In today’s increasingly connected world, localization is essential to business growth in the global economy. Businesses are reaching wider audiences than ever before. However, to truly succeed on a global scale, it’s crucial to consider the importance of localization.
The primary goal of localization is to respect different communities’ cultures by adapting content to meet their cultural, linguistic, and regional needs. In this way, businesses can establish a stronger connection with their customers and ultimately help them establish a stronger presence, build trust with their customers, and increase their revenue. In fact, any business aspiring to sell its products and services to audiences with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds will need to take its content to the next multilingual level.
Localization has been gaining popularity in recent years due to the rapid achievements in AI technology, however many businesses haven’t seized its potential impact. A recent study found that only 18% of businesses have a localization strategy. This is in spite of the fact that translating content into the following languages enables businesses to reach 80% of global online purchasing power: English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, and Italian. The numbers are too big to ignore.
What Is Localization Strategy And Why Do You Need To Build One?
A localization strategy is a business plan for how you will adapt your communication methods to a target market’s linguistic and cultural customs. The strategy sets the direction for how your company will adjust the contents of your website, marketing campaigns, social media, and other parts of the user experience to attract local customers. When strategizing for localization, your company should adapt all points of customer interactions to a specific market while ensuring that the new content aligns with your brand message. Ideally, you would like the user to engage with your brand in ways that feel familiar to them, which increases your traffic and enhances your potential of converting leads to sales.
How To Build An Effective Localization Strategy For Your Business?
Investing In Professional Localization Services
Hiring a professional translation agency is the key element of an effective localization strategy. A reputable agency can provide high-quality translation and localization services while also ensuring that the content is culturally appropriate and accurate. It’s important also to choose an agency specializing in the relevant languages and markets.
Using Machine Translation And AI Tools
Although effective localization requires a strategic and well-planned approach, It is important also to leverage technology solutions like machine translation and AI to streamline the localization process, improve accuracy, and increase efficiency.
With technological advances, companies can improve accuracy, consistency, and efficiency throughout the localization process. Companies can simplify content and communication workflows to reduce costs and reach global markets more effectively. They can expand their customer base and gain a competitive edge in today’s global marketplace.
Testing And Quality Assurance
After implementing the translation, performing professional linguistic testing of your product/app is an important element of your localization strategy for ensuring that translations are accurate and culturally appropriate. This process involves testing the translated content in its intended format and context. For example, suppose the translated content is a website. In that case, there should be a QA tester navigating through the test plan and auditing every possible screen, in a manner mimicking how a user would interact with the product. This is the best time to catch any inconsistencies or mistranslations. For example, the word “Book” can be translated as a noun, and as a verb, through the testing process, the tester can determine the exact meaning in the UI.
In addition to testing, businesses should also have a quality assurance process in place to ensure that the translations are consistent and accurate across different projects. This can involve using style guides, glossaries, and other tools to ensure using the right terminology and style while maintaining consistency for each target language.
Optimizing Your Website For Different Countries
Your website is usually the point of sale in the buying process of the customer journey. Thus, you want to make sure it is accessible to users in your target market. Language is only one part of website localization, and this is where you can benefit from extensive research and consulting with your team of translators.
When you are localizing your website for different markets, ensure to optimize it for:
- The primary payment methods in that country
- What local currency is used
- Common date and time formats
- The dominant browsers by the local users
- Measuring units
- Character coding (especially if the language uses another alphabet)
What Is The Positive Impact Of Localization On Businesses?
Improved Communication
When a business operates in a multilingual environment, language barriers can hinder effective communication with potential customers, partners, and employees. By translating their content to the local language, businesses can reach out to these audiences in their native language, enabling them to understand and connect with the brand on a deeper level. The localization process can help businesses convey their messages more accurately and effectively, avoiding misunderstandings and misinterpretations that can damage their reputation. It can also help businesses build trust with their customers across multiple languages. When customers feel understood and valued, they are likelier to remain loyal and recommend the business to others, increasing sales and revenue.
Increased Reach In International Markets
The second benefit of a localization strategy is increased market reach. By translating their content into different languages, businesses can expand their reach and target new audiences. This can open up new opportunities for growth and revenue.
Marketing localization enables businesses to adapt their content to the specific needs and preferences of the target market. These localization efforts can help the business better connect with the local audience, increase engagement, and ultimately increase sales.
Cultural Appropriateness
The third benefit of translation and localization for businesses is cultural appropriateness. When businesses enter new markets, they must respect their local customs and traditions. Localization helps businesses achieve this by adapting content assets to the culture and language of customers in a target market.
This is important because cultural inappropriateness can damage a business’s reputation. A poorly translated or culturally insensitive advertisement can result in negative publicity and decreased sales. By investing in localization, businesses can avoid these issues and show that they respect and value the cultural differences of their target markets. This can help to build a positive relationship with the local community and enhance the business’s reputation.
Wrap-up
Localization can have a very positive impact on businesses operating in global markets. From improving communication to increasing market reach and promoting cultural appropriateness, having a localization strategy is essential for businesses that want to succeed in today’s global economy.
To ensure effective localization, businesses should consider hiring a professional translation agency, using translation and localization tools, and implementing testing and quality assurance processes. If you want to expand your business reach globally, please reach out LatinoBridge, a one-stop shop for your translation needs, that provides industry-leading linguistic solutions for Latin America languages; Latin American Spanish, German, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Argentine Spanish, and Aymara.
