6 Major Localization Challenges Faced By International Businesses

If we go on counting the major localization challenges for global businesses, they will end up with a surprising figure. Don’t be shocked. Every modern entrepreneur desires to capture global customers, create seamless experience for them, talk to them in their native language and advertise in a manner that touches their heart. But unfortunately, some business owners get messed up in several challenges in localization of international advertising and marketing.

In simple words, they fail to translate as well as adapt their content as per the target population. Localization may definitely sound as easy, but, it is not. Also, most of the entrepreneurs fail to spot the difference between translation and localization, and thus, they market their products/ services with a poorly localized content. Obviously, in such cases, the result turns out to be risky for the brand.

Big Challenges of Localization

The success of your brand depends on how well you understand the localization troubles for businesses and how well you overcome those issues. So, here are some of the localization issues that you must avoid –

1. Disappointing User Experience

Let’s just say, you are an app marketer and you are very popular in your current market. But, regardless of this popularity, you cannot be so sure that the customers in the new market will also love and purchase your app, like the customers in your native market do. You will have to understand the expectations of the target audience and deliver authentic solution for their needs. For instance, you can research about the local payment methods used by the local audience and use them in your app. This will, in turn, generate loyalty and commitment towards your brand.

2. Improper Research

One of the major language localization problems occur, when there is an improper research of the target market. Business owners do conduct a research, but their research is often ineffective. Hence, it is always recommended to invest great time amount in the research part. If the research is productive, you can be rest assured that the further stages would be executed in a smooth manner. The research will let you understand the differences between cultures and mold your marketing content accordingly.

3. Using a Global Approach

Most of the marketers follow a global approach to attract their target audience, which turns out be ineffective. You need to adopt localized marketing, i.e. a local approach to capture the target audience. For example, the marketing content should be local than global. It should appeal to the local audience in an authentic manner. To accomplish this, you must search for appropriate keywords in the language spoken by your target market.

4. Hilarious Translations

You might have heard about many companies, which translated their taglines or brand message into something, which meant very hilarious or offensive in the target language. This is a common mistake that happens in localization projects, as the translators translate the content literally and not conceptually. The translators and localization experts must work together, to make sure that the images used and the translated content suits to the target market and its culture.

5. Incomplete Knowledge of Cross-Cultural Communication

A smoother cross-cultural communication is very important to make sure that your target audience understands what you intend it to understand. Most of the localization projects fail to keep tandem with fundamental concerns (related to culture), as a result of which, they find it hardtop attract the audience or even communicate to them. Thus, you must study about the cognitive constraints, emotional constraints and the behavior constraints that will certainly help you communicate with your audience in the rightful manner.

6. Unfinished Localization

Suppose you prepared a rough draft of the marketing content and without giving it a final touch, you promote your product, using the same. Can you imagine what the result will be? Obviously, you’ll face a very bad set-back and a great loss on the investments. Hence, before taking any action, it is very important to make sure that every piece of content or other stuff is perfectly localized.

Overcome the Localization Challenges & Move Ahead

By now, you must have understood what the issues are and how to handle localization challenges like a pro. So, you only need to focus on authentic localization and translation. Once, you succeed in coping with the challenges, you can take note of the demographics, which are your potential customers, but do not seem to be making the purchases. Apply the same techniques here and you will bridge the communication gap with this demographic as well. This way, no matter which market you target, you will never face any localization issues.

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