How to develop a successful Content Localization Strategy to help drive your company’s growth

So far Lupin has been the revelation series of this still young 2021 that I have liked the most. It is super entertaining!

It's been more than a hundred years since the French writer Maurice Leblanc created Arsène Lupin, a white-collar thief who quickly achieved a high level of popularity in France. Since then he has also appeared in a multitude of films, series, plays, comics, and even video games, so it is not hard to understand that Netflix gave the green light to a series that pays tribute to this popular character.

In the first episode , the character of Lupin, masterfully played by Omar Sy, there is a scene in which he says.

“You underestimated me”

“You didn’t look at me”

“You saw me, but you didn’t really look”

Well... I think that also happens in the Localization industry when it comes to Content Localization ☺️

Many companies underestimate the effort required, yes, they look at the content, but they don't really look at the content considering that expanding internationally to achieve growth must be a very well-orchestrated effort between the different parts of an organization.

The internet has made it realistic for pretty much any company to sell products or services in overseas territories. We are also in COVID times and this has given a definitive boost to certain industries, eCommerce, eLearning, gaming ..... But there is still one component that many companies are still not fine-tuning in their international content strategy. And they make the same mistake over and over again. 

That mistake is thinking that they can develop one message and run with it - translated or not - in every single region. They think of this, as brand consistency or unifying the brand across markets. But in many situations, even global level brands may be perceived as something different in multiple markets, even though it may have a global awareness it may not have a global understanding.

A global content strategy will minimise this issue.

We are in the content era. 

Creating quality online content adapted to different markets is more important than ever. Our world revolves around content. These days, buying decisions are often based on experiences not with products, but with information about products. People consume more content in more ways than ever. We have printed books, newspapers, and magazines. We have e-readers, smartphones, and tablets. We have TV, radio, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Netflix. We consume more content in more ways than ever before.

Naturally, with the growing importance of content, a lot of attention is being paid to content strategy. This is a good thing. Companies need to stop throwing content out to the world without a good reason. They need to manage content strategically. 

But what about global content? What about all the content that your company produces for people in other parts of the world?

Content professionals who focus on in-country strategy fail to think strategically about millions of words, images, and media that are destined for other languages and locales.

This week I bring to my blog the 7 steps you need to put in place to really create a global strategy for your content to impact far beyond your primary market. Hopefully, this can be useful for anyone who needs some advice and guidance when it comes to shape and deliver and effective Content Localization strategy for your target markets.

Let's get on with it!

View fullsize

Click HERE to download this amazing infographic 👻

Define goals

A goal can be a lot of different things. But what a goal is not is a dream or a hope. We cannot hope that by having our content localized everything will just work out fine and we magically will achieve international growth. Taking the time to reflect on what we want to achieve by localizing our content is crucial. Think about the results you want to see by localizing your content

Choose markets

Where to go is an important decision you need to make soon so your content localization strategy makes sense.

But, how you should approach the decision of selecting exactly which international markets to start localizing first?

A good starting point is to use Google Analytics (or any other platform you use to monitor your traffic) and analyze your top-performing market 

From here, go deeper into the regions and markets that are driving traffic to your product.

Sometimes when this is done, you may even be surprised at the insights you found; and perhaps by doing this you’ll identify a small but growing audience from a market that you were not expecting! 

Another very valid approach to choose your markets is to go where others have gone already. I know, this is not very original, but hey, it works!

Check out the markets your competitors are operating and then map it with your plans to analyze gaps.

With these two approaches, you are going to be in a very good position to decide which markets you might go

Identify content to localize (and categorized)

It's one thing if you want to expand your brand, your product to different international markets, but it's quite another thing if you want to translate all your content at once for multiple markets.

Maybe support material you don't need to include in that first iteration of your content localization strategy, instead, maybe you want to focus your efforts on your marketing or legal content, or content that supports your UX.

Whatever you decide, make sure you create a matrix in which you mark your content and its priority for the different markets you identified in the previous step.

Tech Workflow

This is a crucial step that you have to fine-tune when creating your content localization strategy. I often see that the effort to implement TMS/CMS is underestimated.

A translation management system (TMS) is a core tool to bring together different teams, not only internal but also externals (if you are working with freelancers/LSPs). With the proper tech workflow integration you’ll achieve faster project turnaround, faster time-to-market and overall it’ll be easier to scale your content needs

Send content to localize

This step should not be taken lightly because it is obvious. This step is where we will start planting the seed for an effective localization content process with our LSP (or internal translation team when applicable).

At this point, we must ask ourselves questions such as

• At what point in the process does the content go into translation?

• Should we send localization requests one by one, or do we better group the requests and thus guarantee translation volumes and perhaps a better rate?

• What information should we provide to the localization teams so they can work their magic and get translation efforts underway? Who in my organization can provide that additional information?

• What additional information, such as localization kits, style guides, glossaries, etc should be provided to facilitate content localization efforts?

The answers to these questions and the time you spend carefully planning this phase is often what separates an effective localization process from a less effective one.

Monitor the content being localized

This phase is about ensuring that the process runs smoothly. For example, we need to make sure that the schedule is on track, that there is a process in place for handling questions and answers, etc.

“If I had to sum up in one sentence what is done during this phase, it would be... Trust but verify”

Deliver localized content

Once the content is localized, the workflow for its return is another area that needs to be shaped

This phase is similar to "Send content to localize" but in reverse.

Make sure that in this phase there are answers to important questions that may arise such as

• Are all languages delivered simultaneously?

• Is there one main point of contact to validate the handover or are there multiple owners with language breakdowns?

• In what format are the localization files delivered when they are returned?

• Who validates the import into the TMS/CMS?

I have seen teams pay little attention to the process of receiving localized content from their LSP and this ends up in a loss of control of which languages were delivered and without a clear understanding of whom was delivered and when.

Measuring results

For something to really be a goal, you have to know when you reach it. When you measure your progress, you can see how you're doing, and that's a powerful motivator that helps you stay on track. If you make good progress, your confidence in your content localization strategy increases along with your motivation.

The first step in measuring your progress is in the "Define Goal" phase we saw earlier. When setting a goal, you should set a goal that can actually be measured. Some examples of objectives you can include in your content localization strategy are

• Number of unique visits from target markets

• Bounce rates on localized sites

• Average engagement rate on social networks by content type

• Interaction time with localized content

Track your data, compare it to your goals and make sure you create dashboards that you can share with key stakeholders.

For this, there are different tools at your disposal, e.g. Google Data Studio

Conclusion

These 7 phases of the content localization strategy are our best ally to ensure that our content is effective in multiple markets.

Take the time to identify, categorize your content, think about workflows for your technology setup and for your interaction with stakeholders, and, over time, you will see the quality of your localized content will improve, your costs will go down and your engagement with your target markets will increase.

Doesn't sound like a bad plan, does it?

And speaking of content creation... Netflix just announced that there's a confirmed second season of Lupin! Yay!

Have a great week!

@yolocalizo