You can have a great product or a service, but to ensure it gets the sales it deserves, you need a dependable sales partner channel. The relationship between businesses and their sales partner channels is co-dependent and mutually beneficial. Businesses should do everything in their power to make it easier for their sales partner channels to convert potential customers. One of the ways is through content localization.
Wondering what content localization is? Here’s an example. In a warmer state like Arizona, you’ll find houses with lighter colors such as beige, tan, and brown to reflect the heat. If you have a paint company, the brochures and posters you provide to sales partner channels in Arizona should put the spotlight on cooler colors and their benefits. Using content that’s tailored to the market makes it easier for the sales partners to convince the end customers. Let’s understand why content localization is important and the best practices to optimize this strategy.
Benefits of Content Localization for Businesses
Helps Enter New Markets
Being able to penetrate a new market is a challenge that becomes easier with content localization. It makes your products feel less like an outsider to your potential customers and helps partner channels drive sales growth. You can build relationships with more sales partners this way and achieve a better presence in the market.
Boosts Conversions
When you localize the content by keeping in mind the requirements of your sales partners, it resonates better with them. Their requirements could range from wanting the content in a particular language to making changes to images and everything in between. Such efforts make it easier for the sales partners to grasp the content and in turn, help them pitch your products and services better.
Builds Trust
Whether it’s a joke or getting directions to a supermarket, you’d understand it better with local references. Similarly, localizing your brand’s website, advertisements, and other communication material using relatable references for your sales partners would be more effective. Take into consideration the holidays, festivals, currency, and more about the market while localizing. All of this makes your sales partners feel valued and they’ll start trusting you more.
Gives You a Competitive Advantage
Come up with personalized messages and offers for your sales partner channels using the market’s unique qualities. These could be exclusive, memorable, and advantageous for them and will set you apart from the other brands.
Best Practices for Effective Content Localization
Clearly Define Your Objectives
Are you aiming to increase your brand recognition? Boost sales? Modify the brand perception? Expand your network of sales partner channels? Content localization is a time and cost-intensive practice, which if not done properly, could end up doing more harm than good. Consider this and weigh it with your objectives before making bigger decisions.
Study the Local Market
Entering new markets opens up tons of opportunities, but let’s face it, can bring problems as well. Having a proper understanding of the new market is crucial. You need to know about its culture, demand for the product or service you’ll be offering, existing industry leaders, laws, and more. This will be the foundation of your business in the market. You don’t want potential sales partners to reject your product for being frowned upon by a certain community or for breaking a specific law.
Soak in the Local Culture
Translating is important, as research shows that 40% of people will never buy from websites in other languages. But the translated content should drive the original message and be culturally relevant. To make your content personal, consider incorporating references of the market’s pop culture, legends, and other finer nuances that make it special.
Empower the Sellers
Write product details, legal information, and other important documentation in local languages, so sales partners can use them for reference when needed. Along with thoughtful translation, modify other aspects of your website and branding material. For example, put those products and services into the spotlight that are likely to perform well in the market. All of these little things can help your sellers in big ways.
Decide How Much to Localize
Localization doesn’t necessarily mean you have to modify every bit of your product, service, and communication material. The degree of localization required can vary depending on the brand, market, and business goals. You could choose to enter a new market and realize that it has several similarities with your current market. So the content localization efforts required would be lower.
Build Familiarity But Maintain Consistency
Modify your products or services or add entirely new offerings for your new market. A great example of this is how IKEA, the ready-to-assemble furniture brand, entered China. Putting your own furniture together is not what Chinese people find to be fun or prestigious. IKEA tackled this by partnering with companies in China that provide assembly services. Customers could then buy an IKEA product and get it assembled at their homes. The brand stayed true to its identity and still managed to satisfy a new market.
Regularly Evaluate and Enhance
Localization is a long-term investment that helps you be on top of your game. You need to be consistent with your efforts or you could miss out on trends and business opportunities. So evaluate your localization efforts regularly using local experts and linguists to make adjustments where required.
In Summary
Your sales partner channels are your teammates serving a common goal. Take their input and understanding of your products and services into consideration while localizing content. It’ll help you enter different markets, forge new and strengthen existing relationships with partner channels, boost sales, and achieve bigger goals.
FAQs
How is localization different from direct translation?
In localization, you more or less adapt your entire business as per a market, and translating is a major part of it. The translation is done while ensuring the message in the source language is retained. In direct translation, the content is translated word-for-word without any consideration for its original meaning.
What are the different types of channel partners?
Distributors, resellers, system integrators, value-added resellers (VARs), and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are the different types of channel partners.
Why is localization important in globalization?
Your brand could have all the resources needed to venture into multiple countries and go global, but at the end of the day, you’ll have to treat each country and its markets differently. What works for cities in Spain might not work for American cities. You cannot expand internationally without performing localization.
What is an example of localization in business?
Here’s an example of localization – an architectural firm that’s known for designing beautiful skyscrapers in Boston may decide to take their business to Dubai. The designs they will showcase in the new market will include those from Boston and some new ones. The latter would be inspired by Dubai’s culture. It will incorporate the city’s personality, weather conditions, rates of raw materials, and more.
External Links and References:
Are you interested in learning more about content localization? Go ahead and check out some of these informative sites:
Why Localization is Important: The 6 Benefits of Localization Explained | MotionPoint
5 Great Examples of Localization Done Right | Smartling
Content Localization: What It Is, and How to Make the Most of It | Phrase
