over 600 million!)
Overall, translating your business materials into different languages can help you tap into new markets and increase your sales globally or internationally.
There is evidence to suggest that consumers are increasingly conducting their own research and seeking out information on products and services before engaging with sales teams. This is often referred to as the customer journey. It involves a series of steps that a potential customer goes through in order to make a purchase decision from awareness of a problem, to researching a solution, to selecting a shortlist of suppliers and deciding on the best supplier to suit their needs.
According to a survey conducted by Demand Gen Report, 51% of B2B buyers said that they rely on content to research and make purchasing decisions, while only 17% said that they rely on sales reps for information. Source
A study by Forrester found that 57% of the customer journey is completed digitally before a customer even speaks to a company representative. This means that it is important for companies to have a strong online presence and to provide potential customers with access to high-quality, informative content that can help them make informed decisions. Source
Another study by Demand Gen Report, found that B2B buyers are more likely to engage with content that is educational and informative, rather than promotional in nature. This suggests that providing potential customers with helpful and informative content can be an effective way to guide them through the decision-making process and ultimately drive sales. Source
The Harvard Business Review’s article The Neuroscience of Trust (hbr.org) further business benefits of trust within the organization. Their cited research shows the profound effect that trust has within the organization.
Compared with people at low-trust companies, people at high-trust companies report: 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 13% fewer sick days, 76% more engagement, 29% more satisfaction with their lives, 40% less burnout.
Source
Simply put, speaking clearly and in the same language increases trust, as it facilitates clear and effective communication. This can lead to a range of positive outcomes, including:
Making products or services available in a language that is widely spoken by a target audience can increase sales by reaching a larger market. The Return on Investment is increased, with the relatively low investment in online purchases. Clear communication can improve the online shopping experience and lead to more sales through a more trusted experience and understanding that the product matches their needs.
A survey by Nielsen found that 55% of consumers are more likely to purchase a product if the information about it is available in their native language.
This corroborates with a study by the European Commission which found that consumers are more likely to purchase products online if the information about them is available in their native language. The study found that consumers are more likely to trust websites that provide information in their own language, and are more likely to complete transactions on these websites.
Providing information or support in a customer’s native language can improve their overall satisfaction and increase loyalty.
A study by KPMG found that companies that effectively communicate with their customers have higher customer satisfaction rates (91% compared to 82% for those with poor communication).
Good communication can build stronger relationships with customers and increase their loyalty, which can lead to repeat purchases.
HubSpot is a tech company renowned for its prolific content creation. Their research shows that this is a worthwhile tactic as companies that blog regularly generate 67% more leads per month than those that do not. Source
By communicating effectively with customers and partners in their language, companies can reduce the costs associated with misunderstandings and mistakes. The greatest example of this is the cost of returns. If the sizing is known to be vague or unclear, people will buy multiple versions of the same product in order to find the size that fits.
The National Retail Federation estimates the cost of processing returns accounting for 2-3% of total sales. The shipping, sorting, repackaging, and restocking costs are high, often leading to the horrendous waste caused by returns not being resold. It is estimated that about 70-80% of returned items can be resold as “new” or “used.” The rest may end up as waste.
The fact that 20-30% of all eCommerce sales being wasted is a cost no one can measure in environmental terms.
According to a report by the Environmental Protection Agency, e-waste is the fastest-growing waste stream in the world, with millions of tons generated annually.
In terms of economic losses, a report by the National Retail Federation found that returned merchandise costs retailers $369 billion annually, with the cost of processing returns accounting for 2-3% of total sales.
By offering products, services, or information in multiple languages, companies can gain a competitive advantage over those that only offer them in one language. For all the above reasons of higher net sales, if you’re the only one speaking their language, you’re the only one reaping most of the rewards!
Effective communication can result in better collaboration and decision-making, leading to improved company performance. A study by McKinsey found that companies with strong internal communication have a 47% higher return to shareholders compared to those with weak communication.
Providing potential customers with access to high-quality educational content is an important part of the sales process, as it gives clear and informative research. This ultimately leads to more informed, trusted, and confident purchase decisions, whilst reducing environmental and economic waste.
Qualtrics’ XM Institute calculated a cumulative annual loss to business of US$4.7 trillion attributable to customers willing to walk away after a single poor experience.
The Edelman Trust Barometer, a trusted corporate metric, also aims to highlight the importance of language in the customer experience: “As digital presence substitutes physical and automation outpaces the human touch, global brands must work smarter to gain and maintain people’s trust.” This includes everything that impacts customer service from eCommerce product descriptions, through to local delivery and localized service support.
In 18 months, we have created over 8,000 videos, localized in nine different languages. The automated voice-over has worked exceptionally well in all the training videos and is more cost efficient, saving Adobe considerable costs compared with traditional voiceover translation.
We have the experience and expertise to ensure that Adobe’s video content is always accurate and up-to-date.
“It’s been a fantastic learning curve to manage such high volumes and yet maintain quality for our customer’s learning experience.”
Giulia Dugo
International Experience Manager at Adobe Experience Cloud
It’s often difficult to know where to start. In order to secure the best ROI for your time and investment, it’s good practice to start with some research to uncover which focus areas will help you achieve your business goals. One step for achieving this is to glean a solid understanding as to which audience and markets would be the best fit for your service or product. Researching your audience and target market for a multilingual content strategy includes the following steps:
This involves reviewing your website analytics, customer surveys, and market research. Where are the highest demands for your product, and which could you easily serve with your existing infrastructure?
It is important to understand the cultural and linguistic differences in the target regions, as these can affect how your message is perceived and received. This information can be obtained through research, such as reading about the culture and customs of the target region, or consulting with native speakers. Your language service provider will be able to guide you here, ensuring your product names suit the market.
understand what they are doing well and what they are not, so you can find gaps and set your own benchmarks. You can research the languages they are describing their services in and the type of content they are producing i.e., is it just product descriptions they are translating, or the whole digital experience from SEA to customer support and after-sales? This information can help you to identify opportunities and gaps in the market, and develop a strategy that is tailored to your target audience.
Creating audience personas can help to identify the characteristics, behaviors, motivation to buy as well as needs and requirements of your target audience. This can help to create a more targeted and effective strategy, as you can identify all the relevant touchpoints which need to be multilingual. When creating content, you can often refer back to these persona types, e.g., “Would Sarah find this interesting?”
How do you know what success looks like? Which metrics will help you to identify what is working well and what needs to be improved? This can be done through website analytics, customer feedback, or surveys. For example, Microsoft’s customer support pages have a thumbs-up sign to see if this content helps. By comparing the increase in likeability of their content across languages, they can measure the engagement and content strength in all 70 of their languages (see; Microsoft case study for more details).
When starting your planning, you need to know where to invest your time and effort to get the optimum results. You need to make decisions as to which languages and content types are in or are out of scope, with valid supporting arguments. By understanding your audiences content needs and your business goals, you can establish the metrics to check you’re on track, remain focused, and achieve your internally communicated vision of success.
It’s important to have a clear overview of the importance and content types that you need. Once that is established—together with clear goals of the multilingual content—you can work with an agency to have a clear process based on the content type. This will deliver the right balance for you, between machine translation and human translators, to ensure the optimum cost/quality balance of the content.
Multilingual Content
Optimizing and promoting multilingual content is an important step in reaching and engaging a global audience. It would be a shame and a waste to have all this content planned, created, translated and then for it not to be found or viewable.
In summary, use SEO best practices, adapt the content to suit the way your content is consumed, and leverage a multi-platform approach to increase visibility and traffic. As ever, there is no shortcut or golden bullet, as the algorithms are constantly changing. It’s simply good common sense that prevails at the end of the day. The above lists will give a solid basis for being found. Just keep an eye on your metrics and performance, and be ready to adjust the strategy as needed.
In addition to translation, it’s important to consider the cultural differences and preferences of your target audience. Localization involves adapting the content to be relevant and meaningful for the specific culture and language of the target audience.
“As a marketing agency, you plan the launch of the product, develop a marketing strategy and establish a message. When reaching out to more international markets, that brand must be represented consistently across all channels while being culturally adapted for each market. The heart and soul of your marketing campaigns need to cross the language barriers and reach new clients while creating the same user experience as the brand in the original language. That’s where Jonckers takes action. Jonckers supports marketing agencies in their quest to optimally communicate their customers’ brands to new target audiences.”
Nicola Meinders
VP Marketing at Jonckers
Choosing a localization vendor is an important step when creating and implementing a multilingual content strategy. Here, we present several factors to consider when selecting a vendor, and we also provide insight into how Jonckers approaches these topics:
• References
• Technology
• Quality assurance
• Scalability & Speed
• Linguistic Quality
• Control & Insight
• Pricing
• Partnership
• Security
The vendor should have experience and expertise in the markets you are targeting. They should have native speakers and subject matter experts on staff to ensure that the translations are accurate and culturally appropriate.
Which industries do their website highlight, and which case studies are they showing, and what does that say about their market reputation?
The vendor should have experience and expertise in using technology to support the localization process. This includes Artificial Intelligence (AI), Neural Machine Translation (NMT), Machine Translation (MT), and API connectors for Content Management Systems (CMS), such as Tridion and Drupal. These technologies can support, automate, and streamline the localization process, making it more efficient and cost effective when used with intelligent workflows.
These technologies can support, automate, and streamline the localization process, making it more efficient and cost effective when used with intelligent workflows.
Do they still manage projects offline, with large emails and attachments in a traditional (Blackbox) methodology?
Do linguists work in their platform, or do they download content and work on it locally?
The vendor should have a robust quality assurance process in place to ensure that translations are accurate and consistent.
This should include proofreading, editing, and testing to ensure that the translations are error free and suitable for your target audience. Ideally, the quality assurance program in place has been validated by a third party such as the International Standards Organization (ISO).
As a minimum, they should have both of the following, depending on the services they are able to offer:
They should have a strong reputation for delivering quality services and be able to provide references in the form of case studies, customer feedback or awards
What happens when you have a tough deadline and need the translation quicker? The translation agency needs to be able to scale up quickly.
The vendor should be able scale up capacity to meet your deadlines and deliver projects on time without compromising quality.
Are they able to add in more certified linguists if they realize they will not hit their deadlines?
For example, WordsOnline has a unique, claim-based methodology where linguists can claim small sections of work for the industries or company they are trained and certified to work with. As such, if we have an urgent request, or high-volume work, we can showcase the priority work and/or expand the request to more certified linguists in our global network.
The people reviewing your content need to be trained and informed of your tone of voice, terminology etc. before and large projects start. Some vendors have traditional translation methods, which means that linguists can only be informed of inconsistencies at the end of each assignment. Concurrent or continuous training means that errors can be spotted early on and prevent costly re-work.
Many vendors still offer “blackbox translations.” This simply means that translations are sent to the vendor then, at some point, these are returned to the client. In this instance, the client has no insight into the progress, quality and speed of the work being done. This occurs as large portions of the project are divided into the available linguists for review. The vendor has very little influence and control of the timescales and quality until the work is returned, which is too late.
The vendor’s pricing should be transparent, and they should provide clear payment terms. You should also be aware of any additional costs, such as project management, that may apply
You should consider looking for an LSP who will truly partner with them and where they can build a mutually beneficial relationship. Look for customer quotes, references and customer service awards.
The vendor should have a robust security and data protection policy in place to ensure that your content and data are kept confidential and secure. This ties in to their ISO certifications, and maintaining all client data in a secure cloud server and restricting downloads.
Ultimately, the most important factor when choosing a localization vendor is whether they can provide accurate translations that meet your specific needs and goals.
Take Microsoft for example. Jonckers has been working with Microsoft since 1995. In 2022 Microsoft CE&S’S GLOBAL LOCALIZATION PRIORITIES are:
“After many years working together, we’re still delighted with Jonckers’ service. We value high-quality translations, a competitive price, and high-speed turnaround, and Jonckers delivers on all three. No one comes close to their pricing and quality level. Other teams are asking us to manage their translations through Jonckers, as they love the quality, speed, and service with Jonckers.”
Charlene Douglass
Knowledge Management Leader
This was created by Nicola Meinders, supported by Doug Green and Melissa Kane at Jonckers.
Rather than a regular footnote, we’re comparing Jonckers to the selection criteria above 😊
Jonckers is a suitable partner for non-regulated industries, and declines work for small certification-type projects, so it can focus on high-volume clients. Jonckers can provide translations in over 250 languages.
Jonckers has both ISO 17100:2015-05-01 and ISO 18587:2017-04-01 standards.
Jonckers also offers tiered service levels from raw MT through to MTPE with double review, enabling us to deliver the quality each project requires adaptable to your needs and budget.
Jonckers has won multiple awards for their exceptional customer experience. Take a look at our quality & awards page for more details.
Jonckers use a combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Neural Machine Translation (NMT), Adaptive Machine Translation (AMT), and API connectors for Content Management Systems (CMS) to automate and streamline the localization process, making it more efficient and cost effective.
WordsOnline is a cloud-based end-to-end platform. This offers added security, as clients upload files rather than emailing translators. Linguists access the translation in the cloud, mitigating downloading and data security risks.
As seen in delivering over 600 million words for Amazon and the related Amazon case study – Jonckers manages scalability like no other. WordsOnline has a unique-claim-based methodology, where linguists can claim small sections of work for the industries or company they are trained and certified to work with. As such, if we have an urgent request, or high volume work, we can showcase the priority work, and expand the request to more pre-certified linguists in our global network.
The vendor should be able to adapt and adjust to your specific needs and requirements. This includes being able to handle different file formats, and providing different levels of service depending on your needs. Take a look at Jonckers case studies in particular Microsoft and Adobe, for showcasing how we listen to our client’s needs and deliver beyond expectations.
Jonckers believes transparent pricing makes it easy for us to project manage to scale up, as there are no nasty surprises. Jonckers was the first language services company to offer subscription pricing.
All data is kept securely in the cloud – it’s not downloaded locally by linguists. For examples of exceptionally high security, look at our marketing case study for outstanding processes for managing highly confidential marketing information pre-launch.
WordsOnline gives access to real-time dashboards update clients on the speed of the translations and their delivery times.
In project linguist training: Jonckers unique claim-based method is integrated with content allocation to linguists. This means, that we can review and feedback to linguists continuously throughout the process. This investment in their feedback and training pays dividends, as we can prevent issues, before they happen. It gives them the best start in the project and insures their involvement and dedication to the project at hand.
Further reading: www.jonckers.com/blogs and www.jonckers.com/casestudies
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