To put it in plain English, business is brisk at Payoneer Inc., a payment services company that enables businesses to transact online payments among buyers and sellers. With a steady flow of new companies signing up for accounts on its web site, the company has grown sales 352% over the past three years, vice president of marketing Jonny Steel says.
But going far beyond communicating in just the English language—and localizing web content for many of the 200 markets the company does business in worldwide—is a key to its success, he adds.
“Localization sits at the center of our international business-to-business growth strategy, covering all aspects from our online web and mobile application, to promotional and customer support emails,” Steel says. “Most recently, we have expanded our content marketing, with a highly active blog and forum in eight languages.”
That strategy is helping Payoneer to connect online through Internet search and other forms of online marketing with an expanding worldwide base of small and mid-sized companies, which have been behind the spike in new customer registrations. As such, Payoneer’s growth is dependent on its ability “to maintain a successful and productive global marketing approach,” Steel says.
The five year-old company uses language translation services from One Hour Translation, whose web site, OneHourTranslation.com, gives clients the option to upload content and choose translation services, including whether they want general translation service for non-specialized content or special service from an expert in such areas as legal patents or aerospace.
Payoneer works with One Hour Translation to translate about 30 blog posts, multiple customer service inquiries, white papers and dozens of emails every month, Steel says. Its blog posts—such as “Top Six Keys to Freelancing,” which advises independent business contractors on how to get, manage and get paid for contracts—are designed to foster business connections and, in turn, increase demand for Payoneer’s payment services. Payoneer provides separate payment services for buyers and sellers, ranging from commercial payment cards that small businesses use to make online or offline purchases, to global bank transfers that corporations use to receive payments from customers.
With some 15,000 certified translators on its staff, One Hour Translation can translate two hundred-word documents within an hour, and two thousand within one day, the translation company says. It also translates audio files and videos. The company charges a base rate of eight cents per word, but its rates run as high as 17.9 cents per word for “expert” translations involving such content areas as legal, technology and medical.
Payoneer’s ability to localize and accurately translate the content on its website is strategic to its long-term growth plan, which is to expand and continue growing globally, Steel says. In a few weeks, the company plans to launch a Korean-language version of its website. In three months, Payoneer will launch a new version of its mobile application, and One Hour Translation will translate it into eight languages.
Displaying web content localized for individual markets also helps Payoneer carry out other growth strategies that depend on communicating with clients in their own language in markets like South Korea and Vietnam, where Payoneer hadn’t been doing much marketing, Steel says. For example, localized content can increase participation in Payoneer’s referral program in a new foreign market, he says. Under the program, a small-business client can refer an associate to Payoneer and, once the associate runs up $100 in payments, Payoneer will credit each of them $25 in hopes of winning their loyalty as clients.
In some cases, localized web content helps Payoneer build relationships with native-language clients who become active in sharing Payoneer’s product information in social media and get involved in business networking. “We see a situation like that, bring on board a marketing manager who speaks the language, and start to really engage with our customers,” Steel says. “We do a lot of listening like, ‘Who are you, what are you using us for, how can we improve?’ Once we start to get a better grip, we use those customers to turn into advocates for the brand.”
Payoneer may build on these efforts, he adds, “to try and bridge the gap between big U.S. companies like Getty Images, Amazon.com and Airbnb.com, and these small business owners around the world” who may begin to use Payoneer’s payment services to conduct business transactions, Steel says.
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