Tips to improve your localization strategy
In some of the articles we posted previously, we talked about the impact of learning different marketing strategies to apply to your business, the many ways to translate your website to make it completely successful for your target country, and some tips for managing your business when it goes live.
Localization techniques
Today, this article will probably include some topics mixed with a topic very familiar to bloggers and any translator. It's important to remember that once you translate a website, you're not only selling your message in the target language, but you're also connecting with a new audience that could define your success in this new country. We may respect and adjust the cultural information on our website to make the audience feel at home when they visit the website.
Think about it for a second: when did you first hear the word "localization," the context, meaning, and what it has become over the years? is it properly implemented in your business marketing strategies, or is it unknown to you?? When we talk about customer acquisition, it is advisable to know and understand your target market. Once you have enough details to design marketing campaigns to capture their attention, you update your website to be SEO-friendly. That's when localization takes over.
It seems a bit difficult to localize your marketing strategy without balancing the values you work with. Personalizing your strategy will increase your chances of acquiring, retaining, and building customer loyalty, as well as prospecting.
It is well known that you know your customers, their interests, their motivations for buying your products, and the reasons why they visit your website again. They also say that while the key is to learn to speak in a way that they feel familiar with, most customers will naturally prefer to view a website in their language.
Localization can be defined in the dictionary as "the process of making something local in character or confined to a particular place".
If we change the perspective a bit and try to apply that definition to your business, it sounds like the adaptability and flexibility of your product, service, or content to your target market or country. Changes include your website, blog, social media, marketing campaigns, and anything else to meet the needs of your customers.
Localization is related to how you use translated content, but it goes beyond language, it has more to do with their specific culture, social preferences, and diversity. If you think about it, your localization demands you to understand the country and society where you will offer your products, here a mere translation is not enough.
Now that we know that translation and localization give your business a completely different perspective in terms of marketing strategy and creating content that will let your customers know you, I want to share with you some aspects that we can consider to benefit from a good localization strategy.
The right localization strategy will allow you to deliver a better customer experience by communicating the right message globally without losing your brand identity.
Believe it or not, working on a good localization strategy demonstrates your commitment to this new market, builds a long-term trust factor, and will increase your revenue as well.
There are two aspects I think are important regarding your localization optimization:
1. Defining localization
2. Plan your localization strategy
Now that we've already described what localization means and how it affects your business and your customers, it's time to understand how it will work in practice by helping you with a localization strategy plan.
Where could you start?
Like yours and many other businesses that have already gone through this process, there are several aspects to consider when planning an appropriate localization strategy, here are a few more of these important factors that will help you succeed.
Your local audience
As mentioned earlier, the best way to plan a localization strategy is to know and understand the target market. The message you send to this new audience can be offensive and damage your reputation if it comes across as wrong, imagery and cultural nuances are part of it. So the best thing is to do extensive research on your target market.
To determine who your target market is, remember you can check your Google Analytics to see your website traffic, where they are coming from, and when you start your research on how strong the business can be with this new target.
Believe it or not, far from being a competitor, working with a local partner will provide you with accurate, local experience and feedback.
While researching you can get important information about your product demand, competition, buying patterns, cultural similarities or differences, behavior, language, interpretation of colors,, and more. Once you know these and all the details you need, you can create a solid strategy.
Translation and localization
If you're reading this, it's because you're looking for some information about ConveyThis's services through website translation, localization, or blog posts. But if there's one area where ConveyThis can help you, it's translation and localization. After all, once you've defined your target market, if you can't communicate with them in their native language, the business opportunity won't succeed.
At ConveyThis, the website plugin provides a miracle solution for translating your website, initiated by a machine and proofread by professionals. of course, they also optimize your localization so that your content sounds as natural as possible to native speakers of your target country.
Localization should also be applied to your images; just remember what it's like to snow on Christmas in the summer in another country or how marked Korean women will feel if you use a Korean model in your image if you're trying to break into their market.
Competition
Well, think of big brands in the same market you would like to enter, before thinking there is no room for you, study your business strengths and what makes you stand out from the competition. Think about what and how different your product is from theirs, its benefits, and advantages, what will attract your customers from your product, and what will create their motivation. It can be as simple as improving your customer support and reliability which will translate into customer trust and loyalty.
Remember that your customers' experience is the factor that determines whether they buy your product or leave the website without it. This can make the difference between your business and local businesses.
Adapting your brand values is also a good way to stand out, once you find your authenticity and style to engage your customers, they will have no doubts.
Market your content
It should be easy to understand, that once you knock on the door of a foreign country, it is clear that their needs and interests are different from your country, which is why you will need a different approach depending on your target market. Learning about their culture will give you clues to details you can include in your localization strategy and possibly other things you should avoid.
To ensure that your campaign is successful, make sure that you use social media, it must be one of the most important points of communication and the most genuine interaction with your customers. Do your best to encourage them to take action by sharing your post.
Considering social media also requires some knowledge to publish content, promote your brand, and talk to your customers, it is important to learn when and where to publish your updates, sales, offers, posts, or anything else you plan, so do research based on the most popular social media networks in your target country.
Now that we know localization represents a good challenge for any business, once you've developed the right strategy, you might want to test it first.
Be open to suggestions and advice, and don't expect to change in a short period, this engaging process takes time and discipline, so try to focus on improving your understanding of this target market, perhaps a local partner will help a lot. Also, with the help of a professional translator, you localize some website content, find the aspects that make you different, project them into your customer service experience, and focus on authenticity. give them genuine local content offline as well as on the right social media channels.