Global businesses face a tough decision when building an international marketing strategy: standardize or localize offerings?
Standardization is cost-efficient, promotes a consistent brand image, and simplifies operations, while localization aims to meet the cultural preferences of local markets and build an authentic connection. Some businesses thrive with a consistent global identity, whereas others succeed by adapting to new markets.
In this guide, we’ll compare standardization versus localization, examine the pros and cons of localized and standardized global marketing, and offer tips to help you decide which marketing approach is right for your business.
Localization is an international marketing strategy that adapts a business’s products, services, and marketing to fit the preferences, language, and culture of a specific region. The goal is to make the product feel familiar and relevant to local customers.
Localization can include:
Businesses should consider localization when customers’ preferences, traditions, or buying habits vary across regions. This is especially important for industries like food, retail, or entertainment, where cultural differences greatly influence how customers make buying decisions.
Conversely, standardization is a marketing strategy that keeps products, branding, and messaging consistent across all markets. A standardized marketing strategy works well for industries where consistency matters more than cultural adaptation. For example, many tech and luxury brands maintain a consistent identity and brand image to convey authority, recognizability, and prestige.
Localization typically requires more resources and upfront investment than standardization. Companies use these additional resources to manage unique marketing and product adjustments for different regions.
However, localization doesn’t have to break the bank. Smartling’s translation management system helps your business scale its localization efforts and maintain efficiency at a fraction of the cost of traditional localization methods. The cloud-based software simplifies content translation across over 450 languages and locales. You can localize content within your CMS with glossaries, style guides, and automated quality checks that ensure your content maintains alignment with your organization’s brand voice, no matter the language or market.
For an international brand, both standardization and localization practices come with benefits and disadvantages. Consider the impacts of each approach before you decide on a global marketing strategy.
Whether you choose global marketing standardization or regional localization, your approach should align with your globalization strategy. Consider taking these steps as you weigh standardization versus localization:
Understanding your audience will help you choose between standardization and localization. Surveys, market analysis, A/B testing, and other research strategies will show you whether customers value global brands (and, therefore, a standardized approach) or if they expect products and marketing tailored to their culture (suggesting localization is a better choice).
Assess your global marketing budget. If funds are limited, consider standardization with a focus on international markets that prefer your model. Well-funded organizations can choose their preferred methods or use both in their marketing mix. If your budget is somewhere in between, consider glocalizing—preserving some elements while adapting others to balance costs and marketing success.
Some products can be sold the same way everywhere, whereas others need adjustments to fit customer preferences. Technology, luxury goods, and certain packaged products often succeed with standardization because their function or appeal does not change across regions. However, industries like food, fashion, and healthcare usually require localization to adapt to each country’s tastes, styles, and regulations.
Businesses can combine standardization with localization in their global marketing strategies and reap the benefits of both approaches. Coca-Cola is a well-known global brand that successfully combines marketing localization and standardization to fuel expansion while maintaining a strong identity.
Coca-Cola’s core product—the classic Coca-Cola beverage—remains largely unchanged worldwide. It uses the same packaging and red-and-white logo whether it’s sold in China or the United States. Its messaging focuses on sharing happiness together. This standardized marketing approach strengthens its global brand recognition, making it familiar to people of all regions.
Although Coca-Cola uses a standardized marketing strategy in its products and branding, it doesn’t shy away from localization strategies either. Coca-Cola constantly tests new flavors in every market it enters to meet cultural preferences. In Japan, Coca-Cola has released unique flavors such as apple, orange, and green tea.
For branding, Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign adapted its products to countries like Ireland and India by personalizing Coke bottles with popular local names and phrases. This small change created a personal connection with consumers in each region.
Businesses need to consider goals, target customers, and available resources when deciding between localization and standardization. A thorough understanding of each approach will help you make smart decisions to grow and succeed in a global economy.
Whether your global brand implements localization or standardization, Smartling’s translation solutions help you scale quickly and efficiently. Our cloud-based translation management software lets you evaluate, manage, and improve your language translation quality from one convenient hub. With Smartling’s translator network and AI Translation solutions, you have numerous options to get quality results for less.
You need the right localization software to power your global expansion and maximize your potential to gain new customers and increase your bottom line. Our eBook, “Top 5 Insights to Improve Your Localization Strategy,” can help you find the translation solution that will work for your business now and in the future. Download your copy today to start building a localization strategy that fits your goals.