Localization strategies become more important as your business goes global and enters foreign market. Understanding and integrating localization strategies into your website, software, marketing strategies, and communication efforts will help you reach new markets both offline and over the internet. You'll prepare content in the new target language, improve customer service, ensure top-notch user experience, and increase sales and conversion rates. In this blog post, we will discuss the best localization strategies in detail and with examples to help you make the best decision for your business.
Localization strategies can be specifically tailored to new potential markets and target customers. Localization can take many forms, such as translating and localizing content (images, video, mobile apps), adapting marketing materials, or creating local process definitions.
Localization strategies can help your company enter new markets, increase sales in your current market, and comply with local regulations. By implementing a localization strategy, you can ensure that your products are delivered to potential customers in the most effective way and that you comply with local cultural preferences.
Localization strategies should include your new target customers' buying habits, behaviors, and cultural nuance. By understanding buyer behavior in different regions and countries, localization enables brands to be more relevant to global audiences. By tailoring products, content, and marketing campaigns to the needs, preferences, interests, and context of customers in a specific region or country, localization strategies can help your business reach new heights.
Most businesses think about localization as translating their content into different languages. But localization is not just about translating text. It's also about adapting images to the local culture, preparing software for the local market, and more.
Here's a short list of what it means to start localization process in your business:
You can get inspired by this list and include some points as part of your localization strategy. Show it to your project managers who take care of content marketing, Google ads, or marketing messages.
Localization strategies can increase brand awareness and market your product or service globally. This can reduce marketing costs and target new customers and markets more effectively. Another benefit of localizing content is that it allows you to reach target audiences and provide a better customer experience. You'll find the benefits of localization in many industries, including B2B, e-commerce, entertainment, gaming, and tourism. These strategies can help you strengthen your brand identity and connect with global customers.
Start with a localization strategy audit to identify areas where localization would be helpful for your business. This will help you decide on the correct localization strategy for your needs. Localization agencies can help you with such a task.
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Localization can significantly increase a company's global reach and customer satisfaction by appealing to local audiences. Localization also gives companies an advantage over regional and international competitors and enables rapid global growth.
In addition to localizing content for different markets and audiences, localization strategies also include the cultural adaptation of marketing materials. This cultural adaptation can help companies target customers in different cultural contexts, leading to higher customer retention and growth. Overall, localization strategies are critical for companies seeking to engage local audiences and build global brands.
A localization strategy can help companies localize their marketing content faster and more effectively, leading to higher customer retention. A localization strategy can also improve brand image and trust among local audiences by breaking down language and cultural barriers in new markets.
Consequently, localization strategies can help companies gain a competitive advantage over other companies in the market. A localization strategy is an effective way to localize marketing content and target customers.
Applying localization strategies means more marketing content, such as a website or online shop, will reach your new audience. This content will be delivered in new languages and adjusted to new cultures. This means your new content will engage customers better. Thus conversion rates get higher. Higher conversion rates bring sales up. If the deal is successful for the client, they will come back. AKA customer loyalty is increased.
Why?
Your potential new clients can be more confident in the accuracy of the information, which can positively impact their purchasing decisions. This ultimately leads to higher sales and customer conversion rates for the company.
In addition, companies that localize marketing content faster also grow faster over time. They can target different customer groups with their message over time.
Localization strategies help your customers understand all the messages and go through buying steps in their native language, which can help them complete their purchases. In addition, localization can prevent customers from abandoning the shopping cart by ensuring they know the details of your product or service and understand the purchase terms. Such an approach helps your customers better and builds a more successful experience with your brand.
By localizing the content on your website, mobile app, software, documents, social media posts, and marketing materials, you can ensure that your customers see product descriptions and learn more about products in their language.
When a visitor becomes a customer, it's not the end of the road but the beginning of their adventure with your brand. This process is called customer journey. Localizing content shows your customers that your company cares about them, translating into better customer service.
Localization strategies can reduce the risk of legal matters due to errors. They help align a system with local legal and cultural norms, reducing the risk of litigation or other legal action in case of errors or problems with your strategy.
Understanding the legal and business requirements is critical to ensure your company can operate and grow legally.
Global brands instantly recognizable worldwide are becoming increasingly popular with customers. Some of them resonate with audiences, while others do not. The appeal of international brands is based on their consistent identity and experience worldwide.
But localizing a customer experience for different markets is a challenge for marketers.
Scenarios fall into three categories: Culture, Technology, and Content. Cultural techniques help the brand localize its cultural identity in different countries. These include researching the culture and preferences of the target market, localizing content (including website language), localizing advertising, and local packaging and logo design. Technology techniques include website language localization, app localization, user interface localization, website content localization, etc. Content strategies include localization of product names, packaging, and pricing.
Each strategy has advantages and disadvantages but is essential for global marketing. Below you'll find helpful strategies and excellent examples from great brands.
Target market selection is a crucial component of a localization strategy. Market research can take a long time so be prepared to devote your attention toward this task. Understanding customer behavior and cultural nuances are critical before starting any localization efforts. By identifying key customer groups and their needs, a localization team can best tailor its products and services to meet those needs.
Take a look at Ikea and its global website. Prime spot does not include info about the current promo or Ikea's products. It's taken by a local store search bar, where customers worldwide, who type in www.ikea.com, can be instantly redirected to the local version of the website and online shop.
Neat, right?
After all, different promotional actions may occur at IKEA stores worldwide. When Europe or North America is covered with snow and celebrates the Holidays more traditionally, at the same time in Australia, Summer is full on. Christmas in Australia looks different and means barbecue events, surfing, walks on the beach, and hiding from the mighty Sun.
In this case, promoting tableware in Australia or beach toys and garden furniture in the States would not make sense.
Localization strategies should take into account the languages spoken in the target markets, as well as the cultural and socio-political attitudes in the region.
Choosing an official language commonly spoken in the target market may be beneficial when localizing a website or application. However, this is only sometimes feasible or practical. Instead, companies should use local dialects when localizing their content. This way, they can adapt to the cultural and social attitudes of the target market.
For example, in Spain, Catalonia is a region with a very high level of individual identity. Suppose most of your clients from Spain come from Barcelona and the surrounding areas (Catalonia). In that case, Spanish is an excellent option to select as your target language. However, the Catalan language is even better.
Another effective localization strategy is to define the different languages your company uses. This way, users can understand how to interact with your app and website without learning new language skills. Defining local dialects can also be helpful, especially for users who speak languages other than their native tongue.
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The different cultural nuances of other languages make localization a challenge. Localizing your app or website to the local language can be as simple as replacing English with the local language.
However, localizing your app more culturally in other languages may be necessary, such as through cultural references and custom jargon. Understanding the culture and the nuances of the language you are localizing is critical to the success of your app.
For example, Slack understood this assignment:
To successfully localize, we knew we had to adapt the Slack voice to other cultures. And although much of localization is translation, there are other considerations, such as the fact that our global users have grown up with certain customs, and a certain world view. The witty remarks we make, the anecdotes we employ, the references to a familiar idiom — these are the kinds of things we are extra thoughtful about to build trust with our global users.
This strategy includes date and time, language, and display formats. You must localize the product or asset in terms of culture and language. For example, if your product requires you to enter hours and minutes, you need to localize them as "h" or "m" instead of "hour" or "minute."
Another localization strategy is to offer different selection tools for different audiences. For example, suppose your target audience prefers touch screens over mouse clicks. In that case, you should localize your selection tool to support that input method.
Let's look at date formats as an example.
The date format in the United States is MM/DD/YYYY.
In Europe preferred date format is DD/MM/YYYY.
Based on the above, let's say you organize an important business meeting at your HQ in New York.
In the email invitation, you say the meeting date is 12/07/2023.
So you expect your potential new clients from Germany to show up on the day of the meeting on December 17th, 2023.
Simple, right?
Not quite.
Since the European date format differs from the American one, it may lead to a situation where your guests show up at your door on the 12 of July 2023, as their cultural understanding is that the day comes first, then the month, then the year.
Germans are very professional in business, so such mistakes would be considered utterly unprofessional. In some cultures in Asia, in Japan, for example, this could also provoke a reaction on a personal level. Being a very honorable people, your potential Japanese business partners may either treat it as a personal insult towards them, or as an insult made by them towards you. Partnership would be off the table.
Another example is from IKEA. The company has localized its brand and services based on cultural differences in different countries. In some markets, such as the United States and Canada, IKEA offers a unique menu allowing customers to order dishes traditionally eaten in other regions. For example, customers can order a favorite local dish, such as lasagna or spaghetti bolognese, from the "US menu," while choosing local ingredients and local specialties when ordering from the "Canadian menu." This localization strategy allows customers to experience different cultural cuisines without traveling to other countries. It also helps IKEA target customers who cannot travel or live in other regions.
Customer support differs from product support. Customers are usually more satisfied when they call a local phone number rather than calling one that appears to be based overseas. Scam and cost concerns arise.
When marketing materials and websites are localized into the new language, your clients will expect more, such as
Customer support representatives should also be able to provide social media support and answer questions on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This way, customers can easily contact customer care and quickly get answers to any questions.
An excellent example of such a localization strategy is Coca-Cola on Facebook. The brand has set a global page structure that allows the company to manage all local profiles independently, content-wise and support-wise.
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Global strategies need to be redefined to cross borders and accommodate cultural differences. Localization is a way to deal with customer buying habits, behaviors, and cultural nuance as globalization unfolds.
When developing a localization strategy, giving it sufficient time and attention is essential. The best localization agency hiring local experts and professionally trained translator can help and guide you through the process. To aid your localization efforts, agencies use professional tools like translation management system, machine translation, and translation memory. Having an open conversation with your stakeholders about localization strategies and the issues involved is also crucial.
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