Localizing for Japan: How to Localize for the Japanese Market?

Did you know?

Japan’s eCommerce market is going to reach US$ 3.4 billion by 2025.

We can conclude that:

Japan is an important market to popularize your business. Japan provides a stable market that boosts trade and foreign investment.

For companies planning to expand abroad, Japan is a progressive market.

Want to do successful localization of information according to Japanese culture? If yes, then this how-to guide will surely help you do so.

How to Effectively Localize for the Japanese Market?

However, Japan has a plethora of challenges that any business that chooses to expand or enter the market must overcome, such as confusing culture, complicated language, etc. Rather, localizing your brand message can be very simple than you really think.

1- Think About Consumers

The first rule to localize involves a complete understanding of your market in order to analyze your audience.

Understanding that Japanese consumer choices are mainly service driven and fulfilling their desire for top-notch service, and products are crucial. If service is not remarkable, customers will simply not come back instead of complaining.

Remember: Understanding customers’ demands and needs, their likes and dislikes, etc. will help you analyze a lot about them and regarding popular japanese culture and traditions.

Also, brand value is important. Japanese customers like details whether it is packaging or advertising. Also, they like to see how service is delivered – and it is because of these details that they receive quality and settle on their choice.

Also, they will pay a premium for premium quality services and products that surpass or meet their expectation. So everything, from communications to personal interactions, must be of top quality.

2- Find the Right Partner

Japan is a renowned risk-averse society. Companies are finding a partner with a stable and strong track record who is willing to stay with them in a long term. To win this trust, you must spend your time in face-to-face interaction, focus fully on quality, and prove that you are never a risky choice.

Also, communication is important. It is advisable to appoint a main contact for every account to ensure coordination and consistency in every communication. Here comes the main role of interpreter who can make your interaction smooth.

The interpreter should be quickly responsive. Because deadlines as well as delivery dates are taken quite seriously in Japanese business culture.

When issues do occur, taking responsibility instead of explaining away the issues or even making excuses is crucial.

Keeping up regular contact with clients, in case, a project is not live—and making several opportunities to meet various members of their team—even goes a long way.

3- Transcreation and Localization

When it comes to resonating with a culture, refining your content is a no brainer. However, this is beyond just translation – it’s about creating a product that attracts a particular type of customer equipped with different beliefs as well as ideals than you.

This is “transcreation,” and it does not stay limited to the message but also includes design.

Many people get confused between accurate Transcreation vs Translation. Translation is all about translating words from one language to another, whereas transcreation is focused on translating the same message more creatively in another language.

Here are a couple of points to consider:

✓ The Japanese language is complex and difficult to translate.
✓ Japan has very low English proficiency.
✓ Japanese people are popular for their attention to small details.

4- Appeal to the Locals

Find your suitable tone of voice and set up a unique style guide at the beginning. Next, talk about this guideline as well as expected outcomes to the localization expert. This will surely prevent any miscommunication.

If you find a partner in Japan, choose the ideal one with a large network, good years of experience and reliable resources in cross-culture communication as well as a marketing promotion. This partner should also make some effort to get to know your business, brand, and industry.

If you don’t have any member in your in-house team to perform localization, you can hire a trustworthy localization company in Delhi to ensure accurate and impactful translation between English and Japanese that saves you time and money.

In Conclusion

Before you visit Japan for any business deal or before you think of expanding your market to Japan, make sure you localize your information completely.

Start with localizing your website—even if it is just one page. From your company brief to product descriptions, from images to videos, you need to localize everything in the Japanese language with the help of a native localization expert.

Targeting Japanese market? Let’s help you with our effective localization solutions. Give us a quick call at +91-8527599523 or request a free quote.