International Trade and Marketing Article

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

The economic theory of comparative advantage states that each country of the world should specialise in the production of goods that it can most efficiently provide, which should encourage unrestricted international trade and increased global efficiency.

This is perhaps an idealistic view because many countries, for a variety of political and economic reasons, erect barriers to the free movement of goods and services between other nations. Agreements are formed which encourage free trade within defined geographical regions.

The European Union is a prime example of a free trade zone. Many of the regulatory barriers, which used to make business dealings with other European countries difficult, have now been removed in order to stimulate cross border trade. The only remaining barrier to success within the EU is that of language.

One principal reason that has spurred a number of UK companies to enter into EU trading is because UK markets are now legitimately opened up to all EU countries. The only way for them to significantly increase their market share is to enter other EU markets.

However, without an effective multilingual marketing campaign the efforts can be largely ineffective. The majority of our work tends to focus on opening up the European market for British based organisations, but many businesses have reservations about marketing themselves in this way. Most can see the potential gains from such a move, but are concerned that they are going to be overrun with enquiries from overseas, and that they have limited in-house language skills to deal with that.

However, the point of multilingual marketing is not so that you can do business with foreign clients is their language, but is about bringing overseas customers to your website to do business with you in English. The English language is widely regarded as the international language of business, and looks set to remain so, but people will always use their native language to conduct initial product research. Catching the attention of the potential buyer at this initial research stage is crucial if you are to channel them further into your sales funnel and convert them into customers.

People scan text more quickly in their own language and this speeds up the information gathering and decision making processes; this is where multilingual information about your company and your products gives a clear and tangible competitive advantage. If a potential client is looking for you, then make it easier for them to find you. People need to know who you are and what you can offer before they take the next steps. Once the first level of trust has been built, people are more likely to contact you in order to take things further, and this is where English becomes the common language.