Localisation Strategies to Grow Your Brand Globally

Companies like Skillshare and Coca-cola have become popular brands over the years because they have mastered their localisation game. Conducting background research on your customers’ culture, beliefs, market trends will make it easier to personalise product offerings and marketing initiatives to their liking. 

The main purpose of localisation is to make your target audience feel like you had them in mind while designing the product. For that reason, localisation goes beyond content translation. While translation will make your content easy to read and interpret by a non-native, mere words cannot convince a potential client into buying your products if not done in a well-crafted manner.

What is a Localisation Strategy?

In a previous blog, we defined localisation as the art of recreating the emotional and logical persuasiveness of an advertisement to the liking of the target audience. The goal is to sell your idea or product to a non-native audience in a way that does not conflict with their culture, monetary budget, or beliefs.

Therefore, a localisation strategy is the steps or procedures you will undertake to ensure that non-native customers resonate with your products the way people in your locality do.   

An effective localisation strategy involves:

• Researching the cultural beliefs of the target audience
• Knowledge of the local/common language of your audience
• Research on market trends and slang used by the audience(for effective SEO strategy)
• Knowledge of taboos and graphical images which are considered to be culturally inappropriate.

As you can see, the process of localisation is not easy. In fact, most businesses find it easier to work with a localisation partner to make the process less tedious. Whether you are localising individually or working with an expert company, here are a few tips on how to do it.

How to Improve Your Localisation Strategy in 9 Ways

1. Work with a native speaker for language translation

Native speakers are like an almost complete package for your localisation needs. Other than translation, they are culturally informed and know the dos and don’ts of the market trends in their locality. They can tell which slang, sense of humor, or image will grab the attention of their fellow natives if used for marketing purposes.

2. Localise the Images and Video Characters where necessary

An ad may be more relatable to a target audience when one of their own is featured. If you are working with a local translation expert, it would be advisable to feature them on the video itself rather than making them work behind the scenes.

3. Create a memorable first impression to sell your brand

Your first localised content will not be the last. Exhaust all possible marketing strategies to ensure that the target audience will never forget your brand. This will set a foundation for your future marketing campaigns even with minimal investment.

For example, skillshare went overboard to engage content creators in every country to help them with marketing. Now that the brand has gained an audience and ¾ of the planet knows what skillshare is all about, introducing other courses to their platform will not require full board marketing.

4. Research Global Market Trends

Most businesses have learned to stay afloat through adaptation. As the world of business evolves and people’s preferences change, you must research extensively to know which products or services are currently doing well in your target region. 

Let’s say you are a language translator working individually to help clients translate tons of documents into other languages. You should know that automated machine translations are taking over manual services. This means that most clients will be heading over to these websites to get their work done. As the translator, the strategy should involve partnering with the translation websites to keep your skills relevant. 

5. Amplify your content on different platforms

Previously, we gave a detailed guide on how to repurpose a video transcript for various platforms. You can use the same localised content to create ads, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, ebooks, etc. This will make it easier for a higher percentage of your target audience to come across the content. Again, it gives value for your money after all the investments made in marketing.

6. Use Native Keywords for Search Engine Optimization

Keyword research is important for google ranking. As you study the culture of your target audience, research the keywords being used in google searches in their dialect. The keywords can be used to make your content SEO friendly.

7. Know your competitors’ marketing strategies

Understanding the strategies used by other competitors to reach your target market will help cut down on your research budget. Identify the tactics that have worked for your competitor and perfect them. Sometimes choosing a unique path will not guarantee success, especially when going into new markets.

8. Encourage Feedback from the Target Audience

Once you have your advert out there and it’s performing averagely or extremely well, take the initiative to know what is pushing the drive. Encouraging feedback from the target audience gives you an opportunity to improve on areas that registered concerns. 

9. Create Standard content that resonates with most markets

Localisation can be costly if your goal is to make unique content for each and every target market. Standard content is one that can be consumed by any target audience without much modification. For example, various states in America resonate with the KFC brand without personalisation. It’s only in extreme cases such as the case of China where localisation played an important role for KFC.

Localise your content with Auris AI

Auris AI combines artificial intelligence with human language professionals to provide transcription, translation, and video subtitling services. We work with a team of over 3000 native freelancers to polish and give your brand the cultural feel suitable for any audience. Visit our website to begin your localisation journey today.

Final Thoughts

Brand marketing strategy is not cast on stones. The strategies shared form 80% of what thriving brands have used to globalize. Some will work, and others may not. The secret is to continually learn and understand the target market and its needs. Perhaps the catch is not in marketing but in the quality of your products in comparison to other competitors.