In the year 2021, India was rated second across the globe in terms of active Internet users, and the penetration rate increased to about 45%. According to the latest statistics from the Internet and mobile association India and Nielsen, rural India had 227 million active users in November 2019, which was 10% greater than urban India’s 205 million. According to the Google Kantar Video Landscape Research from September 2019, 93 percent of YouTube viewers prefer to consume content in their native language. With thousands of regional users joining the Internet every day, it is crucial for content creators to leverage the linguistic diversity of the country.

The concept of vernacular marketing has only recently gained traction as more and more people are realizing the effectiveness of curating content and strategies that speak to the masses. Google was the primary player in India that tapped into the vernacular Market when it introduced Voice Search in India in 2014, it enabled users to speak in Hindi and English. But it didn’t stop there. Soon after, voice-guided navigation was released, instructing users in almost 10 Indian languages. With brands like Google leading the steps, several others have followed the path.

Let’s see how vernacular marketing helps you build a strong brand:

? Improves reach

Whether your goal is to acquire or retain customers, speaking only one language may not serve the purpose. When your content is available in multiple languages, more people find it relevant. This automatically helps your content reach a wider and more diverse audience, which could prove to be good for business.

For example, if you are an educational video content curator on YouTube and you make English-only content, this would mean that only people who understand the language will be able to engage with the content (10% of the Indian population according to the 2011 census statistics). However, multilingual content would reach more accounts, resulting in significantly expanding your customer base and bringing in more traffic and future profits.

? Fosters Connection

The primary goal of content curation is to establish a connection with the audience, but many seldom fail in fulfilling that objective. The language barrier plays a very crucial role in this. Curating localized content based on the regional segments helps break this language barrier, fostering a strong connection with the brand.

For example, if you create cooking videos online and use Hindi as your primary language, the people from diverse regions of India would probably understand, but localized multilingual content based on the regional segments would help foster a newfound connection. This would then translate into an inclination towards your videos every time they want to watch cooking videos online.

? Builds trust

The goal of any business is to create customer loyalty. But the road to loyalty is not a piece of cake. It stems from the trust, and it’s critical that they properly comprehend the message you are trying to put across. Language fosters that sense of trust by bringing transparency. Multilingual content provides the audience an option to watch content in their choice of language.

Let’s understand this by taking a scenario. If you have an app that is a platform for businesses to register and sell, it will only make sense for the business to create educational videos to explain the registration and listing process to the potential customers. If these videos were in multiple languages, the customer would select the one that she is most comfortable with. This would create a sense of transparency, making this more personalized and helping in establishing client-customer trust with the app.

? Bridges the communication gap

Marketing and communication go hand in hand. It’s important for businesses and content creators to have a clear line of delivery in place. Any gaps in the existing communication can pose difficulties for the business. Content curation in multiple languages can help smoothen the process of message delivery, which would otherwise be unclear when the content is limited to only one language. 

For example, if you are a digital bank that operates in a certain region, You create in-app product videos to help your audience understand the nuances of your business, but only in one language. This is going to keep them in a fog because of the language barrier that can arise if you have been catering to a more diverse audience. Local users will be better able to grasp the details if they have access to translated videos in multiple languages. They will be able to make rapid and confident decisions based on the facts clearly shown.

? The Road Ahead:

A country as varied as India, with over 30 languages and 1600 dialects, has enormous potential for vernacular content consumption. With the benefits of Vernacular Marketing outlined in the article and countless more, the market in India is expected to expand aggressively and achieve greater heights within a short span of time as there is a growing desire among the audience for localized content. Now is the right time for content curators to capitalize on this opportunity and achieve great heights. The availability of such content for India’s large user base would be critical in the coming days and we at Dubverse with our AI-powered engine and team of experts help content creators localize videos that have the potential to reach people in their own language.