What’s Your Company's Localization Strategy?

Everyone Understands English? Not Quite. The Localization Gold Mine Awaits.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were forced to speak in a non-native language? Recall that memory, and think about how quickly you tried to get out of that situation. Maybe you gave short, curt replies because that was all you could confidently muster. If it was an online interaction, perhaps you checked to see if they spoke English before abandoning the conversation altogether. That’s how millions of people feel every time they access a platform only to find that it does not have content written in their native language.

Life is hard enough without having to navigate it in a foreign language. For businesses that want to make the path to purchase as smooth as possible, the absence of a localized experience presents a massive purchasing block. This might explain why 29% of businesses lose customers when they don’t offer multilingual support. Another research report suggests that 65% of consumers prefer content written in their language.

You might think, “But what’s the big deal? My target audience speaks English anyway.” Well, even though it may seem that everyone else around us is speaking the same language, the truth is that only 0.2% of the world’s 1.35 billion English speakers are native English speakers. Meanwhile, the other 99.8% of people are struggling through email communications or websites written in a foreign language.

But Google Translate can translate for free

We get it. Not every business has the budget to hire a quality translator, and it’s tempting to plug content into machine translators in hopes of getting a serviceable translation. At least people will start landing on your website, right? Well, maybe. It is a risky gamble to entrust content that you painstakingly wrote to the automation gods without ensuring that your audience will understand it.

There are endless examples of digital content translations gone wrong, ranging from ridiculously funny to downright offensive. And most importantly, the problem with first impressions is that they are remembered. Foreign audiences that you’re trying to reach will remember your poorly written website, even if you do manage to fix it later.

The above image shows a website language selector that has been automatically translated from French to English via Google Translate. This resulted in language initials that are indecipherable in English (e.g. OF, IN). Source: My take on language selectors by Zsolt Szilvai of UX Collective.

Localization is not merely translation

Quality localization services are tough because they involve much more than just converting text word for word into the desired language. Recreating good copy that's free from unnatural phrasing, or technically-works-yet-somehow-misplaced vocabulary that native speakers can read without flinching, is but the first step towards good localization.

In fact, deviating from the source material may sometimes help natives better engage with the final product. For example, it’s customary for Japanese people to exchange greetings before diving into business. So, if you’re relying on a translation machine, then it would not know how to localize the message to adhere to this cultural norm, potentially making your message appear disrespectful.

Beyond just words, a good localizer should be familiar enough with regional customs to understand how colors, symbols, and layout can affect brand perception. It is not unusual for businesses to create multiple versions of their content to cater to different audiences. It could boil down to a few basic factors, such as visuals and web interfaces that are familiar to a specific demographic, or even various formats that better fit the linguistic structure of different languages.

For example, the block structure of Chinese and Korean characters lends itself to being placed in compact menu tiles as opposed to European languages where words are much more prone to variations in character lengths.

Launching an effective multilingual communications campaign

If you haven’t figured it out by now, localization is a huge challenge to overcome. For a localized campaign to be truly effective, companies must pay the same attention to detail regarding localization as they do with segmenting audience demographics and figuring out what makes them tick. While it would be nice to have unlimited resources on hand to make that a reality, this isn’t the case for most businesses. Here are three key considerations that can help.

1) To emphasize again: don’t simply translate, localize

Translating into your target audience’s native language is key, but it is not the only aspect of localization. Studying a region and understanding local preferences and trends will help to inform which communication strategies work the best and which tactics to avoid.

In Vietnam, Zalo is the most popular messaging channel with close to 76% of 16 to 64 year olds using the app in 2020. If a business targeting the Vietnamese market solely focused on translation and chose to use a sub-optimal channel (e.g. WhatsApp) to reach its audience, it’s safe to say that the campaign would be set up for failure.

💡 To learn more about which messaging apps work the best in which Asian market, read The State of Chat Apps in Asia and How Brands Can Benefit.

2) Prioritize target audiences with high ROI

Do your research. Rather than localizing for the largest demographic, it would be wiser to target a language community that is the most responsive to your product and prioritize them. This way, you will build a strong business case to get the necessary buy-in from your various stakeholders. After all, making a localization campaign happen often involves marketing, product, engineering, legal, and finance teams, just to name a few.

3) Curate a thorough and consistent customer experience

Imagine this scenario: you’re excited to see an ad in your local language about a product that you’ve been trying to find for the longest time. You click the link and discover that all information on the product's website is displayed in English. Your excitement disappears and you immediately exit the site.

That’s the emotional rollercoaster that customers, or rather lost customers, go through when a localization campaign lacks end-to-end planning. It’s critical to always map out your customer journey, from pre-sales engagement to after-sales service. Then, localize every possible touch point or hire multilingual service agents who can take on customer conversations in their local languages.

Adjust and fine-tune your localization strategies with 8x8 Connect

Just as customers should feel right at home navigating your localized websites and applications, 8x8 Connect is designed to help you easily deliver quality communications that always resonate with your customers.

Convert messages into memorable soundbites with 8x8 Connect’s built-in voice messaging tool and localization settings. Create a unique voice profile for your brand by adjusting velocity, pitch, and tone to your needs.

Streamline your communications campaigns with 8x8 Connect’s WhatsApp template manager. You can organize your templates by language and plan out your localized campaign ahead of time.

For small businesses wanting to experiment with different communication strategies, 8x8 Connect allows for small group testing and continual optimization. For large enterprises looking to expand into multiple regions at once, 8x8’s reliable network partners support your localization needs.

Learn how you can take your business to places and people that you never thought were possible to reach. Reach out at hello-cpaas@8x8.com.