As any successful global brand will tell you, expansion into new markets can be tough. It involves much more than merely opening an office or offering shipping to a new country. Expansion takes strategy and planning, and for marketers, this process often entails spearheading innovative and effective ways to connect with customers across regions.
This process takes time, consideration and forethought in order to avoid cultural and commercial pitfalls. And while this might seem obvious, marketers can sometimes overlook all of this when it comes to rolling out their web presence internationally. If you ever want to put this to the test simply ask a brand manager what their web localisation strategy is and watch the gentle sense of alarm as it creeps across their face!
So, what is a localisation strategy and what should brand managers and marketers be aware of?
In its simplest form localisation means modifying your content, messaging, and applications for local consumption. Like any other part of global expansion, it’s a process that needs to be properly assessed, managed and optimised; and brands need to put an emphasis on the ‘strategy’ element.
To properly understand the current state of localisation, Lionbridge recently conducted a survey of hundreds of marketing, IT, and localisation professionals in over 30 countries.
The good news was the majority of those surveyed had already identified the importance of localisation. Over 90% of respondents localise their product and service pages, understanding that optimising this information for local markets will make the content more impactful.
Additionally, they are already localising campaign and landing pages, marketing assets, and press releases. Interestingly though, only a third actually translate company blogs. Given that this is a great way for brands to reach potentially indifferent audiences it seemed a strange oversight.
The problem, however, seems to be that the localisation is carried out on an ad hoc basis, with nearly half (40 percent) of respondents saying that that they do not currently have any formal strategies in place. The result is that nearly 40 percent localise content weekly and an additional 27 percent localise content on monthly basis.
This is fundamentally inefficient. Translating content on a reactive basis does not allow for the level of consistency that global brands need. It is difficult to maintain brand identity with multiple translators working on content in different locations, and often in different styles. But who should be taking control of the localisation?
Over half the respondents (53 percent) felt that the responsibility for web localisation sat clearly with the marketing department which does make sense. Website localisation is imperative to improving the customer experience and brand loyalty, both of which would clearly be under a marketers remit. So while it can be considered daunting and complicated; here is a a four point check list for marketers to help them through the process:
1. Know the customer mindset. Cultural blunders ruin brands and profits, so you need to understand your customer to deliver them the right content. Do your homework and make sure you know how customers in specific regions obtain information, and what their preferences are.
2. Determine the right translation and localisation methods. Based on your research, this includes languages that will best benefit your specific business, while paying attention to what your competitors are doing and which languages/regions they’ve invested in.
3. Make sure your approach is centralised. Centralising your strategy will increase inefficiencies and costs associated with a decentralised/ad-hoc approach. By having everything in one place, you’ll save yourself headaches, in addition to costs.
4. Select the right translation provider. To start, take a look at a provider’s reputation, supply chain, level of service, the technology they’re using, and their resource capacity. These factors will inform you if a translation provider can meet your needs.
By Ian Brooks, Digital Strategist at Lionbridge.
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