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According to a recent survey, about 48 percent of marketers in the U.S. have no budget allocated for the international translation of their web content. They are able to pinpoint their target customers but the research showed that a multicultural approach is needed to reach the key buyers. In the November 3 report, the customer base of U.S. marketers outside of the country reached 49 percent.
About 15 percent of the marketers who participated in the research were able to confidently say that their messages reach their international audience. In the same manner, 14 percent said that they use original content as well as hire local marketers to service the locations where they are expanding their business.
No budget for translation
The survey also found out that even in the domestic market, U.S. companies do not have any budget to target non-English speaking consumers. The number is quite large, reaching up to 59 percent. About 42 percent of these companies depend on human translators so that their messages could reach these non-English speaking consumers.
Reaching a consumer base that’s more diverse does not seem to factor in the marketing budget of many U.S. companies. Earlier this year, Geoscape and the CMO Council released a report, “Activating the New Mainstream.” In the report it said that 80 percent of the B2B companies do not have a marketing strategy to reach a multicultural audience, despite the fact, based on what the researchers found out, that more than 33 percent of the population in the U.S. are Hispanic, African-American or Asian-American. It is projected that by the year 2020, these three cultural groups will grow to around 130 million. Still the report also indicated that around 66 percent of U.S. marketers said that they will be creating a multicultural marketing plan in the near future with the support of their Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).
Missed opportunities for global growth
According to the responses of surveyed participants in a marketing conference held in September, it was learned that despite e-commerce being global, budget for multilingual marketing is simply not there, whether their consumers are within the United States or outside the country. Brands that want to target global consumers should do more than just think global but should actually allocate budget as well as resources if they want to make their marketing approach truly global. There are still many brands that do not seriously consider international expansion, and only a few conduct business overseas even if they know that 13 languages are spoken by 90 percent of consumers spending their money on online purchases. Likewise even those that are serving international markets do not consider providing consumers brand experiences in their native language. While the respondents acknowledge that one size fits all does not apply to marketing, their content strategies are still limited to one language and usually apply one localization/translation only. Among those who do translate their content, 8.6 percent rely on machine translation and 42.1 percent use human translators while 14.5 percent apply both methods. About 4.6 percent are using translation management software.