Brands today have figured out the importance of creating region-specific content to reach out to their target audience. According to Content Marketing Institute’s 2019 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends, 81% of marketers say their company is focused on creative content marketing. That said, often it is seen when a brand enters into the vernacular market, it focuses on translating the original content into vernacular language. But one needs to understand that translation is just a small step towards the localization process.
Let’s understand what content localization means.
Content localization is the process of creating specialized content for a specific region. When expanding to a different regional area, it is essential to learn about the local people and include that information into a strong content localization process. This includes taking into consideration any cultural differences, language barriers, preferences, and other similar elements.
Having content localization as a part of your strategy brings you numerous benefits like:
Influence your brand recognition and exposure
When you take the time to go that extra mile to adapt content into a message that resonates with your specific regional market, you are ensuring that the tone and voice of your content are correct for your new audience. Adapting regional-specific content shows your brand’s consideration of the culture and traditions that are important to your audience. When a product is tailor-made for different regions, its content also needs to be made according to the regions. Regional-specific contents certainly boost your brand exposure. Content localization helps your brand attracts audiences, hence, boosting your brand exposure.
The direct and original message is delivered
Localizing your content helps you convey your original message to the local audience and help them understand it thoroughly. This means rather than being just a translation, localization takes into account the cultural specificity of your vernacular target audience and provides them with an accurate message that is clear and understandable. Suffice to say, people will purchase the products whose content they can understand.
Strengthen your credibility
Localization is the process of adapting your message for a given culture. This means translating specific terms, as well as mannerisms, dates, formats, etc. It can also involve adhering to local norms and styles of writing. Your content needs to undergo thorough research, outlining, editing, and proofreading. The regular translation is not enough to attract the vernacular audience towards your product. You have to localize your content to gain the trust of your local audiences. It’s more than overcoming language barriers. It means coming up with a message that is tailored to the needs of your regional audience.
Set up a two-way communication system
The use of localization will help you highlight the broader context that needs to be considered if a campaign is expected to deliver the desired engagement and sales results. It is all about setting up a two-way communication system with the local people to help them resonate with the brand and its products.
Over the years, there has been a significant change in the audiences having diverse regional language choices and consumption preferences. Marketers need to analyze the proliferation of their audience and their demographics to create effective and personalized content.
The content by brands needs to be woven with meaningful vernacular language and emotional quotient in the form of story-telling.
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