Marketers and advertising agencies have not realised of a growing untapped market to access billions of ringgit worth of sale – the vernacular markets.
The majority of our ads and posts are written and targeted to the English language speaking audiences, but the ads that are written and spoken in Malay and Mandarin are killing it with sales.
An insurance sales agent recently contacted us and said, “I don’t know how my colleagues who posts things in Malay on facebook and Whatsapp get lots of sales, and I can’t”. She did not realise that the answer was within her question. Her English copy was not targeted to any specific group. If she had written in Tamil, she might have a better response from her Indian leads, or in Malay to Malay leads.
This is the great yet unique thing about Malaysia, we have these three races and languages, and marketers can use this to their advantage. The majority of marketers, local and foreign, create ads and posts in English, and this has jammed up the space, leaving the Malay and Chinese spaces fairly open. Now, the clever marketer should create marketing material in other languages to entice readers and sales from these markets.
Today, we all know that the fishmonger has more money than the person with the iphone and fancy car. Property developers treat anyone in a Fung Keong t-shirt with more respect than the fellow in fancy clothes, who would need a bank loan to buy his property, unlike the fishmonger. But the fishmonger does not speak any English, and is not educated, but is cash-rich.
A property developer whose main target is the Chinese who contacted us yesterday understood this well. Their facebook posts are mainly in Mandarin. This only means that they are targeting the Mandarin speaking audience. They wanted to train their sales staff in Lead Generation & Copywriting, in Mandarin. We are able to help them.
Here are 3 useful tips for writing copy in a vernacular language:
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Your target audience may not know English language but has the resources or finances to purchase your products, even expensive products like property
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Your target audience may only subscribe to a vernacular language media and not English media
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Your target audience may feel comfortable dealing with sales people who speak the language of his or her mother tongue
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Your target audience may trust the people who speak in his or her mother tongue
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Because your target audience is familiar with the written and spoken vernacular language, he or she may feel more confident when reading and and understanding contracts (as in property and insurance, etc.).
So there you have it. These are just a few reasons why you should consider writing in Malay or Mandarin to expand your reach to a wider target audience to get in more sales.
If you wish to learn or train your sales and marketing staff in Mandarin Copywriting, the School Of Digital Advertising can help you. Simply send us an email to discuss the details.
– By Schoolofdigitaladvertising.com
