Why Localisation Matters

Why is language localisation so important and how can you get it right?

66 percent of businesses and 34 percent of consumers are willing to pay up to 30 percent more for a product that speaks their language. What does that mean for your company and your products? Read why localisation matters and which three factors determine successful localisation.

Localisation is the process that adapts a product to the cultural and linguistic nuances of a target market. From software to websites and instruction manuals: If it is to work in the target market, it needs to be localised. And if you don’t notice that the product is originally from a different country, it’s been successfully localised. Translation is one key aspect of localisation. However, to successfully enter a market, products and services must also account for socio-political, religious, economic, and cultural preferences and customs. This can include the altering of symbols, colours, names, music and references, for instance. 

Why should you localise products?

Long-term return on investment (ROI)

According to the CSA Research survey of Fortune 500 companies, businesses that increased their localisation budgets were 1.5 times more likely than their peers to generate a higher total revenue, and twice as likely to augment their profits.

Localised products are catered to a given language and market. This makes them more effective and prone to success. Localised translation is critical for reaching international markets, increasing customer engagement and accessibility, creating positive brand optics, and eliminating support costs. 

Ultimately, fully localising your content beyond mere words will save you time and money by preventing you from selling an inferior product or service that fails to resonate with the target market. 

Risk management

While improving over the years, the quality of machine translation is still unequivocally inferior and when it comes to customer-facing communication, only professional translators will know how to truly localise. Embarrassing cultural or factual errors that can really harm a brand’s reputation. 

However, such errors are bound to occur with translation machines that struggle to process context or content in their algorithms. The same goes for translations created by people who are not fully proficient in a language or don’t fully understand all the many aspects involved in true translation and localisation. After all, speaking a language does not automatically make you a translator.

A professional localisation process is a risk avoidance measure, preventing your entity from producing potentially offensive, illegal or ineffective and inaccurate communications. Poor term usage in operating instructions, for instance, can result in misunderstandings and even accidents. In a legal document, the wrong terminology can put you or your company at fault. It is thus imperative to have your products and services localised by professionals who are intimately familiar with your desired markets.

Uncertainty mitigation

Anything unfamiliar can invoke fear or discomfort, if only subconsciously. In turn, familiarity and having our expectations met helps us relate to a product or service. Properly localised interfaces, for example, mitigate uncertainties through being user-friendly and accessible. Providing appropriate customer support and systematic help as well as comprehensive and understandable product documentation all ensure a good user experience. 

They will also meet customers’ expectations as to how such help is presented, and how users and interested parties are addressed. Effective localisation respects cultural norms and inspires confidence, thus underpinning international sales processes and ultimately boosting performance.

How can you get localisation right?

Qualified language service providers enable you to provide localised services and products without having to compromise the level of technological or complex, industry-specific services you provide. This ensures that consumers of all target markets can access your product comfortably and that new consumers can navigate and adopt your product or service confidently.

By consulting with a professional language service provider, you ensure a high quality, localised product that can generate optimal revenue from the start and avoid a series of revisions and edits to salvage erroneous or culturally irrelevant content.

Are you interested in increasing the value of your products and services? Talk to us about how to localise them!