SMEs always have a marked objective, which is growth, usually beyond our borders when they have conquered the national market. The internationalizationis therefore crucial in their strategies.
Bearing in mind that small and medium-sized companies generated 325,263 million euros through the cross-border trade last year, it is not surprising that more and more want to join the sale cross border. A practice that for Spain already represents 26.99% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
But before launching our business to internationalize, it is essential that we thoroughly analyze our website or ecommerce to see if it is well adapted to foreign sales. And it is that, not only is it enough to translate; One of the key factors in ensuring cross-border success is adapt our brand message to the culture of the country to which we want to go.
According to Oscar Nogueras, CEO of the company Ontranslation, specialized in transcreation and localization: «We could say that there are two types of translations for SMEs: machine translation with human review, which is much cheaper, but less accurate and is used to test a market. However, the transcreation services are not only responsible for translating the message, but also adapting it for the target audience of the country where we want to start selling until it gets excited. To give an example, having content transcreation services can lead to greater engagement and a x4 increase in sales, depending on the market.”
It is true that internationalization processes are usually costly for SMEs due to the investment involved. Now, a good translation service increases sales opportunities between 11 and 23%depending on the sector, according to a study carried out by the European Observatory on Multilingualism in the European Union.
What can an SME do to sell internationally?
Although the adaptation of our message to the different languages can be expensive, it is usually an investment that we will recover quickly. There are several types of translation services that depend on the state of maturity of the market and the type of content: SEM translation, through ads on social networks or branded content in specific media to get quality external links.
But if hiring a professional team of translators is far from your budget, you can always do these three things:
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Adapt communication. Study what media, social networks and tone are used in the country you are going to try to replicate it.
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Pay attention to SEO. Conduct a study of local search trends. The objective is to know the words that will help you position yourself in that specific country.
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Add social media. Disseminate our messages in other languages and produce specific copies to get closer to our potential client more immediately.
