Why Localization Is Important? See the Benefits of Investing in Localization

Do you know why localization is important? Over 75% of global consumers prefer products that provide information in their own language. However, providing only translation text will not suffice for your brand's success. It will not convey the real messages your brand wants to deliver. If your brand truly wants to connect with the target markets, there are some ways to adapt through the localization process. The localization process will allow you to improve the branding to fit the linguistic and cultural preferences of the target markets. The efforts will benefit your products and business. The benefits will give a lot of opportunities for your company. However, localization is a complex process. A company will need a solid strategy to perform well when entering new markets.

Understanding Localization Process

To understand why localization is important, you need to understand what localization is first. Localization is the term for adapting services or contents to fit a specific market and therefore accommodate their linguistic and cultural differences. Localization will help companies to expand their success to new markets worldwide. Localization should not be confused with translation, for the two have very distinctive differences. Translation is merely converting text from one language to another. It is quite similar to localization, however, translation is also part of localization that later will be processed into more extensive and detailed changes. Localization involves not just the translation process, but also a lot more. Here are some of the detailed processes of localization, that one should know before entering new markets:

• Translate one language into another based on the target markets.
• Adapt to the visuals and graphics of the target markets.
• Modify content so it will fit with the consumer’s taste.
• Change the design and layout to display the text translated.
• Using proper local formats of dates, symbols, phone numbers, punctuation, and addresses.
• Adapt to the legal requirements and local regulations. By doing all this, you can help ensure your company's position in the target markets. These processes will help your products and services look and feel like they are from a local company. They will also help build connections with the locals and increase the company's profit.

Read more: 10 Common Localization Mistakes to Avoid Damage to Business

Benefits of Localization

Going through the effort of localization will result in many benefits. Here are some of the benefits your company will be able to get when succeeding in the localization process in the new markets.

Rapidly go worldwide

Entering new territory is not as easy as you think. Several barriers will need to be solved. Specifically, if the new market is culturally and geographically different from the company's home base. Those barriers are the political environment, demographic environment, technological environment, and many more. However, with localization, you will overcome those problems more rapidly. Hence will allow your products to adapt to the specific market. Localization will be able to help you succeed in the new territory and help your services or products adapt to the new markets. Therefore, the customers will have more chances to build an image of your brand and create a positive brand image.

Build brand relevance

Building a relevant brand is not easy. It requires effort and attention, especially in a world where trends are changing rapidly. A relevant brand will create and offer products and services that are important to the people. The brand will become part of the consumer's life and build an unbreakable bond with their lifestyle. To get to this point, there are a lot of steps that a brand needs to prepare and do. A company should also understand the need of its markets to do well in sales. If you have become part of a customer's life, it is difficult to replace your brand with others. Hence, whatever the competitor offers to them, they will not budge a single inch. It is the value you can get when building brand relevance with target markets.

Improve sales

A local would normally choose products or services when they provide information in their native language. Around 57% of consumers have said that obtaining information in their native language is ever more important than the price of the products. When a company puts effort into communicating with its customers using their native language, that company is in the process of bonding and building trust with them. At the end of the day, it will make customers feel comfortable when purchasing products or services. This will lead to a boost in sales and help build the right brand image for the customer. A company should invest in localization if they really want to bring sales.

Increase the customer’s experience

A brand that brings attention to the customer experience will bring more revenue. Even 73% of customers have said that a good experience is the key to growing loyalty to the brand. In order to succeed in new markets, companies need to pay attention to the customer experience. This experience begins from the pre-purchase stage until after the purchase stage. Understand the customer's needs, and build trust with quality and localization. Then, you will reap many benefits from it.

Conclusion

Localization is, as a matter of fact, a crucial step to acquiring trust and connection when entering new markets. The benefits of localization are what makes it so important. To do the right localization process, a company should form a team with experienced individuals who understand the target market's language and culture very well. If you fail to do so, your localization efforts will fail to produce the desired results. If you are struggling to form such a team, it is probably best to let the responsibilities fall to the experienced party. You can rely on the services of localization services such as Digital Trans-Asia which will help localize with the best team they have.