Monday, November 29, 2010

The Role Of Culture On International E-mail Marketing?

By Duna Forlan


When doing business with other countries there can be obstacles such as language. For some businesses it may be a case of trying to grow their market share, or improve sales. For others it could be a case of expanding into a different nation. Whatever the case may be, it is vital that when performing business overseas it is completed professionally and accurately, specifically regarding translation services.

Any Business that may be performing e-mail marketing to an international audience must ensure their messages aren't merely translated accurately but have also taken into consideration cultural and political issues. Regrettably it can be challenging for a business to completely represent culturally diverse ideas in e-mail marketing plans. It is a really small window of opportunity to capture the interest of someone with e-mail marketing. Most people will browse through their e-mails and can tell in a short time if anything is out of place or does not quite feel right. It is instantly deleted together with several others possibly.

What is a common phrase in one country could be unknown or inappropriate in another. Forget international borders and language for a moment. How about domestically? Will a born and bred Londoner use the same English as someone from Birmingham, Manchester or Liverpool? Indeed these people share the language but the way they use it is distinct. The same can probably be said with the French language. A Parisian will speak French a little bit differently to people from Nice.

In a recent blog post by Today Translations titled "Translation is more about culture than language" which refers to English to Arabic translation, and shows that culture changes language and is the driving force behind its evolution. In addition, it shows that the real key to successful translation is actually the ability to get your message across clearly. It is not about a literal translation, it is actually much more about cultural translation and knowledge. For email marketers, it is not enough to translate your email. Clearly it is advisable to offer a suitably translated landing page and website for visitors to click through to. In addition to this any support materials, for instance white papers, need to be professionally translated and localized.

It also suggested against making use of casual terms such as "hi", which may offend many overseas readers and may also show a lack of professionalism with respect to the message being sent. By making use of skilled translators and typesetters who are capable of representing aesthetic documents on both paper and e-mail, and also making sure that the material will follow the particular norms of your target nations or regions is really a fantastic competitive advantage.




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