Smaller and medium-sized companies – particularly in manufacturing but increasingly also in services – typically begin to saturate the commercial opportunities available in their “home” market two to four years after starting operations. At that point, they start to look to export markets as a lever of continued growth.
This widening of market focus usually comes at a time where the company’s financial and human resources are not quite yet at a level that allows for the setting up of foreign affiliates and the hiring of local staff in new markets. Thus, the pressing commercial need for fresh sources of sales revenue comes up against hard limits on how the generation of this revenue can be financed, resulting in a plethora of makeshift solutions to the problem – among others – of preparing corporate and marketing communications for entry into the targeted new market.
The quickest solutions are not always the best
Faced with the impossibility, for the time being at least, of actually being directly “present” in a market, companies starting to export to new markets typically implement makeshift communications solutions within their budgetary possibilities. These can range from outsourcing marketing communications to importers or agents; to arranging for the simple translation of the company’s existing marketing and communications materials; to attempting to hire inexpensive entry-level nationals of the target market or markets to manage the export marketing effort working from the company’s home market offices; to hiring expensive marketing consultants, communications and public relations agencies, and advertising firms in the target markets.
These attempts at solutions often prove unsatisfactory, for a variety of reasons:
- Materials that have been simply translated from their original language may feel too literally rendered, or feel unadapted to the culture of the target market.
- Importers or local sales agents may be representing several other companies, and thus will not be dedicating enough time and energy to that individual firm’s product or service positioning.
- The target market nationals working in the company’s headquarters may be too junior, or no longer sufficiently immersed in the everyday realities of the target market, to be truly effective.
- And, in the case of hired communications services agencies, the senior agency executives making the pitch for the company’s business are almost always substituted shortly thereafter by younger staff, while senior agency executive fees continue to be charged.
Another challenge is that in most cases, a local business partner – whether it be an importer, sales agent, or marketing services or advertising agency – will want a substantial commitment from the exporting company, in terms of its investment in time, visits, the sharing of information, sales projections, and the training of the partner’s staff, in order to justify the partner’s dedication of resources to the new activity. This can conflict with the preferences of smaller or medium-sized companies just starting the export-oriented phase of their growth wishing to “dip a toe in the water” of a target market, testing its potential and “fit” with the company’s products or services, before fully committing sizeable resources to it.
There is one final complication: the human factor. Entering a new market in several of the traditional ways outlined above rapidly puts the senior management of the exporting company in close and frequent contact with target country business people who may be very different culturally – and be used to very different business protocols and practices – than the staff and management of the exporting company. This can lead to misunderstandings, frustration at perceived difficulties in collaboration, and, in some cases, to the breakdown of the business relationship.
In an export market, your local-language communication is your most fundamental brand-builder
The importance of precise and nuanced local-language communication is that it will most likely be the very first thing potential business partners and customers in the target export market will experience with regards to the exporting company. As the company will no doubt have competitors, both local and international, the quality of the local-language corporate and product communications the exporting company uses to launch in the new market will be the initial standard by which its professionalism and relevance to the market, versus those of all its competitors, will be judged.
Business schools famously describe examples of American companies getting their international communications and marketing language wrong, such as the Coors Beer fail when it translated its “Turn It Loose” tagline into Spanish, resulting in an expression that’s commonly interpreted by Spanish speakers as “suffer from diarrhoea,” or global automobile giant Ford’s infamous advertising campaign in Belgium, whose intention it was to locally communicate the idea that “Every car has a high-quality body,” which instead resulted in the Flemish-language slogan meaning “Every car has a high-quality corpse.”
European companies, however, have experienced just as many localisation pitfalls. Famously, years ago German luxury car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz decided to introduce its cars to the Chinese market under the shortened name “Bensi.” This word, however, means “rush to die” in Chinese, forcing the company to quickly rebrand with a different identity.
Some missteps are more nuanced, however: a major French bank wishing to ramp up its international business once ran an advertising campaign in pan-European print media showcasing its many European offices above the tagline “We’re all over the map.” While this expression does literally mean that the announcing entity is present in many locations, it can also mean, particularly in a business context, that a person or company lacks focus and is unorganised or scattered in thinking, communication, or planning: clearly the last image any bank wishes to project.
Precise local language communication needs to be accurate and carefully considered not only for purely pragmatic reasons, but also because such language communication is critical in establishing trust with foreign customers. Trust is a fundamental element in business, and it can be difficult for a company to gain an initial foothold in a foreign market when no one there has yet heard of it. If a business new to a foreign market has taken the time to understand the culture and language of that market, it sends a message that it is committed to meeting the needs of its customers there and is willing to go the extra mile to establish a locally relevant connection. Thus, it is a way of gaining an initial degree of trust. More generally, accurate and culturally sensitive local-language corporate and marketing communications shows respect for the country market being entered, as well as professionalism, credibility and an overall commitment to quality.
Local language and personal connection
In addition to building trust, precise local language communication is essential in building relationships with foreign customers. Ideally, senior executives of the exporting company – at the very least those involved in the export effort – should endeavour to acquire the local language skills required to connect with customers on a personal level. However, the standard language training for businesspeople often has an excessive focus on ”business” vocabulary and the technical terms associated with a particular industry. This type of language however is more likely to be useful for relatively junior commercial staff. Senior executives, instead, need to be able to generate positive feelings around a business relationship in areas other than the business itself: over a social dinner, for example, or at a sporting event. Thus, the language training in question needs to be far more comprehensive in terms of everyday language, as well as covering those casual usages and idiomatic expressions likely to be employed in such situations.
The objective of such language training for senior executives, at least in the short to medium term, is not so much to be able to speak fluently – this takes years instead of months – but at least to understand the shades of meaning and humour, and to be familiar with the local conversational formulae, so that stilted communication-via-interpreter is not always necessary. Increasingly, this can also be achieved via the acquisition, at a minimum, of a B2 level of English, today the language spoken to an acceptable level of fluency by nearly all senior businesspeople in most developed and developing markets. Whether the training is given in the desired local language, or if proficiency in English is chosen as a flexible “pivot language,” it is also important that the training professionals involved can engage the senior executives in practice discussion across a wide range of topics, both business and social, at a level of sophistication matching that of the future conversations in which the executive will be involved. Trainers having only worked in the field of language instruction, and not operationally in wider business contexts, thus are not often an ideal fit for this type of training.
Preparing The “Go To Market”
Companies already active in one or more export markets, and wishing to enter a new one, will probably have some corporate communications and product marketing materials already translated into the languages of those existing export markets, and most probably into English as well. Here is another potential pitfall: it is likely that these materials will have been localised over time using a mix of translators, localisation agencies, freelancers, internal staff, interns, importers, agents, and other suppliers of editorial services on different projects. Companies can thus end up with foreign-language materials of differing quality, of slightly different communications styles, and with language inconsistencies across the range. It is therefore good practice, from time to time but particularly before a new market is addressed, to have a comprehensive communications audit performed on the materials to be used, or to entrust the localisation and adaptation of existing materials to a single supplier, so as to guarantee a cohesive set of materials which will all be distributed in the new market within the same timeframe.
From the challenges outlined above, it becomes obvious that managing the corporate and marketing communications aspect of the preparation for entry into a new market is not as simple as it may sound. Senior business executives will be too busy to dedicate much time to establishing a true quality approach; and the operational managers preparing the export drive may lack the expertise or experience to engage the resources capable of ensuring flawless local market communication. It may, for these reasons, be a good idea to start with seeking the services of experienced communications consultants specialised in language adaptation for businesses, ideally ones with networks of trusted language service suppliers capable of being mobilised quickly, flexibly and at moderate cost, to get the market entry program off to a timely, proper, and professional start.
In conclusion: the heart of the matter
Precise yet nuanced local-language communication is essential in export marketing. It plays a critical role in establishing trust, building relationships, creating a favourable brand image, avoiding misunderstandings, and gaining a competitive advantage. Export marketing is a complex and challenging process, and businesses that underestimate the importance of local-language communication are likely to struggle in a foreign market. It is rare for any company to have all the necessary resources in-house to achieve truly flawless local language communications, yet relying on a range of diverse language service suppliers without expert central coordination – outsourced, if necessary – can undermine the entire export effort. Most importantly, perfect local-language communication in export markets is a sine qua non condition for long-term market success, building a communications relationship with customers who will both understand you and remain loyal to you.
An appropriate concluding quotation on the subject is that of Nelson Mandela: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”