Global Marketing Starts with You

A client sent us the text from her company’s website this week to be translated from English to Brazilian Portuguese. Their site is already translated into Spanish, French and Czech. It seems that they want to market their products to buyers in Latin America, specifically Brazil at the moment. Well, of course they do. Right now, Brazil has one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America. Agriculture is such a major industry that many of my own students study Portuguese in order to take classes or get jobs there. It makes sense that many companies are now jumping on this bandwagon and getting their sites translated to market in Latin America and to U.S. Latinos.

We’re currently reading Latino Link: Building Brands Online with Hispanic Communities and Content by Joe Kutchera. Joe mentions that many major corporations are missing the point about putting their sites in Spanish and localizing them to reach out to Spanish-speaking markets. It’s not to reach those outside our borders, as much as those who are already here. The spending power of Latinos in the U.S. is huge right now–and continuously growing. As for Portuguese, Brazilian immigrants are another quickly-growing population in the U.S. Besides all the industry in Brazil, we have plenty of Brazilians among us here.

So, why not translate your site into Spanish or Portuguese? It makes complete sense. However, besides the translation we’ll provide for them, this company must realize the need for localizing their site, or making it culturally acceptable and marketable to these consumers so that they will feel a connection to the company and its products. Translation is only a small piece of the puzzle. Building one’s brand in order to attract foreign (or domestic) markets is an even larger piece of the pie. How can a company build a connection with a group of customers who speak a different language? They have to get to know this group. Is this population typically very warm and outgoing, or are they more reserved and keep to themselves? Sure, there are stereotpyes about cultures, but they do sometimes ring true, especially when it comes to how to market to consumers’ emotions.

That’s what it’s all about. Emotions. We mentioned Starbucks in a recent post and how Starbucks is good at playing on the emotions of its customers in order to get them to come back. How do you know what emotions to target in a certain population? You have to find out what is important to this group. Is it family and friends? Or finances and succeeding in the work place? Is it colorful artwork and exciting images, or clean lines and more serious visuals? Is it a combination of both?

This is where working with a localization company comes into play. You can’t just pick up on these characteristics in one day. You need to consult those who do this for a living. Don’t think that you know exactly what your customer is looking for because you sell your products every day. Be aware of resources that will help you work on your brand while marketing to populations that speak other languages and you will find that you, too, are going to experience this other culture. And hopefully, you’ll make some money doing it! Give us a call!!

For more information on Joe Kutchera’s book, click here.