by Charlie Fletcher
The rise of the digital landscape has meant that more businesses have access to global marketplaces. This offers opportunities, but there’s also a lot of competition. To increase revenue and stand out from the crowd, companies must provide a significant level of customer service wherever they are in the world.
One way to achieve this is to take a more localized approach to translation. Yes, many customers communicate in English or have access to translation tools. But if you can communicate with your customers in their own tongue, this shows a level of care that makes a difference.
Creating Alternate Home Pages
When you’re interacting with a global consumer base, your website is likely tblo be the first practical point of contact people have with your brand. This makes it vital to ensure that your homepage is in their local language. This isn’t just good from the perspective that they can better understand and interact with your services. Perhaps above all else, landing on a localized page can feel more welcoming.
Many companies today are using automated or artificial intelligence (AI) driven translation software to do this. While this may seem like a convenient solution, it’s not always the most effective. There are some things machine translation can’t do well, such as reliably accounting for the nuances of context in a language or adopting regional colloquialisms. Therefore, it’s important to engage experienced translators to help create the right text for your homepage and any other important pages.
Once you have your translated home pages, you can collaborate with your web developer to make sure local consumers hit these first. This might involve establishing subdomains in your website URL structure that adjusts automatically depending on the location of the user’s IP address. This can also help to ensure search engines recommend the local language version of your site in international queries. That said, it’s also wise to make a drop-down language selector highly visible on your homepage so that visitors who may not be fluent in the local language have options.
Producing Locally-Relevant Content
Content is one of the most powerful marketing tools you have at your disposal. It’s also good for enhancing customer service. This is because, when produced effectively, content is not just a form of outreach but also actively valuable to consumers. It could be in the form of video tutorials, blog deep dives into niche subjects, or podcasts on new ways to utilize products or services. This becomes even more valuable when you produce localized content.
Yes, some items can be directly translated. Some, though, will be less relevant than others for people in certain locations. For instance, while content about preparing for long road trips may be good in the U.S., this is less likely to be interesting in island spaces, such as Greece. Therefore, direct translation isn’t always the way to go. It tends to be better to work with native speakers and translators to create localized content from scratch. They can also adapt your current items to make them more culturally impactful in different areas.
Remember, though, this content should still meet your company goals. Project alignment is essential to organizational success, as it ensures that each tactic functions effectively in moving the business forward. You’re not working efficiently if you’re investing in content that is nice for customers but doesn’t contribute to your company’s aims. When strategizing your content localization, aim to fit this to the organization’s vision and purpose, and bear in mind how this helps to execute the overall organizational strategy.
Streamlining Interdepartmental Communication
While localization is often driven by content and translators, it benefits from the input of stakeholders from across your organization. Customer service agents need to understand the content so they can discuss it and even make recommendations to local consumers. Human resources (HR) personnel need to know why contributors from local cultures are vital to finding professionals who can contribute to these tasks. Therefore, streamlining interdepartmental communications should be a priority to positively impact customers.
Doing so will help everyone stay more aligned with the company’s values and goals and influence customer interaction. They also make certain consumers get access to the most useful information. You can achieve this by:
- Building communication into the company culture by encouraging workers from across departments to have conversations with one another. It’s especially important to encourage this with workers of different languages and cultural backgrounds. Not only does it break down departmental silos, but also gives everyone a better understanding of the needs and perspectives of consumers in different locations.
- Adopting more efficient communication technology, such as remote messaging platforms and collaborative software. These help keep everyone practically connected, particularly if staff handling local translations are working in different countries.
Beyond this, it’s wise to make the chains of communication clear. You can provide employees with organizational diagrams that outline what roles each worker plays, the languages they deal with, and their contact details. As a result, workers are better able to reach out to enquire about local language or cultural issues that improve their impact on consumers.
Conclusion
Localized translation enables your company to communicate with customers in ways that are more convenient and meaningful for them. This should play a role in content, your website, and wider company communications. It doesn’t mean you need translators for all languages, though. Start small, with a focus on localizing for your primary demographics. You can then build from here as word spreads about your company and your consumer base grows.
About the Author
Charlie Fletcher is an active writer and blogger with extensive experience in socio-political topics, education, health and wellness, business, HR & marketing, and lifestyle and family life. You can find out more on Charlie’s LinkedIn page.
