3 Tips to make your email campaign a success when marketing internationally

Email marketing is NOT dead. It’s true: the competition on marketing channels is fierce and every day we turn on our computer another social media platform is born. And yet, business communication still happens widely via email.

Marketing is an art backed by research and good, well-navigated marketers use data to evaluate their next move.

Here are a few things you should keep in mind when approaching your next global email campaign.

Language

According to research, only a third of internet users speak English, followed by 19.4% of Chinese speakers, 7.9% of Spanish speakers and 5.2% of Arabic speakers. 

What’s more, we know that 65% of customers prefer to buy from a website written in their own language. So the question begs… are you giving your customers what they want?

Tone of Voice/ Messaging

Overcoming the language barrier is the first step toward engaging your global audiences. To do this, Google Translate is NOT an optimal solution. 

Why? First of all, by using automatic translation tools you’re effectively risking your company’s reputation. Translation isn’t only a mere group of words translated literally from one language into another, it’s the complex transposition of a whole concept: get it wrong, and your business’ credibility is on the line. Second, relaying an idea or concept in a different language often requires completely different wording and special cultural sensitivities. Just think of selling certain types of meat or alcoholic beverages in the UAE. How would you go about marketing your product without sounding offensive to the local population? 

If you want your business to go global, make a professionally-written multilingual copy a mandate for your email campaigns by working with a team of native writers that can make your content truly impactful on an international scale.

Call To Action

If you want to design content for your target audience in their native language, try and keep your CTA short and simple. What may occupy 50 characters in English can take up a surprising amount of characters in a different language.

“Book a Call” in English is made up of 11 characters. In Italian, it translates with “Prenota una Chiamata”, and it occupies 20 characters. You need to take this into account and create different Calls to Action for different languages.

If you’re looking to expand internationally, you CAN NOT afford to use amateurish translations in your marketing. Get in touch with us to find out how we can help your business go global the impactful, effective way.