General Principles
Accuracy
Ideally, graphic designers and copy-writers should be able to work in both languages, so that the nuances of the minority language are appreciated by all key professionals involved.
Accuracy is obviously of prime importance in any language. Companies should not automatically expect members of staff who are minority language speakers to undertake translations unless they are totally confident and qualified. Translation is a specialist skill, and errors can prove expensive, especially on signs.
If businesses need marketing materials translated, the best advice is always to use a professional translator, even for small jobs.
Specific marketing tools
In this section, we consider individual marketing activities and ways in which a regional or minority language could be introduced. Examples of good practice are shown. The relative importance of each will obviously vary, depending on the size and type of organisation, business priorities, available budgets and so on.
International Brands
Here are two examples of multinational companies with internationally recognised brands. Rebranding the products in a minority language would obviously be inappropriate, but the companies engender goodwill and publicity by advertising in the local minority language—Welsh in the case of Coca Cola and Irish in the case of KitKat.
Visual Material
The visual appearance of two languages can have a striking effect on the impression customers have of your business. It’s also an easy way to start operating bilingually, even if you do not have any staff who speak the minority language.
Corporate identity
Your company logo and corporate identity convey a very powerful message about your business ethos and values. As this is the first impression the public get of the company, the bilingual element is most important. If you wish to develop a bilingual corporate identity, you should make sure that your designer is aware from the outset that you need to incorporate both languages in the logo and any application of it.
Signage
You could consider installing bilingual signage, both internally and externally; this can have a large impact for very little if any additional cost and be good value for money. In addition, how about putting the regional/minority language on your company vehicles, to take your message to a wider audience?
Local Branding—Local Names
Using a minority language conveys a strong message linking a product to the region or country. In the case of food and drink, this often creates and impression of high quality. Many standard bilingual signs may be available off the shelf. Pictograms can also be used instead of words, where appropriate.
Many companies these days use electronic signs, on which the messages change regularly, or move across a screen. In most cases, it’s a simple matter to ensure that the messages appear in two – or more - languages.
Print material – booklets, pamphlets, leaflets, flyers, posters
Marketing leaflets and booklets are relatively small documents, cost-effective to produce, and widely distributed. By preparing well-designed bilingual versions you can create a significant effect for reasonable cost, especially since these are often the first contact between the company and prospective clients.
Letterhead and other stationery
A letterhead, compliment slip or business card is very often a customer’s first impression of your business – and a bilingual format creates an immediate impact.
Other print materials can be bilingual for little extra effort too – such as price lists, orders, response forms, invoices and receipts. What better way of ensuring that customers pay on time than generating their goodwill with bilingual bills and invoices!
Correspondence and direct mail
Many minority language speakers feel more comfortable using that language in correspondence. The usual procedure would be for any company receiving letters in a particular language to reply using the same language, which again respects customers’ language choice and generates their goodwill. By keeping records of a customer’s preferred language, you can offer a more personalised service.
Direct mail is an extremely powerful marketing tool, often one of the most cost-effective in terms of generating response. By using the minority language to target areas where there is a high percentage of the population who are speakers of that language, you may well generate an even more favourable response.
If you have a range of standard letters, it’s a relatively easy task to prepare different language versions of each one, with the help of a professional translator if you don’t have members of staff who write confidently in both languages.
Packaging and labelling materials
If you manufacture products locally, such as food, drink or craft items, you have a golden opportunity to add value by packaging and labelling your products in the minority language of the region/country. This attracts attention and increases customer satisfaction. Such items can be of particular interest to visitors from outside the region, encouraging them to buy souvenirs not available at home.
Advertising and Publicity
When using a minority language in advertising and publicity campaigns, you must ensure early in the planning process that everyone involved realises that this is to be a bilingual campaign. Planning bilingual activities from the outset is much more cost-effective than trying to add a second language at a later stage.
Press advertisements
Using a regional or minority language in advertisements conveys a very positive message. It may be possible to place bilingual advertisements in majority language publications to good effect. If so, make sure that you get chance to proofread the copy as errors appearing in print can be embarrassing and counter-productive.
There may be local minority language newspapers and magazines which can be an excellent medium for reaching a wide minority language audience.
Press Releases
It’s definitely worth considering producing your company’s press releases bilingually. They will be more likely to attract attention – and possibly a more favourable response to your company’s viewpoint – from the many journalists who work in regional or minority languages. They may also encourage greater awareness and use of the minority language among some majority language press.
TV, radio and open-air advertisements
It may be possible to broadcast minority language versions of advertisements, even on majority language channels. For TV, you could consider sub-titling, or producing separate soundtracks, but you should aim at equality between the two languages in your advertisements.
On minority language channels, advertisements can be shown monolingually in that language.
Information Technology
The role of IT in every business is constantly increasing, and there are a number of opportunities in this area to use minority languages. Developing a language choice option on your website is a relatively straightforward option, which conveys a clear message that you respect the principle of operating in both languages of the country or region. It is also a very cost-effective option for introducing an element of language choice. You should consider ensuring that your website address is available in both language versions.
Spellchecking software in a number of European regional or minority languages is available within Microsoft Office programs.
It is possible to adapt till software, for example, to add a message of thanks in the minority language, even if it is not possible to include all the information bilingually on a receipt. Also, it’s a relatively straightforward option to ensure that Automatic Transaction Machines (ATMs) offer a language choice which includes the local regional or minority language.
Promotions and public relations
Using the regional or minority language in promotional and PR campaigns is an extremely good way of showing that a business is anxious to support, and be a part of, the local community. There may be minority language voluntary groups – playgroups and nursery schools for instance - who need sponsorship in order to survive or develop. Supporting such initiatives can lead to a great deal of positive publicity and goodwill, as can sponsorship of cultural activities and festivals, such as the Eisteddfod in Wales or the Mod in Scotland.
Face To Face Contact
With customers whose first language is the regional or minority language, hearing the language and having the opportunity to speak it with your staff gives you an obvious business advantage. For people who don’t speak the language, whether they are from the region or not, the use of the language attracts interest and is a talking point.
There are several steps which you can consider in order to help your company to provide the best possible minority language customer interface.
Linguistic skills audit
The first step is to find out how many of your staff can speak, or are willing to learn, the language. You might be pleasantly surprised!
You should then identify those positions within your company which would most benefit from having regional or minority language speakers in them. In general, these will be those jobs with the most direct contact with the public, for example:
- receptionists;
- staff who answer the phone;
- counter staff and salespeople;
- cashiers and checkout staff.
Training
Find out how many of your staff would be interested in learning the language or in improving their linguistic skills. Your current staff are a valuable asset, and supporting them to allow them to help you to improve your bilingual service could be a very cost-effective investment.
This could vary from simple informal training, to enable staff to greet customers face to face or over the phone, to much more complicated specific requirements, depending on the needs of your business. Your first objective should be to maximise the language skills of those personnel who have direct contact with clients.
It is also important to set positive and appropriate response mechanisms in place. For example, responding with a phrase such as “I am learning [name of language]” rather than “sorry I don’t speak [name of language]”. This may well have training implications – in language sensitivity in addition to actual language learning.
Identifying the minority language speakers
It’s one thing to have staff who can speak the language, but quite another to make sure that your customers know where they are! You can suggest that staff indicate their ability to use the language by means of badges, desk signs and so on.
Greeting and thanking
Whether they speak the minority language fluently or not, everyone can learn to greet and thank customers bilingually, face to face and over the phone. Minority language customers don’t automatically expect a full service in that language every time they hear a bilingual greeting, but they will appreciate your efforts to use the language and to respect the principle of language choice.
Recruiting
Why not consider recruiting bilingual staff? You can note in job advertisements that you welcome applications from speakers of regional or minority languages, or you can denote some key jobs where speaking these languages is desirable or essential, as appropriate.
Many companies place bilingual job advertisements in the press. This can attract bilingual applicants for the jobs. You could also consider preparing bilingual job application forms.
Minority languages in the workplace
Even if you don’t speak the regional or minority language yourself, there are ways in which you can let your staff know that you take pride in their bilingual skills. This is simply good management practice, as it increases employees’ sense of identity with and loyalty to the company. Support and encourage staff members to speak the language together at work, as well as offering customers bilingual services. This will help learners especially, to develop more confidence to use the language when dealing with customers.
If you play background music at work, what about tuning into a local station or play recorded music in the minority language – rock, traditional folk or classical.