Issues related to language translation can make some businesses hesitant to expand internationally. While English is a lingua franca of sorts, especially within the EU, studies show that consumers prefer to shop, and be marketed to, in their native language.
Luckily, translation companies abound. “A quick search on the web will come up with hundreds of them,” says Henry Heavisides, a UK consultant who was responsible for launching the Lands’ End catalogue into Germany. “Have a look through and see which seem to have expertise in your particular niche, as generally if they have worked in your specific area of translation before, they will have a better idea of what you want. Alternatively you may want to work with a local freelance translator who can really get to know your company and the style you want to have.”
James Johnson-Ferguson, managing director of UK consultancy Catalogue Services, advises making sure that your translator is comfortable with mail order copy. “You don’t simply want a word-for-word translation; you need to sell product off the page, and that’s what the picture combined with the copy and the price do for you,” he says.
A few more suggestions: Be sure to “back test” the translation. “Find another native speaker of the language and get him to read your translated copy and let you know what kind of tone it has,” Heavisides says. “This could be an additional cost, but it could help you avoid costly mistakes.”
And be aware that certain languages require more space for copy than others. A sentence that takes up three lines of a copy block in English could easily take up four—or more—in German. “This affects page design for catalogues if you are using the same page layouts in both countries,” Heavisides notes.
This year marks the 10th anniversary in the UK of La Redoute, the mail order company that has made a name for itself by providing quality fashion with that extra 'Je ne sais quoi'. Stephanie Smith reports.
Once upon a time, catalogue shopping was a rather humdrum affair, hard to get excited about. In the main it was just pages and pages of serviceable, cheap-looking suits, blouses, beige anoraks and men with plastic hair posing ludicrously in Y-fronts
(actually, those pages were the best ones; well, the funniest, anyway). But in the last 15 years or so, mail order fashion has seen something of a revolution, with the launch of likes of the Next catalogue and Boden, plus many specialised companies, which means oodles of options, whatever you want – cutting edge fashion, formal wear for children, luxury knitwear, the choice goes on. Ten years ago, leading French mail order company La Redoute came to the UK, bringing with it a much-needed injection of continental chic to the mail order fashion market. Fabrics are quality, prices reasonable, but the main attraction of La Redoute lies in the fact that it brings something out of the ordinary to the catalogue shopper in search of style. Its very Frenchness is its strength. All the clothes and products (La Redoute caters for men, women, children and the home) are designed in France with high profile designers brought in every season to create small capsule collections. "We have international designers and brands, but we are still very French," said Henry Heavisides, La Redoute director and general manager of the UK operation, which is based in Bradford (La Redoute is part of umbrella organisation Redcats – short for La Redoute catalogues – which also owns Empire catalogues). "We do try to maintain high quality standards. We're one of the largest apparel retailers in France, so we are able to invest in that side of the business." Mail order retailing has been a constantly challenging and changing world in recent years, he explained. "The main change has been the move to more direct personal home shopping," he said. "Traditionally in the UK we had catalogues and agents who sold to friends and neighbours, but over the last 10 to 15 years the process has changed so that people shop directly with the catalogues." Then, of course, there has been the internet, and it is here that the future challenges of mail order shopping lie, presenting all mail order companies with the challenge of presentation and access. "We are investing in that area and in the future development of websites. These will be much more consumer friendly and innovative than the previous generation," said Henry Heavisides. High fashion, with the few clicks of a mouse, direct to your door. We've seen the future and it's very chic.
The biggest challenge in recent years for marketing in catalogue businesses has been how to integrate the web. Initially, many cataloguers set up separate web teams, these were usually small and operated in a bit of a vacuum away from the mainstream marketing activity which was at the core of the business. This separation wasn’t helped by the use of new and different terminology and methods of measurement. Increasingly, however, the internet has moved very much to the centre of most catalogue businesses.
There have been, and continue to be, many challenges to this new multi-channel approach. It’s not always easy to compare results of offline and online marketing activities making allocations of budgets between them quite difficult. This is compounded by increasing cannibalisation between different marketing activities. A prospective customer who is sent a mailing may respond online, without using any promotional codes, making it difficult to track where the order originated. Very few catalogue businesses trade with web customers purely online.....they are likely to send them paper catalogues and mailings in addition to electronic communications.
These challenges and complications are compounded in companies which operate physical retail stores in addition to catalogues and ecommerce. As a general rule customers see the brand as one entity rather than separate shops, catalogues and websites, thus expect marketing communications to reflect this. In an ideal world there is a seamless mix of paper mailings, advertising, PR, online activities and in store promotions. How can this be best achieved? To have separate marketing teams operating in isolation from each other is unlikely to be an optimum solution. To have a multi- disciplined team covering all types of marketing activities is ideal, but can be very difficult with very different types of expertise required.
At the ECMOD session on 21st Century Marketing, we will explore these challenges, along with others. Our panel of knowledgeable and experienced presenters will include people with quite diverse backgrounds, from traditional mail order businesses to online start ups. It is certain that we will have different views and opinions on how best to operate in the new business environment. We will have a mix of presentations, panel sessions and question and answer sessions, so expect some lively exchanges and come armed with challenging questions for our experts.
As a taster, one topic that we will certainly cover is new customer recruitment. In the traditional direct marketing world, we already had a wide range of ways to recruit new customers: prospection catalogue mailings to rented lists, 2- stage mailings, direct response advertising, both 1-stage and 2-stage, recommend a friend campaigns, TV and of course many variations on these. When we now add pay per click activity, natural search optimisation, email, viral campaigns and potentially marketing activities using mobile phones and other telephone campaigns, it is clear that the job of recruiting new customers is potentially very wide ranging in scope. So how should you decide where to allocate your customer recruitment budget? (Not even considering how should you split your overall marketing budget between recruiting new customers and promoting to existing customers). Simple measures such as cost per new customer can give us an initial comparison between different campaigns. However, you really need to dig deeper than this. What kind of customers are you recruiting and what value do they bring to the business? If you make a profit on your first order from a new customer, this is arguably less important than if you are recruiting customers who you expect to get a profitable return in future orders over, say, the next two to three years.
Customers recruited from different sources typically have a very different profile and will respond to future marketing activities in different ways. This is especially true in a multi-channel environment. Don’t expect a customer coming from pay per click to respond to future direct mail campaigns in a way that one recruited from a 2-stage list rental campaign. On the other hand it may cost you a fraction of the amount to recruit the pay per click customer. One of the key factors with online customers is the ease to access competitor sites and to be able to compare products, prices, service etc. This inevitably means that it is more difficult to retain online customers. This then opens up a whole new debate....how to generate loyalty from online customers. Do you need to differentiate your brand, differentiate your products or service, sell at the lowest possible price, or something else?
At the 21st Century Marketing session, we don’t claim to have all of the answers, however we will aim to ask some challenging questions, provide a lively debate and discussion of the issues as well as hopefully giving you some good practical ideas that you will be able to use in your business. But remember there are no right or wrong answers. What works in one business may not work in another. The only way to find out what works for you is to testnew approaches.
Published October 2008
Contact Henry Heavisides - Management Consultant at HJH Consulting here
