As a social entrepreneur operating in North America, you’ve likely discovered that some (or many) of your customers are not native speakers of English. This is to be expected when 45 million Americans speak another language at home besides English (Spanish: 41.7 million and Chinese: 3.5 million)1. In Canada, where 211 languages are spoken, only 58% are native speakers of English, with 7.5 million native of French and 1.2 million native of Chinese.2
Have any of your customers ever asked if you offer your content in other languages? Even if they haven’t, you can be sure that, if you communicated with them in their native language, they would be the first to promote you to their non-English speaking relatives and friends. Remember, your customers will feel you truly care about them when you make the effort to speak their language and ensure they understand your messaging.
I’m speaking from personal experience. With English as my mother tongue, I’m married to a Brazilian and we raised our children in Brazil for 11 years. Even though I’m completely fluent in Portuguese, when I consume content online, particularly health-related educational content, I always choose English first. I’m more comfortable in my native language. And so are your customers.
So, if you’re looking for new ways to deepen your relationship with your customers and attract new customers to your business, consider offering your content in another language. It’s actually quite simple and cost-effective to do. With the content already written in English, it only requires some minor adaptation and translation for the new language audience. Then you can leverage your existing customers to expand your reach into this language group. We can walk you through the steps to broaden your customer base with little investment of time and money.
Sources:
1 https://www.statista.com/statistics/183483/ranking-of-languages-spoken-at-home-in-the-us-in-2008/
2 https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/most-spoken-languages-in-canada