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What is Product Localization

What is Product Localization?

Product localization is the process of adapting a product or content for use in another language, taking into account the culture and language of local users.

Localization can be applied to a variety of products including software, websites, games, multimedia content, promotional materials, etc. to reach a wider audience.

It involves modifying and translating various elements of the product, such as the user interface, packaging, text, graphics, images, video content, documentation, and marketing materials.

The purpose of localization is to make a product or content more accessible and understandable to a local audience, this includes translating texts, adapting the format and design, localizing functional elements, converting units of measure and currency, adjusting graphics and images to suit cultural traditions, and ensuring that the product or content complies with local laws and regulations. The list is endless, so to speak, and entirely depends on the product you want to localize. 

The Localization Project Manager (LPM) plays an important role in the product localization process

The role of a LPM is to manage, oversee, and coordinate the entire localization process, from planning and managing translations, to testing and release, using industry best practices and modern technologies in localization, such as AI, and ensuring that the localized product meets the needs and expectations of the target market.

The LPM is responsible for ensuring that the product is culturally appropriate, linguistically accurate, and functions correctly in the target market.

The LPM must have the knowledge and skills to work with a team of translators, designers, editors, testers, programmers, and other specialists who are involved in the product localization process. Also, must be very organized, able to manage time and resources, and has good communication skills to coordinate with the team, analyze data, and use this knowledge to make decisions during the product localization process.

The localization process typically involves the following steps:

Planning the goals for localization

Planning

This stage involves identifying the target market, outlining the goals for localization, formation of a strategy, schedule and budget for localization, and allocation of resources.

Team Formation for localization

Team Formation

Hiring and training translators, proofreaders, testers, designers, and other specialists. Setting up localization guides and criteria for consistency. 

Content Preparation for localization

Content Preparation

This stage involves creating or modifying the content for the target market, including translations and design. 

Localization Engineering

Localization Engineering

This stage involves modifying the product’s code and design to support the target market’s language and cultural requirements.

Quality Assurance of localization

Quality Assurance

This stage involves testing and analyzing the localized product to ensure that it functions correctly and meets the standards of the target market.

launching the localized product

Release

This stage involves launching the localized product in the target market.

What are the challenges to localizing a product?

Cultural differences

Different cultures have different customs, values, beliefs, and mannerisms which may impact how the product is perceived or used in a particular market. Localizing a product requires understanding and adapting to these cultural differences.

Language barriers

Language is a critical component of localization. If a product is not translated correctly, it can lead to misunderstandings or even sound offensive. Ensuring accurate translation of the product is essential.

Technical challenges

Products may need to be adapted to meet technical or regulatory requirements of a particular market. We need to make sure that the product supports the desired language and displays correctly on all devices.

Legal compliance

Different countries have different laws and regulations, which can impact the design, marketing, and distribution of a product. Ensuring legal compliance in each market is essential to avoid fines, penalties, or legal action.

Cost

Localizing a product can be expensive, especially for small businesses. Costs may include translation, legal compliance, and adapting to technical requirements. It’s important to budget appropriately to avoid overspending. Incorrect estimation of localization costs can lead to financial problems and the inability to continue working in the local market.

Time

Localizing a product can be a time-consuming process, which may delay the product launch or impact its competitiveness in the market. It’s important to plan and manage the localization process efficiently to minimize delays.

Project management

Managing product localization can be complex and require a lot of resources and time. It is necessary to be able to properly organize and control the project in order to avoid delays and errors.

As a product localization manager, I will help you avoid these difficulties and organize consistent, productive localization work, step by step, with positive results.

How to Minimize the Cost of Content Localization

If you don’t have time to do it right the first time, how will you ever have time to do it over.
John Wooden

This quote is especially true in Localization since Content Localization can be a significant expense for companies who are content-heavy.

Doing it right the first time is important not only from the stand point of budget, though it is a significant factor, but also, the company’s reputation, brand image, and customer trust factor are at stake – which are equally consequential, if not more.

More money is spent in redoing projects – and if companies do not get it right the first time, the damage can be excruciating.

Here is a list of things you need to consider to minimize the cost (read: headaches) for your localization project:

Planning

Needless to say, this a big one. It will help you dig through the many factors needed to consider to start a localization project. As a rule of thumb, if this is your first time into localization, start small. Choose a maximum of 2-3 target languages at first.

This will help you test the waters, and give you more control of the project. At this stage it is also important to deduce the pages/content you want to localize first, and in what phases, depending on your business needs. This will also help you identify cost saving opportunities, and avoid expedited costs.

Using Translation Management Software (TMS)

Long gone are the days of sending Word Documents back and forth for translations. With Translation Management Tools you can save a lot of time and double the speed of the localization process.

These tools can support 30+ file formats. They also offer integration with popular services, such as Figma, to make the process even faster, maintain consistency, and streamline the workflow.

Using Machine Translation

Sure, no one is saying Machine Translations are perfect. However with the advancement in technology, especially AI, Machine Translations have become very, very good.

Given, they don’t suit all types of content, especially Marketing material, where creativity (transcreation) is needed, however, when it comes to user interface and other very common terms/phrases, and general information, machine translation makes life easy (and less expensive). Getting the translations proofread, in any case, is highly recommended.

Using a Centralized Localization Project Management platform

This will help keep a track of the project progress, deadlines, budget, communication, and reduce bottle necks. It will help with easier coordination with contractors, stakeholders, and systemize the workflow.

Prioritizing content

Prioritizing content will help focus resources on the most important content for your target language – this is dependent on your business needs and goals. Getting the files ready for translation is part of this step. Laying this out will help reduce costs, save time, and ensure that the most critical content is localized first.

Using crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing can be a cost-effective option for some types of content, especially for user-generated content or content that doesn’t require professional translation. However, it could be tricky to ensure quality, consistency, and accuracy with this.

Using glossaries and translation guides

Having a translation guide is essential to maintain consistency, brand image/voice, reduce errors, follow compliance, and adhere to cultural norms and mentalities. Ideally, each language should have its own guide.

Also, having an individual glossary will help in maintaining consistency. Most TMS tools will allow you to upload your own glossary to the system, thereby simplifying the process for translators, and making sure the translation is accurate and up to set standards.

Reducing the quantity of content that needs to be localized

In some cases, not all content needs to be localized for a particular target audience. This totally depends on the type of business though, for example, for video games or movies, this might not be the case.

However, if you have a business website with a blog, and you want to also localize the blog, it would make more sense to localize articles that are already getting traffic from your intended target market. You could also reduce the ‘fluff’ and condense the articles to its main points, hence reducing the number of words to be translated.

Working with Qualified Translators and Localization Managers

Without a doubt having professional localizers and competent managers (at optimal prices) are important for the overall success of your campaign. They are the ones at the front lines whose professionalism will showcase your own.
These are the strategies you should use to minimize your costs, while still ensuring that your brand image/voice is consistent, people in different languages are able to relate to you, and the localization (text & design) is culturally appropriate for your target market.

What languages and how many should you translate first in content localization?

What languages and how many should you translate first in content localization

Measure twice and cute once – is the short version of the answer.

To know the full version, keep reading… 

Choosing which markets to target might seem like a daunting task, and many would like to go for them gung ho, but hold your horses. 

If you play your cards right in the research stage, only then you have a good chance at a great launch, and gauge better traffic in your new markets. 

Here is where research and analysis should become your best friend. If you have a website or a mobile application, determine:

  • which regions you are getting more traffic from
  • who needs your product
  • where could you legally have a business
  • how much budget do you have/will need per region/language you want to open up

For example, if your website is already in US English, and you are getting traffic from other English speaking countries like, Australia or Canada – you might even want to tweak them further to cater to cultural-linguistic needs of other regions.

Given that numbers, dates, measurements, and slang differ between even English-speaking countries, by going into the depths of the cultural you are better able to connect strongly with the people.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

Nelson Mandela
If you want to strike a chord with your audience, it is important that you speak their language. And do it well, the first time.

This will not only help you save tremendous costs, but also make sure that your are achieving your expansion goals, creating a strong presence in your new market, KPIs are soaring, and the budget is intact.

Numbers, as they say, do not lie.

Then again, numbers are not the only deciding factor, however they could give you at least a vague idea, in what direction to float.

Decisions should only be made once you have done your thorough research in all spheres of localization, namely:

Culture-specifics

What is the local mentality and consumer habits of your target market?

Does it impact your product?

Will it affect your internationalization strategy?

For example, Starbucks localized to suit its Middle East customers by including halal in its food menu.

Language specifications

Does your website/product support the Unicode Standard?

How will it affect your marketing design material (web design, subscription emails, videos, promotional material)?

For languages written in logogram, like Chinese, or ones oriented right to left, like Hebrew.

Legal aspects

Can you legally open a business in the target region?

What are their rules and regulations?

For example, iGaming is illegal is some countries.

Technical support

What applications or softwares will you need?

For example, a Translation Management system, Project management service, and even using AI tools in some cases, to reduce costs and speed up the process.

Logistics

If you need to ship your product, then you will need to learn more about their import/export laws, shipping costs, companies, and delivery timelines.

These are a broad list of things to consider – actual research will entirely depend on your business needs and goals.

Now let’s say, you are at the other end of the spectrum.

You are not getting traffic from a region where you’d like a presence, let’s say Europe. In that case, it would be wise to localize content in Europe’s most popular languages such as, German and French.

In the same way, if you want to make a presence in Asia, then getting your content available in the Asia’s most-spoken languages such as, Mandarin, Japanese, Hindi or Korean, would be a good bet.

Again, there are different variants of each language/region, and which variant you should go for will need to be individually handled.

If you wish to just get more traffic to your content, and don’t have a particular audience in mind, in that case, pick the top most spoken languages in the world, like:

  • English
  • Spanish
  • Mandarin
  • Panjabi
  • Hindi
  • Russian

And you can place a safe bet.

This can give you an idea of the region your product has more demand in, and in which direction should you internationalize your business strategy, for example, should you focus on Asia or Europe?

I would not recommend launching in more than 2-3 markets at first.
The reason is:
First, it allows you to test the waters of localization. Since each language needs an individual approach, you will understand their technical nuances, along with focusing on quality, cultural adaptation, and user experience in those new markets.
Second, it will allow you more control over the project by channeling your time and resources skillfully, hence, getting the most out of your investment.
And third, it gives you chance to test your product and get user feedback, which can then help you in sorting out issues for future languages. Also, will help you determine if localization is sustainable/needed for your business.
It’s better to prevent and prepare, than to repent and repair.
You know as they say
So definitely, measure twice and cut once.

What is priority content, what needs to be translated first in content localization?

Priority: something that is very important and must be dealt with before other things.

But isn’t everything important? How do you deduce what comes first?

To answer this, you must think like your customer.

What will they see first?
What should they know about you?
How do you interact with your customers?
How do your customers interact with you?

The answers may vary depending on the type of industry you’re in. Games and films, for example, need all content to be translated before release.

For web resources, however, these questions will help you prioritize the essential before launch.

For the first phase, company information pages and customer facing user interface must be covered.

Next, it would be wise to set up your marketing communication material (including emails, landing pages, ads, etc) in the target language.
After that, legal and compliance documents.
Finally, your high-conversion pages, pages which are already getting traffic in your target market, and FAQs should be done.

Of course, testing all of the functionalities, web pages, user interface, and communication is important before release.

This, however, is the bare minimum that helps you get in touch with your target audience effectively and a build strong foundation with them.

Over time, more pages can be added or the localization strategy can be tweaked, depending on the response you receive.