Language and accurate translation are necessary to reach new regions and convert customers from around the world, but they are not enough. Localization marketing is not just about translation; it is a contextual adaptation of your marketing strategy.
It means finding a way to target people with different cultures, values, beliefs, humor, and even shopping preferences like you.
But why is it so hard?
Because at the end of the day, a marketer’s success is based on his knowledge of people and culture. As any experienced marketer knows, the foundation of creating a successful marketing message is “knowing your target audience”.
So how do you identify an audience that has a different life experience than you and your team? Here are our tried and true localization tips from our team for you.
First, decide which markets to target, this is an important question to ask and answer before beginning any localization efforts.
This is how we selected the first 8 languages:
1. Traction – Choose languages used in countries where your product or service already has good traction.
2. Language Popularity – Focus on widely used languages. Almost 6,500 languages are spoken in the world today. As good as it is to reach them all, it is impossible. We need to focus on the languages that have the biggest impact. So just because a language is spoken a lot doesn’t mean it’s right for you or that you have the potential to overcome the challenges that a particular language brings.
3. Regional Potential – While the metrics for measuring potential may vary from company to company, most SaaS companies should start with these: Internet users per capita, SaaS adoption, and GDP (gross domestic product).
Second, make sure you have the infrastructure
Before you start building local marketing campaigns, it’s important (it’s not enough to advertise) that your business has the infrastructure to support it. It’s not just your marketing funnel that needs to be customized, but your overall customer experience.
Imagine seeing an ad that is fully translated and culturally appropriate. Then you test the product to find out – who knows – that the product hasn’t been translated or localized. Or look up a fully translated website only to find that the price is in a foreign currency and doesn’t match your brand’s expectations.
Probably the least likely scenario is to buy a subscription from your local sales team only to find out in time that no customer support is offered in the expected language. This is because localization is not something that can be done in the middle. It is better to focus on small markets than to spread out to cover all your bases.
Third, create a local marketing strategy
Well, once you know the right brands and build a solid infrastructure for future potential users of that brand, you can start the word. (If not, you can bookmark this post and come back later.)
So where to start? Explore your platforms In marketing to different cultures, not only the message changes but also the medium. Take the time to research and find out what tools are used in that country, what social networks they have, what search engines are most popular, and what influencers they follow.
After the first mapping of the respective platform, you can start testing. Start getting your message out there, put some money behind it, and a/b test your platforms to determine which one is best for your target market. Translate your marketing message Translating your message to a foreign market is a dual challenge – language and culture.