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Globalization is one of the key features of our time. Some companies can’t handle this competitive environment and leave the market, while others adapt to change and thrive worldwide. Undoubtedly, everyone wants to be in the second group. One of the key tasks to achieve this is to localize your product. This means not just translating an online course or instructions on a box, but making the product indistinguishable from those created in the target country. You should develop a localization strategy to avoid chaos in your international expansion efforts. Thus, you will evade common mistakes and effectively tailor your product to a new audience.
As soon as you’re thinking of entering the international market, start building the localization strategy. It will help you:
Let’s imagine that the company “X”, a manufacturer of household goods, enters the international market. Its managers don’t pay enough attention to localization and offer foreign customers the product as is. It turns out that the instructions are translated incomprehensibly, and ads don’t attract the audience at all. Moreover, the company can’t offer customers the needed products, simply because marketers haven’t analyzed the new market. The level of sales is low, and it seems that the idea of going global has failed. However, this could’ve been avoided with a localization strategy.
We hope that you’re already convinced that you need a localization strategy to adapt the product for global growth, and you’re ready to create it. We’ve collected the main aspects that will help you develop a clear localization plan and consider all the crucial details. Working on an expansion strategy will also help you understand how competitive the product will be in a new market. Perhaps you will need to finalize it or offer something different to the global audience.
To predict a brand’s success in a new region, you need to look at its current condition. Answer the following questions:
Your product may involve other aspects and metrics; consider those too. Thus, you will better identify your strengths and weaknesses. You will understand whether it’s worth entering a new market at all. You’ll also get to know your potential customers in other countries better.
You need to clearly understand how developed your niche is in the target country and whether you have worthy competitors. With a lot of competition, it will be challenging to promote a non-local product. Study this issue carefully and find out how crowded the market is.
Knowing your competitors will be especially useful if they come from a foreign market. Study their mistakes and successful localization decisions and apply everything that will help you grow faster and win the trust of customers.
At this stage, you have a rough understanding of how to promote your product. Now you can calculate what you need to implement an effective localization strategy:
Estimate in advance what resources you will need, so you can assess how realistic your plan is and prepare to start. However, be ready to adjust the numbers in the future: a new market may behave unexpectedly.
One of the best decisions you can make is to work with professional translators. No matter how much you study the experience of other companies and the target market, there’s always a chance that your mistakes will complicate the localization process. Specialized companies have been localizing products for many years, have expertise in different languages, and are well versed in the peculiarities of different markets. They can help you localize content, tailor marketing strategy, prepare an SEO strategy, edit videos, and more. If you work with them, the path to the international audience will become much shorter and easier.
