Building a growth-oriented content localization framework

Ted Lasso is one of the series that I have liked the most in recent years. It seems like a soccer series, or at least that's what I thought when I saw it, but it's a much deeper series than it appears, tackling very complex themes of all kinds. One of my favorite scenes is when Ted is playing darts and Rupert, the ex-husband of Rebecca, the owner of the club for which Ted is the coach, and they make a bet... Rupert usually plays darts, and Ted pretends he doesn't know how…... The scene unfolds with comments like 'you know Rupert, guys always underestimated...' and the scene continues, and it is a delight, below is the video so I don't get distracted from the objective of this post which is not talk about TV show but about Localization 🙂

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

Many companies underestimate the effort required; yes, they examine the content, but they don't truly scrutinize it, considering that expanding internationally to achieve growth must be a well-orchestrated effort among the various parts of an organization.

The internet has made it feasible for virtually any company to sell products or services in overseas territories. However, there's still one component many companies are not fine-tuning in their international content strategy, leading them to repeat the same mistake.

That mistake is the assumption that they can develop a single message and apply it—translated or not—in every region. They perceive this as maintaining brand consistency or unifying the brand across markets. However, in many situations, even global brands may be perceived differently across markets. Despite global awareness, there may not be a global understanding.

A global content strategy will minimize this issue.

We are in the era of content.

Creating quality online content adapted to different markets is more important than ever. Our world revolves around content. Nowadays, buying decisions are often influenced not by products themselves, but by information about the products. People consume content in more ways than ever before: printed books, newspapers, magazines, e-readers, smartphones, tablets, TV, radio, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Netflix. The consumption of content in diverse forms is unprecedented.

With the growing importance of content, much attention is being paid to content strategy—and rightly so. Companies need to cease releasing content into the world without a solid purpose. They must manage content strategically.

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

Content professionals focusing on in-country strategy often overlook the strategic planning for millions of words, images, and media destined for audiences in other languages and locales.

This week, I bring to my blog the 7 steps necessary to truly create a global strategy for your content to have an impact far beyond your primary market. Hopefully, this can be useful for anyone needing advice and guidance on shaping and delivering an effective Content Localization strategy for your target markets.

Let's get on with it!

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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?

Have a great week!

@yolocalizo