I was listening to an interview with Mike Geary, conducted by Mike Filsaime and Anik Silver, from inside the Launch Tree members area. The topic of the interview focused on Mike G’s efforts to market his ebook on getting six-pack abs in different languages, which he has successfully done to the tune of several millions of dollars of additional revenue thanks to entering markets in German, French and Spanish.
Over the years I’ve been asked many times by new bloggers who are coming from non-English speaking backgrounds whether they should attempt to start a blog in English, even though English is not their first language, or focus their blog on their native tongue.
Although the answer to this question varies depending on the market and languages involved, in general I tell people to go with the language they are strongest in, especially if they are going to write their blog themselves. In fact, I believe many non-English markets represent a huge untapped opportunity, and listening to this interview cemented my assumption further.
Pay Per Click In Japanese
I remember thinking years ago as I began to study some of Perry Marshall’s work on Pay Per Click marketing, that there is no way this kind of information is available to study in other languages to the depth that Perry had taken it. This to me represented an opportunity to become “the Perry” of Japan, or another country and potentially make a lot of money (unfortunately I only speak Canadian, so I wasn’t in a position to go for it).
Taking the other side of the coin to teaching PPC in other countries, a big opportunity exists if you can implement PPC in other languages to sell anything from affiliate products to your own goods or services.
People in other countries use Google to search too, thus there is a huge untapped market potential to buy traffic through paid search in other languages, where your competition will either be non-existent or very weak. This will likely be a much more affordable source of traffic compared to the English equivalent, since PPC like AdWords is driven on a supply/demand model for pricing. The less competition for keywords, the less you pay.
In the case of bloggers, establishing an authority blog that dominates a niche, or even better – defines a niche – can be done in other languages as well and usually means you face far fewer bloggers writing about the same thing.
Imagine if I was the only blogger writing about Internet marketing in say Japanese? That means I could launch products and have a captive audience. Provided I did a good job, which means I provide relevant, valuable information for that target market, I could become the go-to guy for that subject in that language and have a lot of customers as a result.
Of course it’s not likely you will have absolutely no competition in non-English markets, but it is very likely you won’t have many quality competitors. Let’s state something that might be obvious – Americans are fantastic marketers. That’s not saying there aren’t good marketers in other countries, but generally speaking at least, there won’t be as many, it’s simply a numbers game.
Go Foreign
You can take this idea to virtually any marketplace in another language, as long as one condition is satisfied – there has to be enough people who speak that language to support your idea.
As Mike pointed out in the interview, the languages he went after like German, French and Spanish have tens or even hundreds of millions of people who speak that language, in tech savvy countries who use the Internet, including Google search, on a regular basis.
Assuming your language has enough people to support it, then it’s simply a matter of picking a market you have expertise in and get out there and dominate.
If there’s a market in English that is profitable and massive, for example – dating, weight loss, health or make money – there’s a very good chance you will have a hungry market in other languages, and they won’t be serviced by nearly as many quality products and services since very few companies bother to tap into other languages beyond English.
You could start a blog in another language, or like Mike, convert your ebook to another language and use your same marketing techniques (e.g. PPC) in other languages, or any product or service you currently sell to English markets.
What If You Don’t Have A Product?
One of the ideas I really liked that came out of the interview, if you are fluent in another language and have some marketing savvy, is to head to a site like Clickbank, find the best sellers, and then offer to partner with the product producer to create a version in another language that you market together in a partnership.
Although I didn’t quite catch the exact numbers in the interview, I got the impression that for example Mike’s foray into the German language resulted in a couple of million dollars in extra revenue. Although 75% of that went to affiliates in this case (that’s what Mike pays out in Clickbank), even if that leaves only around half a million left over in profit, if you’re splitting that with the creator of the book, you’re walking away pretty happy.
The great thing about this strategy is you don’t have to worry about finding profitable markets or creating a product or perhaps even figuring out how to market it. You’re job as the “translator” is to take the product and the system used to sell it and then make it work in your language and get a nice cut of the profits in exchange. The creator of the product wins too as he or she gets access to an entire new marketplace without needing to do much work beyond helping to ensure everything is implemented as it should be.
There are layers to an arrangement like this that you would have to nut out carefully. Success depends on the relationship you establish and a clear communication over who is responsible for what, but this is nothing different from any business partnership.
Dominate Local Markets
If you’re reading this, you understand some basics of online marketing and you have a strong understanding of a language other than English, you should consider what could be done in your local market.
Most people don’t, so that’s why this is such a great opportunity – and it won’t be like this forever.
As online marketers become more savvy you will see companies expanding into other markets and it will become competitive in other languages too. Right now you still have plenty of opportunity even in the most popular industries, so don’t let this pass if you’re in a position to go for it.
Yaro Starak
Typing English
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