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You’ve decided to enter a new market with your product. But how will your foreign audience get to know about it if you’re not speaking their language? How can you advertise any product or service to people who speak another language?
No matter how great your product is, it’s nothing if no one knows about it or understands its benefits. You even might offer the best tech solution, but if people can’t read about you, you won’t succeed.
People don’t like to buy from companies that don’t speak their language: 76% of consumers would prefer products with information in their language. The chances are you don’t want to lose this part of your potential clients.
Advertising and marketing localization is what you need to reach out to the new audience.
What Is Marketing Localization?
Marketing localization is about adapting any marketing or advertising materials to make them look local in the new markets.
The main goal is to adjust your campaigns to the buying habits in a new region. Professional advertising localization helps enhance customer experience, increase loyalty, and show your brand to global audiences.
And What Is Transcreation?
When discussing ad and marketing localization, we often mention ‘transcreation.’ Transcreation is a combo of translation and creation, meaning that you not simply translate the marketing materials but try to create something new for a foreign market to make your ads look local and native.
Sometimes it really requires a lot of work. For example, Netflix, to dominate the streaming market, needed to create authentic local language content. Some of the local content has become worldwide popular: Squid Game became the first Korean series to claim the #1 spot on U.S. Netflix Top Ten list.
What is more interesting is that today more than 55% of Netflix’s original content is in a language other than English.
As we see, marketing localization is not just about translating the ads — it might require creating new local content from scratch to create a strong connection with the audience.
Let’s look at some aspects of marketing localization that any company needs to consider while reaching new audiences.
Tips to Rock Marketing Localization
1. Think of the Meaning
Many ad campaigns fail as the companies don’t do much research on the meaning of the words they are using.
One of the classic examples is the Coca-Cola mistake. When entering the Chinese market, Coca-Cola first transcripted its name as ‘Ke-ke-ken-la’ in Chinese. However, it turned out that the meaning was quite strange — “bite the wax tadpole.” Fortunately, they managed to find a word that would sound similar: Kekoukele, meaning “tasty fun.”
We recommend double-checking the meaning of the brand name with native and whether it has any dual meaning. Preventing an error costs less than correcting it.
2. Choose a Professional Team
A professional localization service is one of the keystones to success in foreign markets. Localization agencies will help to create an ad or marketing campaign that will authentically appeal to your target audience.
Usually, agencies offer you top-notch translators who have experience in and understanding marketing and ads. Moreover, tech and convenient translation platforms make your work easier as everything is stored in one place, and there is no need to find the necessary information in hundreds of emails or chats.
3. ASO and SEO Localization
ASO (App Store Optimization) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) play a significant role in advertising and promoting your services online. However, many brands forget about this critical aspect. The goal of ASO or SEO is to organically promote your app or website by using specific words people use while searching.
If you’re entering new markets, you need to localize keywords for every market. People might use different words to search in Google or in the App Store. It might happen even if people speak the same language. Thus, if you’re a property rental website, you need to remember that the Americans use “apartment,” and the British use “flat.”
Moreover, knowing what search engine is used in every region is important. For example, Baidu is the most popular search engine in China, while Google is the leading search engine in the USA.
Localize keywords for every foreign market to give your audience a chance to find you.
4. Localize Audio
If you have audio for your marketing materials, you need to consider them when entering new markets.
You have different options: do dubbing or just create foreign subtitles. Of course, dubbing is a more time and money-consuming thing. However, it makes content more local and authentic.
On Netflix, for example, the majority of shows have subtitles. But the audience in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain prefer dubbing more. Therefore Netflix has chosen to dub 60% of foreign content in these territories.
You can A/B test your content with subtitles and dubbing to get the data about what option performs better in what region.
5. Different Time for Campaigns
Various countries have different traditions, and you need to consider them to look relevant to these foreign audiences.
If you’re planning to advertise something for, let’s say, New Year, keep in mind that New Year’s time differs from country to country. In the USA, New Year is on January 1, while in China, it happens somewhere between January 21 and February 20, according to Western calendars. Also, you need to remember that Christmas is more important than New Year in the USA, while in Russia, New Year is much more celebrated than Christmas.
If we talk about shopping, Cyber Monday is the biggest e-commerce shopping day in the USA. In 2021, global online sales hit $275 billion, up 2 percent compared to 2020. However, Cyber Monday is not the hottest day for sales in China: Singles Day, November 11, is.
Thus, if you’re planning to sell in China, you need to set the ads for other days than in the USA.
Bottom Line
Marketing and advertising localization is a superb way to boost your growth. Authentic ads are a great way to sound local and increase customer loyalty. Why not try it out?