What is Product Localization and How to Make it Work
Published: 2022-12-08 15:22:48

You may have found yourself in a situation where you wanted to order a product from abroad, and the website for ordering was in a foreign language you don’t understand. Most likely, after that you purchased a product from another website or decided not to buy anything at all. This situation occurred because the international retailer hasn’t localized their product.

So what is Product Localization?
Product localization is the process of adapting and modifying a product to satisfy the language and cultural needs of customers in the target markets. To localize their products companies can translate texts, alter their packaging or modify the content on their websites so that it is appropriate and readable for international customers.

Maybe if you are a native English speaker, you have never encountered translation difficulties and it may seem to you that the product localization is not necessary, since all of the websites and social media you use are already in English. However, it is important to remember that only [1.35 billion](https://preply.com/en/blog/english-language-statistics/#:~:text=Current%20research%20suggests%20that%20the,17%25%20of%20the%20world's%20population) people worldwide actually speak English — it is less than 20% of the world's population. So if you want to sell your product on the global market, you should be prepared for the fact that most of the potential customers will be unavailable and inaccessible until you localize your product.

Product localization helps to attract these 80% of people who do not speak English — [the survey](https://csa-research.com/Blogs-Events/CSA-in-the-Media/Press-Releases/Consumers-Prefer-their-Own-Language) found that 76% of people prefer purchasing products with information in their own language.

But it is important to properly localize the products. There are many examples when the localization of the product did not go according to plan.

For example, in 2005 the well-known Swedish company IKEA released a bench named [“Fartfull”](https://www.cracked.com/article_17686_the-8-most-ill-conceived-product-names-all-time.html#:~:text=4-,The%20IKEA%20Fartfull,-IKEA%20is%20famous). The original name came from the Swedish word “Fährt” in Swedish, meaning “traveling in a vehicle with wheels”. Of course, for the Swedes “Fartfull” made perfect sense but in English the localization has a “stinky” connotation. The product was eventually taken off the market, but not before people all around the world had a great laugh.

So how to make Product Localization work?
There are a couple of steps you need to take to properly localize your product:

1. Content analysis
Everyone knows that planning is important for any process. Product localization requires some planning as well. Localizers need to address a huge amount of details so a product content analysis is a crucial first step for the localization process.

During this step, the product localizers need to map out the necessary details that need to be localized. Usually these details are the product information, imagery, colors, currencies, measurements, help guides and other readable descriptive content.

2. Internalization
Internationalization means building or designing the product in the way that it can support different languages from that start. Internationalization is particularly important if the product is a mobile app or a piece of software. If the localizers skip this step, they will spend much more time and effort localizing the product in the future. 

Internationalization involves separating the source code from all the product elements that need to be localized. To internationalize the product localizers use text encoding — usually UTF-8 — add support for right-to-left languages and choose a framework for exporting hard-coded string identifiers to allow for easy translation in the future.

3. Adaptation of software, websites, marketing collateral, and documentation

- Software localization
Software localization is considered the most important step because if the localizer doesn’t localize the actual software product well, the other elements of the localization process won’t matter at all.

During the software the localizer needs to adapt UI elements, splash screens, in-app tooltips, and other in-product copy in a way that makes sense for the target market. Also, during software localization, measure, date formats, and currencies need to be changed to match the local standards.

- Website localization
The website is the first thing the customer sees, so it is important to properly localize all the web pages. As well as software localization website localization includes translating all text content into the target language, as well as adapting images, videos, and other visual elements.

- Marketing localization
Marketing localization is a bit more difficult than software and website ones. The localizer cannot just translate the marketing materials into the other language — they need to adapt marketing messages to resonate with the target market on a cultural level.

Marketing localization involves the development of new slogans and taglines and creation of new ad campaigns that take characteristics of the new audience into account.

- Documentation localization
Documentation localization concerns things like user manuals, how-to videos, FAQs, and so on. Those documents are important because with them customers can figure out how to solve most of the potential problems on their own. Localization of these documents will make it less likely that a foreign user will seek help from the customer support service, where they will not always be able to help a user because of the language barrier.

4. Feedback
When localizers complete localization, it is important that their work is reviewed by people who are familiar with the language and culture of the target market the companies localize the product for. Main goal of this step is to be sure that the message of the original content has been translated or adapted correctly and will fit the new target market.

Is there any technology that can help with Product localization?
Doing the localization on your own can be tiresome and, quite frankly, unproductive. It will be easier to use various tools to speed up and improve the localization process.

According to [the report](https://www.nimdzi.com/language-technology-atlas) by Nimdzi Insights found that the current language technology landscape includes more than 700 solutions. There are a couple of them you can use:
 
- Translation memory 
It’s a database of previously translated content that allows translators to reuse old translations. Translation memory databases will save you time and money and also make your translations more consistent and coherent.

- Term base 
It’s bases that keep all of the terminology used in a project in one place so that it can be reused in future projects and also allow you to search for brand-specific or project-specific terminology. Term bases can help with tracking changes in different terminology and ensure that the translation of the terms is right and consistent.

- Content integration 
It’s a feature that can adapt to agile processes. For localization to be agile, content must flow freely between different systems. In other words, your localization tool should be able to integrate with the rest of your tech stack, including your content management system (CMS), customer relationship management (CRM) system, ecommerce platform and so on. With content integration content can be translated and published without any manual intervention, quickly and without errors.

- Machine translation 
It is obvious that Machine translation speeds up the translation process by automatically translating content. For product localization it is important to choose a tool that offers best-of-breed, AI-driven Machine translation capabilities because you will be translating large amounts of content.

Now you’re ready to implement Product Localization strategy in your business. Good luck!