What is Localisation? And how can your marketing benefit?
By
William
Localisation is the process of adapting content, products, or services to a specific culture or region. This involves transcending both language and cultural barriers.
Localisation is different from translation, as it requires understanding the target culture to best adapt the product to local needs. It's not just about language, but also about formality, visuals, cultural sensitivities, and even the localisation of payment methods.
What happens if you don't localise your marketing campaign?
We've all heard stories about brands that flop in other countries because their marketing didn't translate well. The main reason is that these brands didn't localise their marketing campaign.
Save yourself from making the same mistakes these companies did!
Nokia failed miserably when launching its new Lumia phone in Spanish-speaking countries because the product's name was slang for "prostitute". As a result, the brand received high levels of negative publicity.
Another cross-cultural flop was when P & G introduced Pampers to Japan. Their marketing campaign, which depicted a stork carrying a baby, did not translate into Japanese culture. In Japanese folklore, giant peaches float down the river and deliver babies, not storks.
So although it might be tempting to use machine translation or other online translation software and consider the job done, a single mistake or a small missing detail could make your marketing campaign ineffective, or worse, ruin your brand.
How your business can benefit from localisation.
Research has shown 90% of consumers will ignore your product if it is not in their native language. This is why localisation is so important!
Here are a few ways your brand can benefit from localisation:
Growth
Localisation is a terrific way to reach more people and spread your brand, which will also help with SEO. It can also help your brand overcome challenges of entry into the market, like customer loyalty and sales economies.
Connections
Localisation helps humanise your brand because it fosters closer, more personal connections with users and consumers. It also helps keep existing customers happy by showing respect for local cultures and values, as it recognises them and tries to adapt rather than impose the content.
Increased Profits
Localisation makes marketing investments more cost-effective, increases your sales potential, and helps reduce customer support costs by providing adequate material that individuals can understand.
Why choose ilc for your marketing localisation projects?
At ilc, our team of multilingual specialists understand the importance of your audiences' language, culture, and behaviours. This is why we offer top-quality localisation services, so you can stay culturally relevant and successfully communicate with customers in foreign languages. Contact us today if you want to create personalised content on a global scale.