10 Reasons Why Translation and Localization will Boost your Business

You have ambitions for growing your business and you can already imagine what working with an international audience would be like. When it comes to expanding your company to another country, localization and translation are of paramount importance.

Without translation, you send prospects directly to your competitors. Stay ahead of the curve – tomorrow’s customers will expect websites and content to be multilingual. A study by the European Commission found that 90% of users like to use their website in their mother tongue. The study also showed that 42% of people visiting a website will not buy anything if the website is not in their language.

Some of the localization and translation benefits for businesses are obvious while others happen to be a bit more subtle. If you’re wondering whether these services are the right ones for your business, here’s a list of 10 ways in which translation and localization will boost your business.

1) Competitive Advantage: Is your competition already doing localization? If so, you’re missing on a major opportunity that will help you grow your business. In case other companies in the sector haven’t gotten started with the process yet, you’ll enjoy the benefits of being a pioneer and reaching local prospects first.

65% of multinational enterprises believe localization is very important for achieving higher company revenues and the number goes to 74% when it comes to achieving increased revenue from global operations, according to data from California State University at Chico.

Furthermore, Appia’s study proves the importance of localization for marketers – 86% of the localized campaigns outperformed the English campaigns in click-throughs and conversions.

2) Strengthen Your Image: Consumers today get to choose among dozens of local and international options. If you aren’t doing professional translation and localization, you aren’t investing in building the right image for your brand. Choosing the right localization strategy is not easy at all, if not done right, it actually can hurt your image more than help it. This is why most companies outsource the creation of their multilingual content to localization companies.

3) Improve Market Penetration: Content localization of products and services for all of your existing markets will help you increase penetration and ultimately – enhance your revenue generation efforts. Localization makes it a lot easier to handle international markets and make the most of each individual opportunity.

4) Language Influences Purchases: In order to choose one type of product or another, prospects need information. Giving your international audience enough information about the brand in the respective language will help you build rapport with prospects. Common Sense Advisory's research indicates that 75 percent of buyers prefer information in their own language, in order to choose products and make purchasing decisions. Sixty percent rarely or never buy from English-only websites. This is why website localization is so important.

5) Crossing the Language Barrier: Did you know that 70 percent of Internet users aren’t native English speakers? Having an English website is good for expanding your reach but you’re still missing on a large portion of the world’s population. Identifying your biggest markets and doing effective translation and localization will help you cross the language barrier.

6) Become a Global Innovator: A company that invests in professional translation and localization builds both its local and its international image for a comprehensive reputation.

7) Reduced Risk of Conflict and Miscommunication: Many countries have certain language requirements for product information and other materials presented by international companies. The professional translation of contracts and required documents reduced the risk of conflict, miscommunication, copyright infringement and violating any local regulation.

8) Tailoring Content to Local Consumer Needs: Marketing localization is essential to build a community. Experienced translators in marketing or transcreation will know what it takes to make the content appealing to the local crowd. As a result of this personalization, you’ll be building stable, emotion-based relationships with prospects in various countries.

9) Create a Corporate Language Database: Working with professionals in the fields of localization and translation will help you put together a database of terminology and phrases that will eventually become a part of your international brand identity.

10) Take the “Alien” Out of Your Products: Having product information, package data, brochures and web content presented in the local language will make it a lot easier for you to introduce a new product. In fact, the local audience will perceive the product as something alien if the information is solely available in English. The failure to localize will boost the skepticism of prospects and decrease the number of individuals willing to give your production a try.

At the end of the day, localization and translation pay off. Localization delivers a high return on investment and gives you enhanced revenue generation opportunities in an international environment. This is one of the main reasons why localization has to be added to your expansion strategy right from the start.

Localization and translation enable marketers to increase their ROI by multiplying the impact from content they have already created in English. By failing to make multilingual content a priority, businesses miss major revenue opportunities that could play a paramount role in development and sustainability. Working with a company that offers localization services with help you to build a coherent localization strategy to grow your business.