One of the biggest challenges facing companies marketing their products and services in new overseas markets is levelling the playing field in terms of language and culture with existing, local companies. Local competitors obviously have the advantage of knowing and understanding their domestic market. Even if there are no existing competitors in a particular country, language and culture can still present many pitfalls for new overseas entrants as has been proven hundreds of times by even blue-chip multinationals. In order to market their products and services effectively, companies need to ‘act global but think local’.
With high internet growth in foreign markets during the last decade and the resulting increase in online users, there is huge upside in global online expansion for web focused companies. It’s also a very cost effective method of growth and allows a company to gain a foothold in a new market. However, a number of issues need to be addressed before plans for online expansion are implemented. The internationalisation of the internet has led to an increase in non-English speaking web users around the world. The Internet, as a result, has been bestowed with regional characteristics as web users prefer localized content. In order to target foreign web users successfully, localization has to be adapted at all different levels of a company’s online sphere.
Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs)
A website being launched in a new country will perform much better in local search results if it has country code top-level domains (e.g. co.uk, .fr, .de). Some countries are more accessible than others for domain registration. In France, Ireland and Norway, for instance, there is a requirement for registration of a company in the country beforehand to be eligible for a .fr, .ie or .no domain. Another tip for improving search ranking and page loading time for in-country users is to host the specific country version of a website on servers located within that country.
Last year the first five top-level domains in non-Latin based scripts were introduced, e.g. .рф for Russia. This year top-level domains in Chinese, Korean and Japanese scripts followed and a further 15 countries are in the pipeline. Demand for these new internationalized domain names has proven very popular; 100,000 registration requests for .рф domains in Russia were received in the first three hours of launching, and this figure rose to over half a million within the first week. Although these internationalized domain names are very new, the signs are that they are gaining critical mass quickly and could soon be seen as a ‘local-identifier’ by consumers in those markets.
Market Selection
First and foremost, it is important to research a market in order to determine whether selling a company’s products/services at a specific price makes commercial sense in the country of interest. Starting small with at most 3 countries where research shows have the most potential is advisable. Then decide on the products/services that can be sold into the market given the means to scale up operations quickly if the demand proves strong. In terms of online presence, it is best to identify which parts of a website’s content are relevant for promoting the products/services and, if a company uses terminology specific to its industry then, compile a glossary. Website technicians should be consulted about the feasibility of supporting language versions within a website. Adding language versions to a site means that content is multiplied on a site, so an efficient back-end solution is required to manage it all.
Translation & Research
Once the content that needs to be translated has been identified, the next step is to analyse the keywords you will use. Keyword research is of utmost importance for search marketing. To do this source a translation company with in-country linguists, industry accreditation and relevant experience in website localisation. Professional research should be undertaken to understand which keywords consumers in the new markets search for and what search engines they use (Google is not omnipresent!). As part of this research, it is vital to identify competitors in the local marketplace and closely scrutinise the keywords they are optimizing on their websites.
It is recommended to take a country-specific approach to language versions on a website. There are subtle but meaningful differences between the same language spoken in different countries. Take UK and Australian English, for example, a ‘wear your thongs to work day’ initiative is going to raise some eyebrows in the UK but an Australian would immediately associate thongs to a type of flip-flop. Similar nuances exist between the German used in Germany, Switzerland and Austria or the Spanish used in Spain and in Latin America.
Localization does not just stop at a website; it’s essential too that all online marketing communications also speak the language of the new customers. Climbing up local search engines for organic listings takes time, whereas PPC and social media campaigns can be live almost immediately to announce and promote the launch of your business in the new market.
Cultural Differences
It is important to study brand and logo perception in a new market before launch. A company name may have a completely different meaning or even a negative connotation in an overseas market. One such example is the online printing company Mimeo.com which sounds like “my urine” when spoken in Spanish. For companies with significant brand value, the easiest route with logos are to avoid using words in them at all. Starbucks recently changed its logo removing “Starbucks Coffee” for the first time in its 40 year history. The change allows it to extend its horizons beyond coffee and makes it easier to enter international markets, particularly those that do not use Latin characters. I always advise companies undergoing expansion to get a linguistic assessment done of their logo, slogan and any key marketing messages before launching your products/services in a new overseas market.
Once a new site version is up and running many companies forget about the basic needs for customers to be able to communicate with them in the after-sales process. It’s not much good having a fully localised site and then not being able to support customers with enquiries over the phone or via email. A company will need to recruit multilingual customer service support (preferably mother tongue speakers of the language) in order to assist new customers and deliver a genuine localised service.
Another thing that is commonly overlooked in international expansion strategies is supporting local payment methods and consumer behaviour. China, for example, has a very complex e-commerce market. Amazon offers nine different payment methods on its Chinese site including cash on delivery and payment through a local post office. Companies that don’t research the intricacies of consumer habits in a new market such as China will almost certainly fail but those that can do so effectively are able to tap into a marketplace of 300 million online consumers.
Localization is a continuous process, and an increasingly multilingual internet demands its implementation at all concurrent online aspects. The ascendancy of non-English speaking web users and language fragmentation on the Internet will accelerate in this decade. To meet the future challenges of the online world, localization has to be adopted at all levels.
