A practical guide on localization and multilingual online marketing for VR Property Managers and holiday rental professionals made by Mathieu Astier, founder of MEDIATEO and presented during the Vacation Rental Management Association (VRMA) European Summit 2016 in Barcelona, Spain.

1. Translation & Multilingual Content
A practical guide for Vacation Rental Professionals

2. 15 years of digital biz
10 years in online travel
Multilingual / Technical projects
B2C / B2B / Front-end / Back-end
Mathieu Astier
MEDIATEO
Founder
Hello!
Translations & Multilingual Content Marketing

3. Stating the obvious
Where do I pick up
the keys? Cancellation policy?
Cost for an extra
bed?
Deposit?
Refundable?
Can I speak to
someone?
Late check-in?
Booking fee?
Cleaning fee?

4. Why translate?
PART ONE

5. Translation means Not Losing Potential Customers*
> 72% spend most of their time online on websites in their own languages
> 72% more likely to buy a product or a service if the information is available in their
own language
> 90% of Europeans ALWAYS visit a website in their own language when given a
choice
> 42% of Europeans NEVER buy products or services if the information is not
available in their mother tongue
*Surveys by Common Sense Advisory & the European Commission (2015)

6. Translation means Branding
> Customer centric
> International outlook
> Culturally sensitive > “Cultural Comfort Zone”
>>> Multilingual content makes you look good
> Better User Experience
> Credibility / Trust

7. Translation means Cost-Effective Marketing
> Instant SEO presence
> Best R.O.I. practice : international image, capture new users, build relationships
with new clients, increase loyalty – returning visitors
> 1 language = many new markets
> Home-grown search engines : Google country extensions but also Russia’s Yandex,
South Korea’s Naver, Japan’s Yahoo Japan or China’s Baidu

8. Translation means New Opportunities
> New affiliates
> New Content Marketing partnerships
> Local classifieds, directories
> Multilingual PPC advertising campaigns
> New Distribution deals: meta-search platforms / booking platforms

9. Translation means Beating the Competition
Be as competitive: they have multilingual sites, so should you!
Be better than the competition – develop new niche languages
Beat the competition: give an extra push to strategic languages with in-house staff

10. Translation means Better KPIs
> Higher website traffic
> Higher Look to Book ratio
> Higher R.O.I. / Profit
> Higher booking volumes
> Higher user experience
> Larger social media fan/follower base

11. How ?
PART TWO

12. Translation vs Localization
Cultural Content
> Tone, style, humor
> Colors, graphics, images
> Seasonal events, religious celebrations…
Definitions
> Translation: substitute one language for another – in context
> Localization: adapting content to appeal to local audiences
Functional Content
> Date / time formats, telephone numbers, distances, address fields
> Currency, word order, place names etc…

13. Process ?
> Briefing: context, in-house lingo, industry terminology, technical terms, business
models & processes
> Text analysis
> Identify placeholders e.g. {currency} / {country} / {info_1}
> Text size
> Establish Glossary
> Authorized synonyms
> Q&A sessions
> Proofreading / Production site / Live Proofreading
> Modifications

14. Localization for SEO
> Research keywords / phrases: search volumes, competitiveness, etc…
> URL formats
SuperDuperVacationRentals.com/fr/apartments-in-barcelona/
SuperDuperVacationRentals.com/appartements-a-barcelone/
fr.SuperDuperVacationRentals.com
> Meta content (Title tags, ALT tags, Language tags, etc…)

15. Who is going to translate your business?
Should you give as much importance to the quality of your translations as to the
original content ?
Would you ask anyone who speaks your language to write your website content just
because they speak your language?
Would you ask anyone who speaks another language to translate your website
content just because they speak another language?

16. Google Translate?
… just don’t

17. Who is going to take care of your multi-lingual project?
Native
“Friends” | Offshore | Employees | In-house team | Agency
Legally established
1 project manager
Qualified translator
Sector knowledge
Available
Cost-effective ?

18. How much?
Well, it depends on how much you want to translate…
Vacation Rental Website content
> Website structure (architecture, database fields, calls to action, automatic emails, etc…)
> T&Cs / Privacy Policy/ About us / FAQs
> Property descriptions
> SEO pages : Destination pages, P.O.I. pages, Local tourist information…
On-site marketing
> Newsletters
> Blog
Off-site marketing
> Social networks
> Advertising campaigns, landing pages, visuals, etc…

19. Cost
> Price per word
> 0,08€ to 0,15€ per word according to technicality, language, volume
> Overall price according to technicality, languages, number of languages, volume, format, level of
urgeny, data entry, recurring business etc…
> Pace: 2500 words per day

20. You can start small…
> Website structure (architecture, database fields, calls to action, automatic emails, etc…)
> One-off property template translation
> 3000 words
> 300 € per language

21. Software localization platform
e.g. Poeditor.com
> Pulls content from your site / re-injects to your site
> Collaborative
> Builds translation memory
> Statistics

22. Software localization platform

23. Now what?
PART THREE

24. From localization to (Multilingual) Content Marketing
> Multilingual SEO strategy
Multilingual SEO content
- SEO pages: translating or producing multilingual SEO content
- Blogging: translating or producing multilingual blog posts
Quality backlinks:
- Online PR: translating or producing press releases in new languages
- Content marketing partnerships
e.g. “5 eccentric ways to visit Barcelona” on a local travel blog or magazine
- Local holiday classifieds, directories

25. From localization to (Multilingual) Content Marketing
> Newsletter marketing
- Translating or producing language specific newsletters
> Social Media
- Language/Country-specific accounts?
e.g. myVRbrand France/ myVRbrand Spain etc
- Publish on the same page ?
- Show it off to your whole audience ?
- or target a specific public?

26. THANK YOU!

27. Bonus

28. Translation fails

29. Translation fails

30. Translation fails

31. Translation fails

32. Translation fails