It’s a big world out there, but the right localization strategy helps you bridge the gap into new markets.
Localization is more than translation; it’s adapting your content for cultural, linguistic, and regional nuances that any local will notice straightaway.
As with any target audience, successfully expanding into a new market begins with good research. Getting to know your audience’s communication preferences is the first step in providing content that authentically and credibly speaks to their needs and cultural norms. Getting there requires following a few localization best practices and establishing website management systems that can keep up.
Internationalization vs. Localization vs. Translation
Internationalization, localization, and translation represent the three main groups of tasks you’ll need to take on to adapt your marketing materials for new markets and native languages.
Internationalization (i18n)
Internationalization (i18n) is the groundwork. It’s the effort you put into preparing your website to support geotargeting and serve new visitors in foreign markets.
If you’re heading into an Arabic-speaking market, for example, your website must support right-to-left reading. And if you’re breaking into the European Union, data-handling workflows must meet the region’s stringent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Localization (l10n)
Localization (l10n) involves adapting your content for regional, linguistic, and cultural differences.
Showing off your company’s beef products if you’re in the dining and hospitality industry, for instance, might draw people further into the funnel and generate conversions in the United States or Europe, but not in most parts of India. Doing l10n right means identifying cultural differences and making every effort to address them in the content you serve to each audience.
Translation
Once you know how to serve your new target market’s audience, you can translate content into the local language. Machine translation can adapt large batches of content quickly, but human translators should always review translated text while applying localization and internationalization strategies.
Why localization matters for global businesses
Entering a new market requires a significant investment, and your localization strategy can help you achieve the best possible ROI. If you want to make the most out of your global expansion, you need to quickly connect with your new target market’s audience.
Market expansion and customer trust
There’s a good chance locals in the target market you’re expanding into have never heard of your brand. You have a clean slate, and properly localized content speaks to them in a way that helps make the best first impression. That’s crucial for building the long-term customer trust that will solidify your presence in a new market.
Audience and native language considerations
Many businesses have committed translation snafus over the years. Some are funny and innocent slips, while others are trust-reducing mistakes. The only way to avoid the latter is by doing your due diligence during localization. You need to know the words or slogans that might be confusing or offensive when translated to different languages.
Localization scope and priorities
A smart localization strategy scopes your translation efforts carefully and sets your priorities straight from the get-go. Even the best laid plans can go awry at some point, but having them in place makes it easier to pivot and adapt as needed. You can think of localization as an overall management system keeping all your workflows and international marketing strategies moving in the right direction.
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How to create a website localization strategy: 3 steps
Building your localization strategy may involve constant fine-tuning and ongoing tinkering, but the most impactful results come from three core steps.
1. Research target markets and prioritize localization needs
First, you need to understand the target market, audience, and cultural norms through market research. The time you spend now learning about cultural and linguistic differences may save you time and money down the road.
Here are a few research strategies that should help:
- Interviews. Ask locals in your new target market open-ended questions about similar brands, products, and services. Pay attention to their preferences and how they talk about the user experience, including specific words and phrases they use.
- Competitor research. Examine competitors in the market to identify their most effective marketing strategies and localization context. Notice how their marketing materials address the audience, and take notes about what might be applicable to your brand.
- Market research. Look up regional data to identify relevant local trends in purchasing preferences and consumer behavior.
2. Build scalable localization workflows
Begin assembling your localization strategy with a simple workflow, such as adapting an existing ad campaign for your new target market’s audience. Here are a few common examples of critical steps in the process:
- Automation. Wherever possible, automate tedious tasks using machine translation, tool integrations, or AI content generation. Maintaining manual review by native-speaking translators helps your team publish accurate content in the local language.
- Research. Do your market research early and document what you learn in detailed glossaries and style guides so everyone is on the same page.
- Outsource. Contract a localization service or design agency to pick up time-intensive projects in parallel with your team’s other global marketing work.
Once you have a small-scale workflow refined, take what you learn and build a localization pipeline that guides projects through i18n, l10n, and translation from beginning to end. Create scalable SOPs that support everything from a short email campaign to a complete website overhaul.
3. Test and optimize localized experiences
Establish a regular cadence for following up on localization projects. It may take some time to get useful data back when you first enter a new market, but don’t let it pass you by. Check up on how your target market is responding, and look for trends that indicate what’s working and what isn’t. The metrics you use may depend on your business, but here are a few suggestions:
- Conversions. The ultimate goal of any localization strategy is to drive conversions in a new market, so focus on those first. Use a multi-touch attribution model to take a deep dive into audience interactions, and trace the most impactful touchpoints along a customer’s purchase journey.
- Net promoter score (NPS). Gather feedback to learn how likely customers are to recommend your product to someone else. A high score tells you they’re happy with the product and that they approve of your brand’s marketing localization efforts.
- Customer retention rate. Compare how many customers you bring in to the number still engaged at the end of a year. A low rate could indicate that something in your localization strategy isn’t connecting with your target audience or translated content is missing the right local nuance and context.
How to measure localization success
Don’t rate the overall success of your localization strategy solely by conversions or NPS. Effective localization should also examine how efficiently you automate workflows and get content out to your new target audience. A few measurements can help you assess your brand’s localization results.
Localization speed and translation workflows
After your localization strategy has been up and running for a while, check in on how efficiently it’s working. Look at time-to-publish rates, which measure how long it takes for a project to go from idea to finished and localized content. Workflow bottlenecks and missed automation opportunities are common culprits for slow time-to-publish rates, while timely localization helps quickly capture audience attention and engagement when interest is high.
Content accuracy and engagement
Check in on conversions, NPSs, and your customer retention rate changes at regular intervals to understand how well you’re engaging with the local market. Compare these figures between markets and over time to identify dips or spikes. A sharp dip in conversions, for example, might indicate that a particular ad campaign has a localization issue such as a translation inaccuracy. An upward spike, on the other hand, might mean you struck gold with a cultural reference or relevant topic.
Build scalable localization workflows with Webflow
A truly optimized, scalable localization strategy is a serious asset. It’s a sophisticated approach your business can use time and time again to enter new markets and continue serving existing ones confidently.
You can deliver a personalized website experience whether your target audience and users are in Los Angeles, Luxembourg City, or Ludhiana. Webflow supports your growing international businesses and multilingual websites by carefully tailoring online experiences through localization and automated machine translation.
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