The difference between a company that merely does business in other countries and one that achieves scalable, long-lasting growth is a solid localization strategy.
If you have a proper localization strategy in place, your business can easily enter new markets and reach more customers.
In this post, we’ll explore more about formulating your localization strategy and how to structure it for maximum returns.
A localization strategy is your company’s market approach to translating content to connect with a new audience in a voice that feels local and takes regional and cultural nuances into account. It’s more than just literal, word-for-word translations—it also includes understanding and integrating linguistic, cultural, and functional elements that resonate with the target market.
Your business model will define your localization strategy and determine both the markets to enter and the overall content goal in those markets.
Fully localized content resonates with audiences because it incorporates relevant cultural nuance rather than simply replacing English words with translated text.
With a proper localization strategy, your brand can:
People often use localization and translation as synonyms. While they share similarities—most notably that localization requires content translation—they aren't precisely the same thing.
Translation is about converting your content, app, or website into the target language.
Localization, on the other hand, is a broader process. It requires adapting an application or website not only to the target audience’s language but also to their culture, buying habits, and payment methods.
As it specifically applies to translating content for foreign markets, content localization also pays greater attention to:
Global brands looking to provide potential customers with a more personalized experience should be more concerned with localization than translation.
A successful localization strategy contains these four key components to help your business engage with local audiences and succeed in new international markets:
Before entering a new market, you’ll need to do research to identify which areas will yield the best return on investment (ROI). This process includes examining aspects like market size, consumer preferences, local competitors, and regulatory requirements. Additionally, it's also crucial to understand factors such as your target audience’s cultural norms, purchasing preferences, and browsing habits.
After you have identified your target markets and acquired in-depth knowledge about their cultural subtleties and consumer behavior, you must make some strategic choices regarding your localization strategy. This could involve determining a localization budget that complements your overall business objectives and identifying specific aspects of your product or service that you’ll need to localize.
To target the local market, you should also take into account major considerations, such as language translation, cultural references, design preferences, and functionality requirements. For instance, say your target audience browses and makes purchases primarily on mobile devices. In that case, you’d need to focus on localizing your mobile application and making sure that it meets the local users' language, design, and functionality requirements.
With your strategic choices in place, it's time to develop a detailed plan for execution. This plan should outline the resources, timelines, and processes you need for content translation and adaptation. Consider leveraging technology, such as AI-powered translation management systems with dynamic workflows, to streamline and automate parts of the localization process. Additionally, assign clear roles and responsibilities to your team members and establish efficient workflows to ensure smooth collaboration and timely delivery.
Implementing a robust metric framework is crucial to gauge your localization efforts’ success and make data-driven decisions. Define key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your localization goals, such as market penetration, customer engagement, and ROI. You should regularly monitor and analyze these metrics to evaluate your localization strategy’s effectiveness. Based on the insights you gain, be ready to adjust your approach and optimize your efforts to achieve better results.
Engaging in localization activities, from adapting website layouts to translating content, is an investment. And as with any business investment, you’ll want to measure your return on that spend.
Here are some of the most commonly used KPIs to measure a localization strategy’s success:
An effective localization strategy also offers businesses numerous benefits, unlocks new opportunities, and helps them gain a competitive edge in the global market. Here are five key advantages of a well-executed localization strategy:
A localization strategy that pays attention to cultural nuances, linguistic preferences, and local tastes can considerably enhance your target audience’s user experience. You can achieve this by offering products, services, and content that resonate with the target customers in different languages, leading to higher user satisfaction and engagement. When customers feel that a company truly understands and caters to their specific needs, they are more likely to develop a strong affinity for the brand and become loyal advocates.
Customizing your product offer and marketing approaches to meet local standards and expectations in different markets will enable you to win a wider client base and gain deeper market coverage. You can do this by speaking your target audience’s language and showing a solid understanding of their unique cultural context. In turn, this can net you higher sales, market share, and total growth in your target markets.
In today's globalized business landscape, companies that invest in comprehensive localization approaches can distinguish themselves from competitors that may not have fine-tuned their offerings to local needs. By offering a more culturally suitable and personalized experience, you can differentiate your company or product in heavily saturated markets and gain a competitive edge.
Effective localization mitigates the risk of cultural misunderstandings, unintended offenses, and miscommunication that can arise when entering new markets. You can safeguard your company's reputation and global brand image by working with local experts and carefully adapting your content and messaging to respect cultural sensitivities and social norms.
Although investing in a complete localization strategy may cost more initially, the long-term advantages are worth the initial expense. Establishing a solid, loyal customer base in your select markets will lead to more revenue streams and higher ROI. Localized offerings tend to have higher adoption rates, lower churn, and more positive word-of-mouth referrals, all of which contribute to a healthier bottom line.
When it comes to delivering on localization needs, speed, high translation quality, and accuracy all matter.
Assembling a localization team with language experts from multiple regions might tick the accuracy and quality boxes, but it's certainly not going to help you scale quickly. To achieve all three goals, you need an AI-powered machine translation tool that can help you streamline workflows by delivering high-quality, on-brand translations instantly.
Smartling’s localization software, powered by our proprietary LanguageAI technology, can create compelling and immersive local user experiences by translating your content into target languages and considering your brand identity, voice, style, and terminology. Want to learn a real-world example? Explore how Coinbase used Smartling to drive global expansion.
Once you incorporate these techniques into your localization and marketing strategies, you’ll be on the fast track to international expansion.
The key to your company’s continuing success is localization — understanding and adapting your content to each target market’s culture and moving beyond merely translating words.
Check out this ebook to learn strategies for developing a winning localization strategy with Smartling's comprehensive suite of tools and expertise.