Content creation, merchandise and influencer-owned brands – recent trends show that a growing number of media content creators are also successful young entrepreneurs. For many brand ambassadors, the first step towards financial and creative freedom is to create their own independent brand. Their goal? To achieve long-term brand independence – both from themselves and from their social media reach. Are you an influencer and founder of your own online store? And are you thinking about marketing your products internationally? In this blog post, you’ll discover how a professionally localised, multilingual e-shop can be your key to entering new markets.
The pillars of your e-commerce success
Do your long-term goals include having a successful online store, increasing product awareness and attracting international customers? As an influencer, content creator and brand ambassador, you’ve already laid the foundations for your online shop’s success through your existing social media reach in German-speaking countries. You’ve also created your own brand, which is already in the marketplace and running independently of your social media presence. Now you’re ready to take your business into international waters. But before you do, there are a few things you need to consider when setting up your multilingual online shop:
- Creating and localising your content for the target market
- Researching SEO keywords in the target language
- Using country-specific customer targeting
- Localising marketing and advertising messages for the target market. It all comes down to the right transcreation!
- Collaborating and partnering with local influencers
- Ensuring your web presence is a linguistic masterpiece
When is it worth having your online shop translated?
You’ve already built up a successful brand that stands on its own, no longer relies on social media or your own popularity and has a steady customer base in German-speaking countries. And now you’ve reached a turning point.
Either your sales forecasts have shown that expanding overseas would be a worthwhile investment – or – you’ve been attracting customers from neighbouring countries for a long time. Either way, now’s the time to get your online shop translated.
Are you still unsure about your translation needs – and how your overseas target audience will respond to content in their native language? To assess the need and cost of a translation, you can start with targeted advertising in the countries where you want to expand your online business. You can then evaluate how your potential audience responds based on page views, reviews and newsletter mailing conversions. Another way to gauge demand and test initial interactions in the local language is through Google Ads and Social Media Ads.
The challenges of translating your online shop
The next challenge in your internationalisation process – beyond the technical development of your online shop and the calculation of accurate sales and demand forecasts – will be the cultural differences of your new target audiences. There’s a lot to consider – including shipping partners, payment methods, units of measurement and currencies, and of course the new language – the grammar, spelling and making sure it all makes sense. Trying to do everything yourself is not a good strategy. Instead, you will benefit immensely by working with someone who has an intuitive understanding and can write creative transcreations – two hallmarks of good translation.
They will be aware of the local linguistic conventions and country-specific expressions, as well as your corporate language and tone of voice. Over time, your brand, product range and quality are likely to evolve. So will your translation. If your online products are seasonal, your e-commerce will need continuous translation. This simply means building translation time into your product lifecycle to avoid delays. Whenever you launch a new product or collection, you’ll know that it needs to be translated and can plan accordingly. No matter where your customers are located, it’s important that they all understand your brand message and have the same user experience on your website. A good translation ensures that your brand is understood in every target market. Quality translations will also enhance your brand image and increase your sales abroad.
The unique benefits of online shop translation
In Germany, many influencers have managed to separate their e-commerce brand from their personal brand and establish it in the global online market. Best practice examples include the fashion label “Peso” by blogger Jstin, the sportswear brand “smilodox” by Stephanie Davis and the fitness food label “Naturally Pam” by fitness blogger Pamela Reif. As we’ve seen, there are many compelling reasons to go international. Let’s look at the main benefits of having your online shop translated:
- Satisfied customers: Your online shop will be easier to navigate in your target audience’s native language. Visitors will find their way around more easily, giving them a comfortable shopping experience.
- More trust: A professional translation enhances your credibility. Your customers will be more inclined to buy from a platform they feel is reputable and trustworthy.
- Larger target group: You can reach many more potential customers beyond the German-speaking DACH region when you localise your website into one or more languages.
- Sales growth: A strong online presence, intuitive navigation and understanding your international customer base will lead to increased sales.
- Competitive advantage: Your audience will make purchase decisions more quickly when they feel understood and valued. New customers also feel more confident shopping online in their own language. This will help your business grow to the level of your international competitors.
- SEO: As well as translations, we also offer Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in many different languages. By using the right SEO keywords for your overseas audience, your brand will climb the search engine rankings in other countries and will be easier to find.
Our 3 best practices for your e-commerce translation
Whether you want to translate your online shop, product descriptions, product catalogues, e-commerce content or data sheets, you’ve come to the right place at intercontact. Our native-speaking teams use the most efficient translation technologies to create compelling e-commerce worldwide. With expertise in fashion & lifestyle, Cosmetics & beauty, marketing, industry, e-commerce and many other areas, we can translate into any language you need.
Working in close cooperation with you and our translators, we set up automated processes on our specialised translation platform that make the internationalisation of online shops run practically on autopilot. We use translation memories and interactive glossaries so that no matter what shop system, PIM, CMS or platform you use, minor updates to your online shop can be made in the shortest possible time, with the minimum amount of effort or interruption.
In addition to high-quality specialist translations and machine translation, we can also offer you a combination of the two. This is achieved through a process known as Machine Translation Post-Editing (MTPE), where automated translations are read, corrected and optimised by specialist human translators in their mother tongue.
We’ll be happy to discuss your options and assist you with any e-commerce translation questions. Contact us to find out more. We’re always happy to help.
Request an online shop translation now