Maximizing Revenue: The Power of Language Strategy

One of the most challenging aspects in crafting a language strategy is in demonstrating the concrete return on investment that comes from translating content. Executives typically tolerate language support at best as a necessary evil and see it as a cost to be eliminated. Others sincerely believe that English will be good enough around the world. Without concrete data to demonstrate the value of supporting multilingualism, budgets remain at risk and organizations risk losing out on current revenue and reducing future growth by cutting investments in a bid to achieve short-term savings.

In the face of this challenge, content strategists tend to rely on outdated rules of thumb and anecdotal evidence unlikely to satisfy executives looking for reliable evidence. In order to address this gap, CSA Research has built a suite of predictive analytics tools that are able to provide you with customized predictions you can use to make decisions and demonstrate the value of language as a driver for organizational success.

As an example, combining information from our?Global Revenue Forecaster? with insights from our “Can’t Read, Won’t Buy” research series, we can demonstrate that an English-only strategy is likely to capture just 24% of potential TAM in Europe, but having ten languages expands that potential by 250%, to 84% of the European total.

The tools that CSA Research has developed include the following:

• The Global Revenue Forecaster?. Based on a proprietary model of online language use, economic potential, and demographics, this tool is able to extrapolate from your current market performance to predict the potential uplift in revenue that will come from adding new languages, taking into account how each language interacts with the other ones you offer.

Pro tip: The Global Revenue Forecaster can help you set targets for your international content and compare potential to investment. Use it to discuss strategic questions with your executives and back them up with specific data tailored to your needs. This is the sort of predictive analytics companies have been requesting for decades.

• The Global Customer Experience Calculator.?With both B2C and B2B versions, this tool examines how comprehensive your in-language customer experience is to predict how much of your audience is likely to purchase from you. Based on our “Can’t Read, Won’t Buy” research, the results are based on the individual preferences and experiences of over 10,000 consumers and business buyers in more than 30 markets.
• The Globalization Maturity Assessment.?This online questionnaire helps you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your organization in its global processes. Use it to improve your global readiness so that you get your house in order to take advantage of the international and multilingual opportunities you identify.
• The Localization Maturity Assessment.?This tool assists you in optimizing your localization processes to ensure maximum efficiency in delivering content and making good use of your budget.
• The Economic Atlas of Language.?If you are looking for high-level statistics on the economic value of language and the online populations that speaker them, the Atlas provides you with a handy way to find CSA Research’s data-based estimates for key statistics.

Considering the potential revenue or audience that localization unlocks compared to the comparatively small investment if requires, it may be the best investment your organization can make. CSA Research’s predictive analytics tools can help you demonstrate just how good that investment can be.