The advantages of localization today go beyond opening up national markets. Imagine you earn money by selling your product locally. You have a product description in place, a website, webshop, marketing materials and more. Your business is growing and you are thinking about expanding internationally BUT all your materials are in English. How would you take on this challenge? How do you translate your materials and adapt them to cultures you barely know? Localization is your solution.
A few decades ago, “localization” started to become more widely known. In the late 1970s, independent translators joined forces and formed companies in order to offer more diverse language services such as editing, proofreading and typesetting. Recently, the translation industry started to embrace technologies like translation memory to improve services. As a result, localization took off.
The Cambridge dictionary defines localization as “the process of making a product or service more suitable for a particular country, culture, or area”. In other words, idiomatic translation is just one of the services within localization. Adapting graphics to the target markets, customizing content, converting to local currencies, using proper formats for dates and time zones are other examples of localization.
Many statistics illustrate the benefits of localization in every industry. A few examples:
1. Studies have shown that consumers are five times more likely to purchase goods and services when they are offered in their own language. More than 60 percent of the consumers in France and Japan declared that they purchase only from websites where the information is presented in their own language.
2. According to research conducted by Common Sense Advisory, companies that localize information in order to communicate with their customers and partners were generating 2.7 times more revenue and 2.6 times more profit. Additionally, Research by CMO Council reveals that 49% of surveyed national marketers highlight localized marketing as a vital factor for business growth and profitability.
3. Codex Global, which is an experienced market research company, states that only 28 percent of online consumers speak English while the largest online consumer nations consist of South Korea, China and Japan – countries in which English is not a widely spoken language.
Although it might be difficult to link dollar values to services like localization, some companies have shown success. Apple, Samsung, and Ford are some of the examples mentioned in this article. For them, localization has been a key factor – how about your business?