Business expansion is a process that is often arduous but necessary for many enterprises.
It
involves several considerations on the part of the business owner, but one
thing at the center of it all; is expanding to new markets. These markets,
which can either be the nearby local market or a larger part of the
international scene, all depend on your business scale and objectives.
Due to
the perilous nature of these times, most crucial business decisions need to be
based only on the essentials in order to manage scarce resources.
But how
do business owners balance cost savings and business expansion expenses as they
enter into new markets while trying to keep their enterprise afloat?
In this
post, we take a look at content localization and actionable ways to crush it on
a limited budget.
Why you
need to localize your content
There
are a plethora of reasons why businesses expand their ventures into new
markets. It could be to gain additional visibility, more market share, or
something in-between.
Whatever
the reason may be, the present digital era requires that your business overcome
language barriers by adapting your content to your specific target locality.
Well,
this is basically what content localization is all about.
You may
be wondering why you need to go through the hassle of localizing your content.
For
starters, you do so in order to stay competitive. Yet again, data suggests that 75% of
consumers prefer to buy products that are in their native language. By adapting
your content and products, you are already appealing to this demographic majority.
How do
you carry-out localization on a budget?
This is
sort of the elephant in the room. We already mentioned earlier in the article
how tricky it is to balance operating costs and localization expenses, but how
about some pretty actionable tips on reducing the costs of localization.
- What does the data say?
Data,
as we know, does not pander to sentiments, and it helps make better-informed
decisions.
As a
business owner, you should always be on the lookout for data-backed insights.
What is
the data trying to tell you about your target demographic? What segments are
they (target audience) interacting with the most? Adopting analytics can help
trim localization spending by only focusing on aspects that bring the most
returns for your business. Since just like in translation, not all information
on your platform needs localization.
- Always align localization
plans with your business objectives.
Haven
already established your business objectives, it is only logical to formulate
your content localization plans around said objectives. Doing so makes it
easier to dissociate one’s business from the clutter involved in entering into
new markets. You end up localizing only the essentials and doing away with
localizing content that does not necessarily contribute to fulfilling your
business objective, which leads to saving costs associated with localization.
- Review content before
submitting for localization
The act
of reviewing content before localization further reinforces the first two
points. Take a critical look at the content you are sending in and objectively
determine if it needs localizing.
Does
your LSP have that section saved in translation memory? If
the answer is yes, why are you taking that particular content for localization
and incurring additional fees?
Your
review should adopt a tunnel vision approach in order to place attention on
segments that are yet to be translated and are only beneficial to your
enterprise.
- Incorporate MT wherever
possible
As we
have already established in our last post,
machine translation helps LSP’s to save costs, which also trickles down to the
clients. Although contextual and nuanced information may involve the human
touch, ensure that other general information adopts machine translation. This
helps to save time associated with the entire localization project, which also
translates to lower localization costs.
- Negotiate
but be realistic
Truth be told, translation is an expensive process. Most LSPs would consider a volume discount but keep in mind that this applies for an ongoing collaboration and not for “one-off” project. Keep in mind that
Wrapping
up
Content
localization is a crucial aspect of market entry. But our present realities
call for business owners to re-evaluate expenditure in order to remain
operational. Despite the importance of localization, enterprises require
ingenious ways to keep its cost at the minimum without losing any form of
effectiveness.
At Translationsinlondon, we
provide multiple communication channels with our clients to provide all the
necessary information required to make the most financially responsible
business decision.
English (UK)