Businesses must meet the speed at which culture shifts. Doing so in a global market requires time-sensitive, rapid response partners who understand the nuances of sociopolitical shifts. Premium localization is no longer just a competitive advantage — it has become a customer expectation.
Language localization directly affects a company’s bottom line. Appia found that especially in mobile marketing content (the device through which the majority of Internet content is consumed), localization drove increased click-through rates by 86% in global markets.
The numbers don’t lie; effective localization is key to seeing ROI. Effective localization decreases customer acquisition costs, secures customer retention goals, and increases transparency for businesses to make informed decisions in new or expanding markets.
However, not all localization services are the same. Local, industry-expert translators who match the style and speed of your company are key to automation augmentation. Creating the right mix will make the difference between success and failure when entering a new market.
The Importance of Regional Translators
Marketers know that translation is key to globalized audiences. However, not all translations are equally effective. In order to create optimized content for your budget and time constraints, localization can be the key to the acquisition and retention of customers. The internet allows for cultural norms to shift quickly and for a shift in the public mindset of your brand to change equally as fast. This is true in cultural norms, holidays, slang, and political or social events.
Because of the rapid rate of change and the speed at which information is distributed, it’s imperative to have in-country translators who understand and can respond to the cultural and political landscape of your target locale in real-time. Doing so will make the difference between building brand equity or sounding tone-deaf or missing your potential customers entirely. Expert in-country translators create content that increases customer acquisition as well as creates brand trust and loyalty investing in long-term relationships with your audiences.
In addition to relationship building, locally sensitive content and translators provide your company’s key decision-makers with intelligence insights that allow informed decisions. Translators should constantly be gathering intelligence data. Having translators in-country means that they are sensitive to the market and shifting needs and can provide this guiding information to your decision-makers quickly in times of crisis or social change.
Risks of Not Investing in Localization
Conversely, a failure to invest in optimized localization and local translation experts could be disastrous for your brand’s market entry or expansion. Potential risks could include misuse of allocated resources resulting in your brand becoming digitally invisible to local markets. Failing SEO optimization or low-performing content could lead to a loss in potential customers or the movement of current customers to more localized providers.
Failure to capitalize on localization is also a missed opportunity to gain intelligent insights. If high-quality translations function as a feedback loop, they will serve as a gateway to regional trends and conversations for your brand. Without localization, your brand’s dialogue is put into a silo of a one-way conversation, which can result in missing out on important market data.
Find the Right Solution for Your Needs
The best solution is the one that is customized to your business needs. One disastrous mistake that a company can make when going global is overspending on the wrong things, and not allocating enough for the right solutions.
For example, when choosing a translation solution, a company may charge a high price to have all your content translated by human translators. Consumers don’t have the patience for latent technology and your brand could miss out on opportunities.
Instead, your translation experts should understand different weights of content and where time and resources can be saved using machine translation, allowing the experts to focus on optimizing content that is better suited for human translation. For example, user-generated content can be easily and effectively translated with MT, while it is better for marketing content to be expertly optimized.
Another common mistake is not understanding the humans behind the localization effort. Spanish in Latin America is not used the same as Spanish in Spain and your consumers will immediately know the difference. Invest in vendors who represent your target demographic, understand your industry, and can match your brand’s voice.
If your business is expanding, there couldn’t be a more critical time to find the right technology in order to manage your brand’s speed, quality, and overall image. To find custom solutions to fit your schedule and budget, contact Lingotek’s strategic translation experts.
