How to use the localisation to win the market
The world has become a global village. When you sell your products outside the country without a global market strategy, you may earn half of the potential revenue. Delivering products and services globally is a very cumbersome task. Taking help from a translation company is very expensive and time consuming so companies need to decide how much content should be translated and needs to consider some of the factors.
- If you translate your literature, how much revenue will your revenue increase?
- How do non-English speaking customers view your products?
Research from Common Sense Advisory reveals issues such as:
- 72.1% of consumers like to browse websites in their own language.
- 72.4% of consumers said they will purchase a product when the information is in their own language.
- 56.2% of consumers are of the view that the ability to get information in their own language is more important than price.
Understanding language and localisation
L10N is the abbreviation of localisation. Localisation suggests content of the product should be according to location and in the language of the specific audience. Localisation demands that your target audience receives the same level of quality as you invested in your native language.
Localisation is not simply about translating a product in another language. It also requires that the content is made appropriate for the audience. For example a document written for employee benefits should be different in USA than in Canada and according to benefits in the Canadian market.
Product development becomes efficient while following localisation strategy according to the global market demands. It will help to enhance customer relationships and help to manage operating costs.
Need to market
Work on the source language needs to be done before starting localisation. Some companies launch their products when localised content is not available. The organisations should not work on English only content but should ensure multiple regional and global content is available. Localisation helps in core development efforts. When the components of the product and content are completed, the gap between the initial lunch and a fully localised product is reduced. Some organisations complete all localisation work before launching the product globally. For example if same product is ordered in United States and China. The consumer wants delivery of the product with localisation at the same time. In this case proper planning and strategy to address all market requirements is needed. If proper planning is not done, there will be a delay in producing different language versions. It will delay the product launch date and can close the window of opportunity in certain markets. Your localisation process will determine when to market the product.
Customer engagement
Some global brands like Coca-Cola and Apple want to have intimate relationships with their customers. They make customer-centric strategy to produce products and content. In the regulatory industry, localisation demands all requirements should be compiled. Customer engagement shows the affectedness of localisation effort. Localisation depicts that your products and services are adaptable with culture.
Planning and design
Planning before translation will reduce duplicate work and will let u know issues which may become a problem. A localisation strategy will let you know when and how to perform translation work and how to source language development. For example, in relation to the Automobile industry. The same model is distributed to many different countries with little variations according to customer and market requirement. The automobile company develops and plans ahead because to configure of each component when demanded raises cost and delays time to market.
Consistency
Centralising common resources should be a part of your localisation strategy. Sharing of information, resources and content with group will create consistency. For example it is not possible for all software to translate new projects again and again. Reusing content will improve consistency and will reduce translation costs.
Increased quality
A localisation strategy improves the quality of all the languages which you produce. When all company departments brainstorm and share information, everyone benefits from new ideas and discoveries. Potential issues should be addressed in the developing cycle reducing costs appearing at last moment.
Controlled translation costs
Knowing the translation needs at the start of a project will let you know how much translation effort is required. The reuse of fonts and text expansion will reduce the manual work required in translation. In large organisations, different translation tools are used to estimate the scope and cost of translation services. Some amount of content is translated and captured in translation memory. Knowing this information you can contact translation vendors as an informed customer.
Quality of source content
To increase the efficiency and accuracy of your localisation system, internal improvements need to be made. Translation problems should be traced back in source content and infrastructure. Source content effects the quality and price of translations. Quality of source content can be improved by:
- Accuracy
- Understandability
- Sentence length
- Sentence structure
- Consistency
- Reach a global audience
According to the survey from Halim University 75% of the population don’t speak English and out of the remaining 25% will not speak and understand marketing content easily. In all global population only 6% people are native English speakers. In order to reach a potential global audience context localisation is therefore very important. Context localisation will boost your sales.
Improve customer satisfaction
You can show your customers, your concern and care for them by localising your content. Target culture should be adapted and a personalised experience should be delivered in localisation. In this way you will be able to enhance customer engagement and trust.
Increase marketing effectiveness
Targeting a narrow segment of the local market will improve marketing effectiveness. There is no need to spend more money on different marketing campaigns as that marketing campaign will be effective in only one country. ROI needs to be calculated before launching any campaign. SEO Search Engine optimisation is very useful for localisation. Its results are influenced by physical location. Your sales will get higher if your marketing is effective.
Conclusion
Localisation is integral part of many businesses if it is needed to make a choice between two products. If just one product is localised in the native language. It is obvious consumer will go for localised product.