You are dominating the local market. Your sales are going crazy. You know that it is not going to get any better. So, what do you do? How do you increase your sales? What should be your next step?
It is to go global.
Even if it wasn't the first thing on your mind to market your product or service worldwide, it should be now. But that is easier said than done.
There are a lot of things that you need to consider before going global that matter to your global growth.
Going international is not as easy as it sounds. Think of crossing shark-infested waters, and you might get the idea. That doesn't mean that it is impossible either. With the right practices, you too can launch your products or services in the international market. There are two ways that you can do that.
One is to sell the product or service as is. Your sales may vary according to the target market, your product itself, and several other factors.
The second way is localization. Many questions come to mind, such as: Why is it important to localize the products or services? Why not try to sell without localization first? How will it happen? What are the basics?
Answering the why part is easy. To stand out from the crowd, you need to go the extra mile.
And considering the market nowadays, this isn't even the extra mile anymore. With so many companies selling their products or services globally with localization, it has become more necessary to sell in the people's language where you want to sell it. Think user experience: you must provide multilingual product information to secure excellent customer service on a global scale to win in the international markets. If you go down the wrong alley, even the best functionality of your product won't make up for mixed-up date formats, numbers, colors, names, specific layout, and all the elements that resonate with your buyer on a local market you want to get to.
Once you have made up your mind to go international with your products or services, the only way to ensure success and achieve your objectives is by localizing your brand. You're probably thinking now about what product localization does to your global launch. Let's take a look at some of the best practices to have a complete picture.
Here is how you can localize your products for an international market. Plus some cool extras! Let's dive in.
It should be the first and foremost priority for most companies to carry their products in multiple languages right from the start. But as we consider all types of companies and their products in general, it is no surprise that international expansion was never part of the initial plan.
Due to the increased demand for the product in other regions, you have decided to give it a go. If the product was never translated before and has already been sold in the local market with good numbers, certain things can be done.
Product localization is the process of adapting a product or service to the local culture and language for it to sell better. Many globally successful companies push localization hard. They make sure all their products and services are available in multiple languages, which helps them gain an advantage over competitors with localized content when they launch new products.
There are different localization strategies that companies can employ, depending on their product or service. To localize your product, you will need to ensure you have various important elements in place. They should constitute your product localization strategy.
Localization should not be based on guesswork. You should have your localization strategy in place first and it should be clear, with defined objectives and milestones so that localization efforts can be monitored and assessed regularly.
Only then can you come up with a proper localization process that will define all the actions and tools required to implement and carry out the strategy you've created.
Related content: How to Accelerate a New Product Launch Globally [E-book]
Your product localization strategy must also include internationalization.
These two are often misunderstood, as they are two completely different processes. If you add globalization two these two, things can sometimes get really complicated. In fact, they aren't. At least as much as it appears first.
Internationalization is the process of preparing the product for localization. Before you can add new languages, go out and look for translators, figure out how to make the best use of TMs (Translation Memories) and MT (Machine Translation), extract terminology, and prepare glossaries for different languages and new target markets, you have to make sure your source is in Unicode, sort out the issues with hard coding and check out many more aspects before you can start translating. First locale, then localization.
Localization is the common ground for foreign languages and global business in an almost ideal way: it makes it possible for two apparently distant realms to work together to improve international customer experience in different markets.
Contrary to common views, product localization is not only software localization. Product or service launches very often cover a broad range of materials. If you sell a mobile app, it will be not only the user interface but also documentation, a help system, marketing materials, labels, packaging, and more. That's what it takes in the era when English is not enough and you really need to go the extra mile to win foreign markets and get new customers.
This is a complex and time-consuming process that all product managers want to scale. That's where translation technology comes in. You don't have to own all that localization stuff. If you work with localization experts, and experienced language service providers (LSP), they will have everything in place. Of course, depending on your strategy and the size of your organization, you may have a full-blown localization department that will need all these toys to do their job.
Whatever your localization approach and setup, a translation management system is the center of everything you do with your product, service, and its localization. It enables the smooth management of any aspect of any localization project you or your translation agency undertake. It makes the management of both assets and linguists easier so that your localization projects are executed the right way for your launch.
Such systems are very often integrated with the tools that enable you to maintain translation memories (or have their native TM modules together with translation editor functions and more). They are your repositories of any and all phrases you've localized so that you can reuse them anywhere you like in the product-related content you localize. They don't only allow you to keep consistency among all the materials you translate from English or any other language into the local languages of your potential customers. They also allow you to save on translation. On average, it's 25-36% savings if you prepare your source properly and don't write the same things in 100 different ways if you don't really have to.
Related content: Leveraging Translation Technology to Accelerate International Product Launch
Localization is an extremely important part of the pre-launch routine if you want your product or service to be successful on the global market. But it's not the only one as there are several other actions you need to take apart from your product localization to see the results you expect.
It can be really overwhelming for anyone to think of all the steps involved in launching a product on a global scale. But this read will narrow down some of the other most successful and working tactics you are looking for.
Early planning is crucial and can vary according to different products or services. For some products, you may need to plan one year in advance. And for some, all you need to do is just a month of planning before the launch. So, it is all about giving yourself enough time before you actually make your move. This planning involves some big goals and targets that you need to achieve.
Hold yourself accountable for every step in this process. Launching a product internationally also requires a lot of study on the target market. The geographical location, culture, consumer behavior, and more. This study is part of your early planning. Research and active engagement throughout the planning process are vital. You need to thoroughly understand your target audience to know their preferences better. You need to delve deeper than your average consumer research. This detail can help you uncover many strategies that might come in handy for your international product or service launch.
This is not something to be done after the early planning phase. But it should be done simultaneously. But what are these modifications and why do you need them? Your product or services sometimes require changes, not just for its successful launch but also for not making your product look totally unacceptable to the foreign market.
For example, a beverage company wants to launch its new drink in Saudi Arabia. What drinks come to your mind? Of course, not the alcoholic ones. Also, if you are running a Christmas campaign (if at all applicable in this scenario), you might want to stay away from snow-covered mountains and Santa.
Sometimes, like in this example, it is crystal clear what you need to do to succeed. But other times, it's not that simple. If a company only makes alcoholic beverages, they may need to modify their products for such a region where it is illegal and considered taboo. Again, this is a straightforward case. This is so that you can understand how you need to find out the required changes in the product or the service.
Now we will consider an example where there is no need for any modification in the product or service but the way it is being marketed.
Suppose there is another beverage company that wants to launch its soda drink in UAE. Their drink meets all the requirements of the target audience. They come up with a pictorial ad (to be pinned on the billboards and to be viewed from left to right in order) it goes something like this:
Do you know why that company will fail in the launch of its product in the UAE? Because in UAE, they read from right to left – think about it.
And this leads us to the next best practice to be followed when launching a product or service in the international market.
As you dominate your local market, there will be many competitors already in your target market, providing fast and easy solutions to their local clients. This competition is not only in terms of the product or the service but also in local relevance.
You will need to localize each and every part of your product or service. It will include the necessary instruction manuals that come with your product. It will also include printed ingredients or other important information about the product.
Ensuring that all your content is translated into the target language will enable you to compete in this new market. But what will make your product the leading one? A more personal touch about the local audience.
For example, many companies adopt some local trends of their target market and use them in their marketing campaign. This is an excellent marketing tool. To sell your product in the international market, you cannot design a one-size-fits-all approach. You need to customize your marketing plans according to the target markets, the regions, and the language. And your industry, of course.
Every industry has its own terminology and jargon. If you are not catering to their vocabulary, you might be missing out on a lot of opportunities.
Translation of all the aspects of just one product can take a long time if not planned right or if the right tools are not deployed. Therefore, it is crucial to accelerate the translated product's launch by integrating the product's translation properly into your schedule.
Related content: The Guide to App Translations: How to Localize Software
The worst thing to happen to any product's launch is the delay after its launch date has been announced. You definitely do not want this to happen to your company. Once you make sure that everything is in order and ready to go, you make an announcement about the day and date for your product's international launch.
If you fail to launch at the announced date by any chance, it can ruin your image, to begin with. Other things that can destroy your brand's image include the loss of trust from potential clients.
To save yourself from all of this embarrassment and damage, you need to create a realistic timeline for all your goals. A bigger picture is always very important. But more important are those small pieces that you are going to join together to complete in time. This requires a lot of planning and designing the systems that can make things less complicated for you.
When launching your product or service internationally, one important thing is the use of external third-party services.
If you need frequent outsourcing of tasks, it is much better to have a dedicated international launch team. This team should be assigned the tasks that your local employees cannot achieve, like the translation services and research of different regions' people's preferences.
When you have your own team of diverse individuals, you will make a lot of sense to your clients when you launch your product. Because dealing with your in-house team working on an international launch will make everyone creative and more versatile. That way, you will have a good idea of how the target market will respond to your efforts, for example, your marketing campaign.
Suppose your international product is an app. If you plan on launching an app on a global scale, it is better to get initial feedback on the app. Acquiring this feedback is simple if you launch a beta version of your app. It gives a sense of ownership to the client as well.
Some good Samaritans may go out of their way to provide you with detailed direct feedback about your app. You might have noticed how a software's beta version comes with an important note: you will become an active member in our beta program launch.
What these disclaimers or notes do is that they make your clients aware of the responsibility of coming up with feedback. But also shows them how powerful they are and that they have a real influence on how the product they want will look like in the end and that it will be according to their preferences: not something you think your customers want but something they really want. This is pure value for everyone.
While social media may not be the best place to launch your product, it is an excellent hub to create pre-launch hype for the intended product or service. But make sure that this hype is not too early.
Some companies create good enough hype for their upcoming products. Then, with a considerably long time in the actual launch, all the created hype may die out. You need to find an optimum duration of the hype. You can study your competitors and how they handled their product's international launch.
Making use of all social media platforms means added work. So, it is recommended to go for a few selected platforms. The platforms with the highest number of potential clients are the most suitable. Suppose you are going to launch a website for some online services.
If that website deals with the global market, you need to make sure that the content is marketed on social media giants. Once this step is done right, your content will already be viral on small local scale social media platforms on its own. On social media, most people are in search of viral trends and stories.
To ensure your product's constructive hype's success, you will need to come up with some idea that can quickly become a trend or something worth going viral. Making anything viral on the internet has become easier since people have started using these platforms to stay in touch with the latest stories.
Be present everywhere but remember not to just copy and paste things on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok, and LinkedIn. Each platform needs a different approach and content. You'll need a strategy for this, too.
Localized product is what makes you win in international markets. In the global marketplace, your customer base expects relevant information about your product or service in their own language to make the most out of it. And simple translation won't do the trick. That's why you need to do more. And that's what product localization does to your global launch: it enables you to do and achieve more.
There may be many glitches and mistakes in your first international launch. Prepare yourself for all types of outcomes and be ready for anything with some efficient counter remedies. For example, overestimating your product or service's acceptance may become a big hurdle for you as it will not allow you to think of the adverse outcomes.
No one can create a fail-proof design for any product's launch. However, being prepared for the worst results can always save your day. Sometimes failure can also give you a whole new stance in the international market. Make sure to take this stance as your next launch strategy.
Go and grow!
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