Hello! Olá! Bonjour! Ciao! Did you know that 68% of customers want to speak their native language when communicating with companies?
Email marketing is global, so we recommend you translate your messages for better engagement and open rates if you work with a vast target audience speaking multiple languages.
To help you make the most of your content, we have handpicked the core advantages of translating emails into various languages and expanded on some factors to consider when creating a multilingual email marketing campaign.
Advantages of translating emails into multiple languages
1. Better customer trust
Even though English is the most widely-spoken language worldwide (1.348 billion speakers), 75% of the world’s population doesn’t know it. A robust multilingual email marketing campaign will enable your customers to become involved with your community, making your organization more trustworthy from the start.
People receive dozens of promotional emails daily, and your task is to make your content stand out. Messages written in your customers’ mother tongues and equipped with culturally appropriate images won’t go unnoticed in the spam folder.
Using Stripo, you can easily translate and edit emails with Google Translate. If you prefer professional services, you can look for proofreaders online and grant them access to your texts. They will only be able to edit your emails and won’t see your other projects.
You can also choose the “Vendor Translate” option, download your content, and let your translators work with the text. Then, just upload this file and enjoy.
2. Personalization and more high-quality leads
One of the most efficient ways to attract new leads is by speaking their languages. Your prospects will understand such emails, find value in your offers, and remember your company. Thus, you create an extra layer of personalization, making people more likely to tell their friends about your brand, drive traffic to your website, or buy from you.
Take a look at the top 10 countries with the highest number of Internet users:
With the US ranking third and giving way to China and India, it’s crucial to enable customers who speak other languages to consume your content the easiest way for them.
Multilingual emails are a fantastic way to provide insightful and educational content to your prospects, as they will fully understand your message. Whether you want to attract leads with a product demonstration or tell them your brand’s story, the language of your target audience is a powerful tool for these needs.
3. Higher open and conversion rates
Did you know that 40% of email users claim that they have over 50 unread messages in their inbox? If you don’t want your content to share these emails’ fate, speak the same language as your target audience.
Instead of cooperating with impersonal corporations, people like doing business with companies they trust and understand. Your message will perform better in France if it starts with “Bonjour! Comment allez-vous?” rather than “Hi! I hope you are doing well”.
Such an email campaign shows clients a personalized approach to their needs while persuading them to read your messages and buy from you.
(Source: Email from ba&sh)
4. Accelerated sales process
Translating your email marketing content into the native languages of your loyal clients and prospects, you deliver a deeper level of personalization and speed up your sales process. Thus, you build strong relationships with the audience, simplify your lead nurturing communication, and make a potential customer move through the sales funnel more smoothly.
If you are not sure that translating emails is good for your business, you can conduct A/B testing to check the overall performance of your multilingual content. Segment your non-native English-speaking customers into two groups:
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the first group will get an email describing your new product in English;
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the second one will receive the same message but written in their mother tongue.
Then, you can compare how fast users move through the funnel and tweak your content according to the results.
(Source: Email from Birchbox)
5. Competitive advantage
Brands that invest resources in the content translation are 1.5 times more likely to boost ROI. If your competitors still don’t benefit from email translation for their global audiences, it’s a golden opportunity to speak your customers’ native languages. And even if they do, our email design platform will help you do it better :)
Using such a competitive advantage, you can justify a price increase without driving away your clients. A killer marketing strategy mixed with impeccable services and effective communication is a win-win scenario.
Factors to consider when creating a multilingual email marketing campaign
Now that you understand how to strengthen your digital marketing strategy by sending emails in your customers’ native languages, you might want to start translating your content right away. But don’t go just yet!
Here are a few essential things like cultural nuances and language barriers to consider before going multilingual:
1. Localization is a must
After translating your emails into the target language, there’s still a lot of work to be done. The key points are to tailor your messages to local cultures and create content that your customers feel related to. From design adaptation to color scheme revision, your newsletters should be not only eye-catching but also culturally appropriate.
Here are a few tips to make it happen:
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remember about time zone differences when sending emails;
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be careful with metaphors, wordplay, and humor. Such things require more than technical linguistic knowledge and are not always universally understood;
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define what styles and color schemes are popular among your customers;
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apply date formats and currency used in the countries you are working with;
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look for models and locations that your global audiences can relate to.
(Source: Email from ColourPop Cosmetics)
2. Language barriers
Avoiding communication faux pas will enable you to speak naturally to your target audience and be authentic. Try to learn more about your customers: their languages, cultural taboos, local events, traditions, and trends.
As a result, you will break barriers and create emotional connections with prospects and loyal clients worldwide.
(Source: Stripo template)
3. Translation process
You would probably skip a promotional message with endless spelling and grammar mistakes. It’s possible to either benefit from translation services or opt for Google Translate. If you choose the latter option, hiring a reviewer to manually check your content for errors is better.
Make sure to translate all elements of your message:
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subject line;
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body;
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footer;
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banners;
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alt text for images;
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buttons.
To get more info on creating attention-grabbing emails in 10+ languages at once, please watch our video:
4. Email length
Don’t overload your audience with long sentences and paragraphs. Enable your customers to scan through an email if they don’t have time to read it carefully. Use bullet points and limit each paragraph to 2-3 lines.
5. Brief sentences and paragraphs
It’s also essential to keep sentences brief to enhance your translation copy. In some languages, words are longer than in English, so your emails may look completely different in the end.
Take a look at the difference between the two versions of the same email:
(Source: Beautiful Email Newsletters)
While the email in English takes only 11 lines and consists of concise paragraphs, the German version occupies 13 lines with much longer sections. So once you are done with translation, edit a copy to make your content more readable.
Final thoughts
You already know that multilingual emails will strengthen your marketing efforts, boost customer trust, and skyrocket your conversions. It’s also crucial to think about language barriers and create your content with cultural differences in mind.
Now when you are all set, let’s start driving sales with awesome emails!
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