Taking a start-up beyond its home market is one of the biggest steps a young business can make. The product might be ready and the demand might be there, but if customers can’t understand what you’re offering, they won’t buy it.
The question then becomes: how can a start-up ‘speak’ to customers in countries and languages it has never worked with before?
The research is hard to ignore. A 2020 global study by CSA Research found that 76% of online shoppers prefer to buy products with information in their own language.
Furthermore, 40% said they will never buy from a website in another language. For a start-up with global ambitions, that is a huge share of potential customers to lose before the conversation has even started.
You can find the CSA research here.
If you’re running a start-up or an SME, you might be curious about how multilingual marketing works and what it could do for your organisation, or wonder where translation services and localisation fit into the picture.
Today, Young Upstarts takes a closer look at both. We also speak to one of the leading London-based translation industry experts, who explains the practical steps you can take to reach customers wherever they are.
Understanding Multilingual Marketing
Multilingual marketing simply means communicating with your customers in the languages they speak. It covers everything from your website and product descriptions to your ads, emails, social media posts and customer support.
It is not just a bigger version of your English campaign. Each market has its own habits, expectations and ways of talking, and good multilingual marketing takes all of that into account.
For start-ups in particular, it’s often the quickest and most affordable route into new markets. You don’t need an office in Madrid to sell to Spanish customers. You need a website, and a message, that makes sense to them.
Why Multilingual Marketing Works for Start-Ups
Spotify, Airbnb and Canva all began as small teams with big ideas. Today, each of them reaches users in dozens of languages, and localisation played a large part in getting them there.
You don’t have to be a household name to follow the same path. So what makes multilingual marketing such a good fit for younger businesses?
Building Trust from Day One.
A start-up doesn’t have the reputation of an established brand to fall back on. When a customer lands on your website for the first time, they are deciding very quickly whether you’re someone they can trust.
Reading about your product in their own language makes that decision easier. It shows you’ve made the effort to understand them, and it removes the doubt that comes with trying to follow a second language.
The same CSA Research study found that 75% of shoppers are more likely to buy from a brand again if its customer care is in their language. For a start-up, those repeat customers are worth their weight in gold.
Standing Out in New Markets.
Many businesses still treat English as enough. That leaves a gap, and start-ups are often better placed than bigger competitors to fill it.
A small team can move quickly, test a new market and adapt its messaging without months of sign-off. If your competitors are only speaking English, a well-localised website can put you ahead almost immediately.
Growing Without Huge Overheads.
Expanding abroad used to mean offices, local staff and big budgets. Now, much of that growth can happen online.
With translated content and local search visibility, a start-up can test demand in one or two countries, see what works and build from there. It’s a measured way to grow that suits businesses watching every pound.
The Role of Translation Services and Localisation
This is where many start-ups trip up. Having your content in another language is only half the job. How it reads to a native speaker matters just as much.
Translation and Localisation: What’s the Difference?
Translation converts your text from one language into another, accurately and faithfully. Localisation goes a step further, adapting the whole message so it feels natural to people in that market.
That can mean changing currencies, date formats and units of measurement, rewriting idioms and humour, or swapping images that won’t connect with a local audience. A clever pun in an English headline, for example, rarely survives the journey into German or Japanese.
Even customers who share a language can expect different things. A shopper in London looks for “trainers”, while one in New York looks for “sneakers”.
Why Machine Translation Isn’t Enough.
Free translation tools are handy for getting the gist of something. For marketing content, though, they tend to miss tone, context and brand voice, and small errors can make a young company look careless.
Professional translators who are native speakers of the target language understand how people actually talk and what will land with them. For slogans and campaign copy, many will offer transcreation, where the message is recreated rather than translated word for word.
Multilingual SEO.
It’s also worth remembering that people search differently in different countries. The keyword that brings you traffic in the UK may not be what a French or Polish customer types into Google.
Multilingual SEO means researching local keywords, translating page titles and meta descriptions, and setting up your site properly (including hreflang tags) so search engines show the right version to the right audience. Without it, even a perfectly translated website can struggle to be found.
Building a Multilingual Marketing Strategy for Your Start-Up
Expanding your business to global markets can feel like a daunting step for a small team, but with the right approach and the right partners, it is very achievable.
Are translation services key?
To better understand what steps a business can take to better prepare for a global expansion and approaching international customers, we spoke with Nello Attianese, who is a senior translation manager at TS24, the UK-accredited translation agency in London, specialised in business and corporate language solutions.
Nello is not only an accredited translator himself, but working as a senior translations expert, he also deals with some of the most demanding projects and clients in the industry – from SMEs and start-ups to the world’s leading brands such as Universal Music, SailPoint or Osborne Clarke, so his industry expertise is truly in-depth.
We asked Nello to share his professional insights on the key challenges businesses should consider when entering new international markets, as well as practical strategies for overcoming language and cultural barriers.
He told us: “From my experience in the translation industry, it’s clear that successful global business expansion requires more than simply translating your website or marketing materials. Businesses need to understand the language, cultural expectations and local preferences of their target markets to build trust with international customers. Content intended for international audience needs to be not only accurately translated, but also professionally localised – and it’s a step many business owners miss.”
Here are some steps your business can take to ensure it is ready for an international expansion:
Start with Research.
Before translating anything, decide which markets to focus on. Check your analytics to see where visitors are already coming from, look at local competitors and find out whether there is real demand for what you offer.
Starting with one or two markets and doing them well will almost always beat launching in ten languages at once.
Work with Professional Translators.
Bring marketing translation services into the process early rather than at the last minute. Experienced translators will keep your brand voice consistent across every language and flag anything that could be misunderstood or cause offence.
Localise Your Website.
Your website is usually the first thing an overseas customer sees, so it should be the priority. Focus on your homepage, product or service pages and checkout first.
Don’t forget your terms and conditions, privacy policy and returns information. These pages carry legal weight, so accuracy here is essential.
Adapt Your Social Media.
The platforms that work at home might not be the ones your new customers use. WeChat dominates in China, for example, while LINE is hugely popular in Japan.
Choose the channels that suit each market and create posts in the local language, rather than simply sharing translated copies of your English content.
Partner with Local Influencers.
Local influencers already have the trust of the audience you want to reach. Working with them gives a new brand credibility and helps your message sound natural, because it’s coming from someone who speaks the language and knows the culture.
Listen and Adjust.
Once your campaigns are live, pay attention to how people respond. Reviews, comments, support queries and website data will quickly show you what’s working and what needs another look.
Multilingual marketing is not a one-off project. The start-ups that do it best keep refining their approach as they learn more about each market.
Conclusion
For start-ups with global ambitions, language can be the difference between a product that travels and one that stays at home.
By investing in multilingual marketing, young companies can reach new customers, build trust faster and compete with far bigger brands in markets around the world.
Professional translation and localisation are what make that possible. They make sure your message is understood and, more importantly, that it connects with the people reading it.
Your customers are out there, in dozens of countries and speaking dozens of languages. The start-ups that grow fastest are the ones that make the effort to speak to them in their own.
