Global trade—especially over the internet—is booming. Smart business owners know that if they want to connect with new markets, now is the time to reach out.
Of course, it’s not as simple as just opening up overseas shipping channels. If you want to make a genuine splash in new markets, you’ll have to recreate your business in every locale you enter—localization services are the key to making that happen.
Unfortunately, a lot of business owners make the mistake of underestimating the scope of such a strategy. Localization involves much more than simple translation or website updates; it’s a comprehensive program that requires ongoing, consistent management.
Managing Total Localization Services for Businesses
Localization is the process of getting your business—and all its content—ready for a new market. Companies have many factors to consider, but three major categories will require a keen focus: content, marketing, and products.
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These three broad areas of focus require careful consideration in any localization strategy. If not, you may fail to engage potential clients, make your content challenging to navigate, or disappoint customers with your products. Also, a poor localization effort could damage your company culture by making employees in secondary markets feel less important. By focusing on your user experience, you can ensure better management of all three localization segments.
Building a Better User Experience
When it comes to transferring the user experience to a new market, many companies fall flat, treating their secondary languages as an afterthought and failing to provide equal opportunities to their new users.
For example, let’s say a new user who speaks Spanish wants the entire suite of software products in their native language, but they don’t want to hunt down the content they need within an English version of the product. Streamlined software localization services will help provide that experience.
The better user experience should also apply to your internal workers. Corporate communications and documents should default to each employee’s preferred language, and onboarding information and training programs must fit within each of their cultures while still making them feel like part of the organization. Both document and elearning localization services can also help to support recruiting efforts in international locations.

It’s essential to consider a few different aspects that will impact internal and external users’ experiences:
- Variables: Establishing the correct variables in the code will ensure that times, dates, and currencies always fit the local market.
Color scheme: Not all colors resonate in cultures the same way. Red may feel aggressive on an American website, but in many Asian countries, it’s considered a sign of good luck and used heavily. - Color scheme: Not all colors resonate in cultures the same way. Red may feel aggressive on an American website, but in many Asian countries, it’s considered a sign of good luck and used heavily.
- Corporate lexicons: Every company has its own language, whether it’s branded terms, preferred vernacular, or technical jargon. This terminology requires mapping to similar words in other languages.
- Cultural fit: Sometimes, translated content doesn’t spark the same emotional reaction in internal and external communications. Word-for-word translation tends to come off as very formal. It’s vital to have an in-country reviewer take a look to determine a cultural match.
- Formatting: Building a buffer into text boxes will ensure the support of languages where text expands. This strategy helps to prevent abnormal line breaks, widows, and orphans—aka awkward paragraph breaks—on the page.
- Code integrity: Translation may include the use of new characters that are misread as code. To combat this, you should run any content through machine translation first to see where the code issues may occur during localization.
- Multimedia support: Many businesses focus strictly on text content, overlooking their video and audio files’ needs. Your foreign language users should be able to enjoy these mediums as well, whether you support them through voice-overs or subtitles.
The right firm will help you prepare for all of these potential content issues. They won’t just translate content; they’ll use preview screens, QA processes, and other tools to ensure the user experience remains high in every market.
Localization Tools to Consider
Because localization is such a broad process, you’ll need a lot more than simple translation services. Ideally, you’ll want to use a series of collaborative tools that support end-to-end localization services.
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The right localization management platform can simplify the entire process by offering an all-inclusive place to manage translation, review results, and control uploading. This strategy is vital regardless of whether a leader chooses to take a structured approach or embrace continuous localization.
Structured vs. Continuous Localization
There are two prevailing strategies when it comes to localization. The first is a structured approach where all tasks happen manually, and the second leverages automation to submit and upload documents without the need for human intervention. Both have their negative and positive aspects:
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Choosing between these two types will depend on the resources you have available. However, there is a third option—a hybrid continuous approach.
This approach allows for the oversight of a structured strategy while establishing the seamless plans of a continuous one. Localization management platforms connect all the managers directly to their linguists for clear oversight; jobs are triggered based on changes and documents are uploaded automatically, though the manager always has the opportunity to resolve problems before the content goes live.
Many firms that provide localization services only offer either a structured or continuous approach without a hybrid strategy. However, this “either-or” solution might not be the best if you’re looking for total end-to-end management for your business. The hybrid localization process is far more efficient in driving long-term business growth, which should always be the ultimate goal when choosing localization services.
Maximizing your ROI involves leveraging automation and various industry-tested tools to provide the best experience for internal and external users. You can control the total content ecosystem and enter new markets far more efficiently with such a hybrid strategy. If you’re considering an expansion into new markets, a technology-driven approach that leverages hybrid continuous localization is your best possible option.
Bureau Works offers localization services for businesses through a hybrid approach that fully manages the entire content ecosystem. Reach out below to get more information about our localization offerings.
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