Multilingual solutions for omnichannel marketing

Multilingual solutions for omnichannel marketing

In the typical customer journey, a potential customer visits a company's website, maybe watching a product-related video, and reading through some customer reviews, if any are available in their own language. Later in the buying process, he may visit the local branch. But when it comes to making a purchase decision, he has two options: online or in-store. The key is to offer all customers the same Customer Experience (CX) in a language they understand.

Multichannel and omnichannel marketing in comparison

What is multichannel marketing?

Most companies operate multichannel marketing: they sell their products via more than one channel, for example via a physical (brick-and-mortar retail) and a digital channel (website). Usually these two channels are separate from each other; so both areas act independently. The marketing department operates the e-commerce website and may commission a translation into multiple languages. The branch management manages the branch and speaks the local language. For customers, this means that the customer experience differs depending on whether they buy online or in-store. Basically, this creates the impression that you are buying from two different providers.

What is omnichannel marketing?

Only a few companies succeed in optimal omnichannel marketing or even one in all the languages ​​of their target countries. Omnichannel is a cross-channel marketing strategy. This not only means that a company sells its products through more than one channel (branch, sales partner, direct marketing), but also that the channels are not separated from each other. So if a customer buys a product through any channel, the CX is uniform: the products, payment options, guidelines and customer service are the same for all channels and available in the customer's language.

Challenges

When considering the move from multichannel to omnichannel marketing, a company is likely to encounter challenges in the following areas:

• Technology: Replacing an outdated point of sale (POS) system

• Process: Changeover from a tailor-made order management system

• Costs: Acquisition of a new technology solution to cover several areas

• Culture: Recruiting branch staff for online channels

E-commerce technology provider

I assume that customer journeys and shopping behavior will continue to change. This in turn increases the need for omnichannel solutions to personalize the customer experience in stationary retail, including the provision of this experience in the respective language (for example Catalan instead of Spanish).

As a result, there will be more companies providing multilingual ecommerce platforms and multilingual POS solutions.

Some e-commerce platform providers are:

• WordPress: offers a plugin for quick and easy translation of your website with SimulTrans

• Magento: offers extensive extensions and third-party integrations

• Shopify: Offers affordable pricing plans

Whole list

Some providers of POS systems are:

• Lightspeed: checks inventory, shows customers photos and descriptions of products and processes payments on the sales floor or at the table in restaurants

• Square: handles payments in person or remotely using contactless options

• Vend: offers user-friendly POS functions, inventory management, customers and staff

Develop a future-proof omnichannel marketing strategy

If you are really thinking about omnichannel marketing, here are some things to keep in mind:

• a multilingual e-commerce platform that you can make available to your employees, sales partners and customers completely in their respective national languages;

• a POS systems provider who provides localized versions of the technology for convenient use by all of your employees and customers;

• the translation of your direct marketing campaigns (email marketing, display advertising and mobile marketing, social media marketing and website) for more sales growth;

• the localization of your product-related videos through voiceover or subtitles for greater reach on social media.

The omnichannel strategy aims to enable potential customers to switch seamlessly between different channels and thus offer them a consistent experience. Make it memorable - with translations.