Terralíngua

Putting your business into the local marketplace makes sense if you want to attract new customers from different countries.

According to the Common Sense Advisory (CSA), a company will need ‘14 languages to reach 90% of the world’s opportunity.’ A large, wealthy corporation may well be able to cover these languages. Take Coca-Cola for example, their brand is sold in more than 200 countries. During the World Cup, Coca-Cola localized their websites in over six continents to cover teams playing in the World Cup.

However, if you’re a company on a budget, how do you decide which languages to target and what to localize? How do you make sure you get a good return on your investment?

Pick your Countries

Firstly, pick out the countries you already do business with and look at your company’s goals for the next five years. Is it worth investing in one of the overlooked emerging markets, like Indonesia, or should you be thinking about a country like India?

40% of India’s population speaks the official language, Hindi. Although many Indian people also speak English, the internet is spreading into rural areas, where there are only Hindi speakers. These new internet users are looking for products and services in their own language.

Who are your Customers?

Secondly, find out who your customers are. This means speaking to your sales and marketing teams. Ask questions: How old are they? How much do they earn? What jobs do they do? What are their likes and dislikes? What are their hobbies?

If you are dealing with B2B companies, you’ll need to know who’s in charge, who buys the products, and how many people there are in the decision-making chain. Marketing and sales teams can also help you get information from current customers by asking them questions like: “How did you find our company?”, “What did you buy?” and “why do you like us?”. Creating customer profiles will help you identify your target market.

Web Sites and Content

Next, you need to use your budget to translate and localize the most important parts of your sales and marketing tools. This will probably be your websites, mobile apps and website content.

Finally, decide on how to localize your content in order to provide an engaging customer experience. You need to think about the type of content that will interest your target audience and encourage them to buy. This applies to B2C and B2B purchasers.

The Importance of Localization

Localization is the key to attracting new customers from abroad. According to an article by the Harvard Business Review, 72.1% of customers spend time on websites in their own language. 72.4% said they would most likely buy from a website in their own language and 56.2% said they would not mind paying more for something if the information is in their own language.

Another Common Sense Advisory survey found that 40% of people said they would never buy from a website in a different language and 20% of people never looked at websites that weren’t in their language.

Translation and localization are important. Translation enables people to read and understand information in their own language, which gives them confidence in the product. Localization is a way of engaging customers by being aware of their way of life, which makes them feel valued.

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Terralingua is a translation company that can help you with your localization projects. We have helped some of the world’s largest brands. For more information, please visit our website for further details.