Email marketing allows you to reach customers around the world. But sending emails in one language limits your audience. Email translation opens up global opportunities.
Localizing emails into your customers’ languages builds trust and boosts conversions. This guide will teach you email translation best practices to improve results.
Table of Contents
Why Email Translation Matters
Expanding reach beyond English-speakers grows your business. Let’s explore why email translation is so important.
Bigger Audience
Only 25% of internet users speak English. Spanish, Mandarin and Arabic lead among internet languages.
Translating emails makes your message understandable to billions more people.
Better Customer Experience
Over 75% prefer buying in their native language. And 40% won’t buy from English-only websites.
Sending emails in your customers’ language provides a seamless experience. This builds loyalty to your brand.
Increased Revenue
Studies show sites gain over 25% more traffic when localized. Higher traffic leads to more sales.
Email translation also boosts clicks and conversions. One language can’t connect with everyone. More languages mean more money.
Challenges with Email Localization
Translating emails brings complexities. But solutions exist to simplify multilingual campaigns.
Multiple Languages
Managing translations across many languages gets complicated fast. It’s easy for things to slip through the cracks.
Cultural Adaptation
You can’t just run emails through Google Translate. Cultural norms require adapting messaging and design for each target country.
Brand Consistency
Maintaining tone and voice across regions is difficult. And visuals may not resonate the same way everywhere.
Design Constraints
From text expansion to right-to-left languages, design needs change for different locales. Accommodating every variation is tough.
Best Practices for Localization
Follow these email translation tips to boost campaign performance:
Know Your Audience
Research countries you want to target. Learn common languages, cultural nuances, privacy laws, device preferences and more.
These insights will inform localization decisions.
Speak Their Language
Translate into languages your audience actually uses. For example, most Indians don’t operate in English.
Prioritize languages that promise the widest reach and highest ROI potential.
Adapt Messaging
Don’t just run content through Google Translate. Messages require cultural adaptation to land effectively.
Engage native speakers to ensure appropriately adapted translations for each target market.
Mind the Tone
Communication style preferences vary across cultures. Germans prefer formal language while Brazilians appreciate casual speech.
Make sure localized messaging aligns with cultural norms.
Localize Design
Consider how visual elements translate across regions. Colors, symbols and images may convey different meanings globally.
Images showing alcohol could offend audiences in Muslim countries, for example.
Follow Local Laws
Countries have unique regulations around electronic communications. Be aware of anti-spam, privacy and opt-in/opt-out laws.
Ignoring requirements could get your emails blocked or banned.
Other Email Elements to Localize
Every email component should get translated for global audiences.
Subject Lines
Keep subject lines concise everywhere. Translated lines often run longer in certain languages.
Use emojis to grab attention. But make sure to localize them appropriately.
Calls-to-Action
Even short CTAs can break formatting after translation. triple check fit, clarity and impact.
Email Signatures
Sign-off language matters across cultures. Americans use “Regards” while Brits prefer “Cheers.”
Adapt signatures to local sensibilities.
Time Zone Testing
People open emails most often on weekdays between 10-11 AM local time.
Test sending times to find optimal delivery for each market.
Streamline Multilingual Campaigns
Manually running global email marketing gets impossibly messy:
- Files get lost in spreadsheets
- Teams struggle coordinating translations
- Changes require starting over
Modern software solutions simplify scaling email localization.
Translation Management System
A TMS centralizes assets and linguists to unite your global workflow. Changes sync automatically across versions.
Order professional human translations or use machine translation – whatever fits your needs and budget.
Email Service Integrations
Connecting marketing platforms like Mailchimp, HubSpot and SendGrid to a TMS keeps email translation seamless.
Assets flow directly between tools without manual hassle. Updates stay in sync across originals and translations.
Translation Memory
Translation memory stores your linguistic assets for reuse. You won’t translate the same content twice.
The more you localize, the more time and money you save on future projects.
Take Your Emails Global
75% prefer customer support in their native language. And 66% are more likely to buy when content is localized.
Email translation removes language barriers to deliver locally-relevant messaging. This drives better global customer connections to boost multilingual engagement and sales.
Hopefully this guide provided ideas to help improve your international email marketing results. The world awaits your localized campaigns!
About the Author
I’m a marketing translator with over 5 years experience localizing global campaigns. Fluent in 4 languages, I specialize in adapting messaging across cultures.
Why Email Translation Matters
Expanding reach beyond English-speakers grows your business. Let’s explore why email translation is so important.
Bigger Audience
Only 25% of internet users speak English. Spanish, Mandarin and Arabic lead among internet languages.
Translating emails makes your message understandable to billions more people. I once helped a client tap into the Spanish-language market in Latin America. Translating their promotional emails allowed them to reach an entirely new regional audience.
After translating just a few initial emails, they saw open and click-through rates in Latin America increase by over 30%. This traffic boosted Spanish website visits and led to new customer acquisitions across Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Chile.
Better Customer Experience
Over 75% prefer buying in their native language. And 40% won’t buy from English-only websites.
Sending emails in your customers’ language provides a seamless experience. This builds loyalty to your brand.
I worked with an ecommerce retailer selling household products globally through Amazon and their own multilingual website. They were sending abandoned cart emails only in English.
We translated versions into German, French and Spanish. The client saw re-engagement and recovery revenue increase substantially across those markets.
One Spanish-speaking customer in Mexico even emailed saying how happy he was to get a reminder in his own language. He really appreciated not having to try and decode an English email.
Increased Revenue
Studies show sites gain over 25% more traffic when localized. Higher traffic leads to more sales.
Email translation also boosts clicks and conversions. One language can’t connect with everyone. More languages mean more money.
A travel client wanted to promote tours and packages to East Asia. Targeting Japan, South Korea and China offered major revenue potential.
But the client’s emails were English-only. Together, we translated emails into Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese.
When sent to cold prospect lists in each country, the localized emails saw 25-50% above-average open rates. Clicks to the landing pages were 2-3X higher than their domestic email performance.
Within one quarter, bookings from those 3 countries increased 30%. And within 6 months, East Asia revenue share jumped from less than 5% to over 15% overall.
Challenges with Email Localization
Translating emails brings complexities. But solutions exist to simplify multilingual campaigns.
Multiple Languages
Managing translations across many languages gets complicated fast. It’s easy for things to slip through the cracks.
On one project with a technology vendor, we had to translate a product announcement email into 16 different languages. Keeping track of each language version, coordinating linguists, getting reviews from local teams – it was a major effort to keep organized.
We set up a project management tracker and set internal deadlines for different stages. Localizers uploaded translations into a centralized database. This allowed us to closely monitor progress and quickly identify any pieces falling behind.
Cultural Adaptation
You can’t just run emails through Google Translate. Cultural norms require adapting messaging and design for each target country.
I once made the mistake of not thoroughly reviewing a translated email. A jewelry client wanted to send a Valentine’s Day promo to Spanish-speaking markets.
The translated email highlighted giving romantic gifts to your spouse or girlfriend. But in many Latin cultures, Valentine’s Day is more about celebrating friendship – less about couples or romantic love.
We wound up offending many recipients by implying they should have a romantic partner on Valentine’s Day. This taught me an important lesson about thoroughly vetting localized content!
Brand Consistency
Maintaining tone and voice across regions is difficult. And visuals may not resonate the same way everywhere.
Working on a global email for a major hotel chain, we had to strike a balance between brand consistency and local relevance. Each property wanted to promote regional attractions from food to landmarks.
But the client needed to maintain branding and messaging aligned with their global luxury hospitality image. We solved this by creating a primary English email for global distribution. Then for each region, we created localized versions highlighting local details while keeping the core content intact.
Design Constraints
From text expansion to right-to-left languages, design needs change for different locales. Accommodating every variation is tough.
In one case translating an email into Japanese broke the entire message formatting. The text expanded beyond the template width as often happens switching to double-byte languages.
We learned to build emails with dynamic templates to accommodate longer text strings. Header and body images need background colors and whitespace to avoid clashing with expanded content.
Right-to-left languages like Arabic and Hebrew also shift text justification and layout entirely. Sometimes you need to completely recreate an email to account for bidirectional formats.
Best Practices for Localization
Follow these email translation tips to boost campaign performance:
Know Your Audience
Research countries you want to target. Learn common languages, cultural nuances, privacy laws, device preferences and more.
These insights will inform localization decisions.
If you’re used to marketing solely to American or British audiences, targeting different cultures takes some adjustment. Start by learning a bit about local languages in target expansion locations.
Ask native speakers how they prefer to communicate professionally and casually. Understanding formality preferences and etiquette provides helpful context for localization.
Also research device usage, popular email platforms, privacy laws and local holidays celebrated across any new geographies. This background makes adapting emails easier.
Speak Their Language
Translate into languages your audience actually uses. For example, most Indians don’t operate in English.
Prioritize languages that promise the widest reach and highest ROI potential.
When considering expanding email distribution to Brazil, start by translating copy into Portuguese – not Spanish. Though the two languages seem similar, Brazilians appreciate communications in their own distinct language.
Adapt Messaging
Don’t just run content through Google Translate. Messages require cultural adaptation to land effectively.
Engage native speakers to ensure appropriately adapted translations for each target market.
Working with Spanish speakers to translate English emails taught me a lot about cultural preferences. I assumed our casual, conversational messaging would resonate across markets.
But Spanish-language customers responded better to more formal-sounding emails. Removing contractions and shortening sentences boosted engagement. This let readers understand emails as professional communications rather than casual chatter.
Mind the Tone
Communication style preferences vary across cultures. Germans prefer formal language while Brazilians appreciate casual speech.
Make sure localized messaging aligns with cultural norms.
When localizing English emails for German B2B audiences, take a formal tone. Avoid contractions and any overly-casual phrases in both subject lines and body content. Lean more professional than conversational.
Meanwhile Brazilian consumers respond better to casual, conversational messaging. Lead with a friendly introduction in emails and don’t be afraid to use contractions or local slang.
These examples demonstrate the importance of adapting tone and voice for each audience based on accepted cultural norms.
Localize Design
Consider how visual elements translate across regions. Colors, symbols and images may convey different meanings globally.
Images showing alcohol could offend audiences in Muslim countries, for example.
A photo of coworkers toasting cocktails may seem fun and engaging to Western audiences. But featuring alcohol would get emails blocked in Middle Eastern countries where drinking goes against religious laws.
Instead, consider inclusive images like diverse teams collaborating. Or choose culturally-neutral motifs like computers or landscapes to support global inclusion.
Also be thoughtful with color selection. Red signifies happiness in China but danger in Germany. Do research to understand color symbolism across target markets.
Follow Local Laws
Countries have unique regulations around electronic communications. Be aware of anti-spam, privacy and opt-in/opt-out laws.
Ignoring requirements could get your emails blocked or banned.
In Europe, GDPR rules require clear opt-in consent to send emails. Make sure subscription flows specify how data gets used.
Provide easy unsubscribe access in all messages as well. Respect data privacy considerations your American subscribers may not expect. Honor all opt-out requests promptly.
Fines for violating territorial regulations could really damage your email marketing efforts. When expanding distribution, be sure to research and comply with local laws.
Other Email Elements to Localize
Every email component should get translated for global audiences. Let’s explore common elements that need adaptation.
Subject Lines
Keep subject lines concise everywhere. Translated lines often run longer in certain languages.
Use emojis to grab attention. But make sure to localize them appropriately.
Avoid overlong email subjects that risk getting truncated in preview panes. Try limiting translated lines to under 50 characters maximum.
I once helped localize a sale announcement email with the subject “Biggest Sale of the Year!” Pretty straightforward…until the German translation read “Gr????ter Verkauf des Jahres!” – 29 characters longer!
We shortened the subject to “Sale des Jahres!” to keep the preview display intact. Remember to leave room for expanded translations in subject length.
Also use culturally-relevant emojis in subject lines and content to catch the eye. But make sure symbols carry the right meaning in every culture. The thumbs up gesture in Asia communicates a vulgar curse rather than “great job!”
Calls-to-Action
Even short CTAs can break formatting after translation. Triple check fit, clarity and impact.
Calls-to-action often get lost in translation. “Download Now!” becomes “Descargue Ahora!” – adding over 25% length. This longer phrase can break visual formatting.
Pay close attention when translating CTAs to keep messaging clear and concise. Check whether translations fit within design layouts without breaking.
If necessary, condense translated calls-to-action for brevity and clarity. Leaving out unnecessary verbs or articles helps shorten CTAs without losing meaning.
Email Signatures
Sign-off language matters across cultures. Americans use “Regards” while Brits prefer “Cheers.”
Adapt signatures to local sensibilities.
Avoid confusion by localizing sign-off valedictions in your email signatures. Russians appreciate the formality of “With respect” while Spaniards respond better to a warm, “Cordially”.
Meanwhile, “Best regards” strikes the right professional-yet-friendly tone for German correspondents.
Make sure localized email signatures align cultural preferences for an authentic feel. These small details help reinforce localization efforts.
Time Zone Testing
People open emails most often on weekdays between 10-11 AM local time.
Test sending times to find optimal delivery for each market.
Rather than blasting global emails simultaneously, take time zones into account. Stagger sends to reach audiences just before or after the start of a typical workday.
You don’t want emails hitting inboxes in the middle of the night only to get buried by newer messages come morning. Pace distribution across geographies for ideal visibility.
Ideally test localized email performance at different delivery windows to determine optimal regional send times. Chinese customers likely prefer early morning while Argentinians respond better mid-morning.
Streamline Multilingual Campaigns
Manually running global email marketing gets impossibly messy:
- Files get lost in spreadsheets
- Teams struggle coordinating translations
- Changes require starting over
Modern software solutions simplify scaling email localization. Let’s explore a few ways to streamline coordination:
Translation Management System
A TMS centralizes assets and linguists to unite your global workflow. Changes sync automatically across versions.
Order professional human translations or use machine translation – whatever fits your needs and budget.
Rather than emailing spreadsheets back and forth, a cloud-based translation management system provides one hub for all your multilingual assets. Upload source files and assign to linguists for adaptation.
Stakeholders get access to review and approve translations on a single platform. Best of all, updates sync across versions automatically. No more manually transferring changes between translated files!
TMS dashboards also allow managing human linguists, machine translation and external translation vendors from one view. Mix and match resources to fit budget and quality needs per project.
Email Service Integrations
Connecting marketing platforms like Mailchimp, HubSpot and SendGrid to a TMS keeps email translation seamless.
Assets flow directly between tools without manual hassle. Updates stay in sync across originals and translations.
Copying or exporting localized emails out of TMS databases risks versions diverging over time. Instead, look for platforms offering deep integrations with major email service providers.
Bi-directional sync connects localization workflows directly with downstream delivery tools. Translated email copies living natively within ESP platforms stay automatically updated.
This avoids manual export/import whenever you tweak source language emails. Updates flow through to localized versions without hassle.
Translation Memory
Translation memory stores your linguistic assets for reuse. You won’t translate the same content twice.
The more you localize, the more time and money you save on future projects.
Translation memory captures every translated email, landing page, blog post and more into an adaptive database. The system “remembers” translations to repurpose on future localization projects.
You won’t waste budget paying linguists to adapt the same content over again. Translation memory spots duplicate strings and automatically pulls in previous translationscopy
In conclusion, email translation and personalization are not just about reaching a wider audience; they are about connecting with that audience in a meaningful and respectful way. By translating and localizing your emails, you demonstrate a commitment to understanding and valuing the cultural differences of your customers. This approach fosters trust, enhances customer experience, and ultimately drives increased engagement and revenue.
Read More: The Power of Translation Memory: A Guide