As businesses expanded and became global, English emerged as a primary business communication language. However, a recent survey suggested that only 20% of the world population speaks English and among them, English is not a native language for many. A census in the United States highlighted that more than 40% of the US population does not speak English at home.
In today’s globalized world, multilingual capabilities is a fundamental requisite for generating revenue from multiple geographies. Surveys predict that prospects are better interested if they receive information in their native language and prefer conversing in a language that they are comfortable in. This is extremely critical for a function like sales where the relationship building is the deal-breaker.
Organizations that do not invest in resources with Multilingual capabilities for lead generation, or localize their marketing communication tend to lose market share in key geographies and see their global brand fragment and a decline in their brand recall.
While board room strategies tend to reduce the risk by identifying newer markets to grow, the strong regional and local presence is required for growing in newer geographies. Regional language and local sensitivities are essential elements to engage with senior executives on their own terms of business, whilst at the same time ensuring the global brand messaging is enforced and promoted. This makes the job of the marketing team highly complex. Lacking a specialized team who understand the intricacies of the local region can impact your ability to penetrate the market significantly.
Senior executives in European and developed countries in the areas of Asia, Middle East, South America, and Africa prefer to buy in their native language. In a survey of senior executives 61% executives from France and 58% from Germany stated that they are more comfortable buying from someone who speaks their language, rather than English.
In the case of Japan, this number extrapolates to 68%. Organizations that desire to do business across various continents have to invest in multilingual websites and product/service collaterals in local languages. Today, Localization has become one of the top marketing priorities for marketers after social media and advertising.
However, that is only half the job done. For reaching out to relevant decision-makers you need to leverage multiple marketing channels other than digital channels. Only having a localized website will not suffice. Organizations need to invest in inside sales capabilities to make the first conversation with a potential client, and a language barrier at this stage can close the doors for you before you can even send your first pitch.
In a global enterprise, customer experience is more important than the products and services to create a sustainable competitive advantage, and that is when creating more and more content is not helpful. This is achievable by producing content in the language of the potential customer, and a content strategy that is relevant for the intended receiver, all that with a single objective to maintain the brand consistency.
Content is the king is a saying of the past, the emerged way of ruling a global marketplace is to create relevant content based on 4 pillars: Personalization, Localization, Delivery Channels, and Timely Delivery.
1. Personalized content always makes an impression out in the pile of information available
2. Localized content will create a relationship based on trust
3. Using all possible channels to deliver the content will create brand resonance
4. Timely delivery of content is the most important aspect to hit the iron when it is hot
Global expansions and competitive advantage are the factors determining the importance of relevant content for any multinational corporation. The market forces that call for businesses to redefine the value of content include – driving global customer experience, increasing customer satisfaction, and promoting brand awareness and consistency.
Most organizations acknowledge the importance of having localized content and a multilingual inside sales team, but the siloed approach creates an obstacle in the way of achieving their goals. Marketing and Sales functions generally operate at a corporate level, and these functions are usually set up at a low-cost delivery region. On the contrary, the local marketing teams barely have enough resources to provide inside sales support to the local sales team.
This is a common reason for conflict and forces the local marketing teams to identify vendors who can support them at a local level, creating more complexities and results in multiple vendors calling in their specific regions for individual marketing leaders. This leads to the dilution of the value proposition at the global level and varied content versions result in dilution of the core messaging.
To address this challenge, Beyond Codes created a global team with lead generation capabilities in 20+ languages across the globe. This ensures that the sales and marketing team must only work with one vendor for multilingual lead generation across geographies.
