3 Ways to Leverage Localization to Drive Global Sales in a Time of Uncertainty

As this period of uncertainty driven by COVID-19 is extending for many countries, it is driving companies to reassess their business approaches to understand different ways to best survive in this era. One path forward that we are seeing amongst our clients and community is to fully embrace a global mindset. Companies are now taking a step back and understand the power of the global market for driving business, especially during a period where we are more global than ever before.

What does this mean in practice? First, assessing the markets in which you are not performing well due to the current climate, and then using that to explore the potential and opportunity of engaging new markets beyond what you may already know.

In this blog post, we break down three ways that companies are leveraging localization to drive engagement and sales in this time of uncertainty.

 1. First and foremost, use localization to show your international audiences that you care.

It’s a well-known fact that consumers are exponentially more likely to align with and purchase from businesses that best understand in their needs. On a localization level, this fact is exhibited by consumers are increasingly more likely to purchase a product if the website and brand information is in their native language.

To set a proper foundation for engaging markets beyond your current one, you must first, quite literally, speak the local language. Here is where localization comes in — it allows you to translate and localize all (or just your top-performing) content at scale so that you can properly show your audiences how invested you are, deepening the new global relationships that will drive more sales across new markets.

2. Use localization to build off of what (and “where”) is already working.

Before the era of COVID-19, your dominant market was most likely the one that you launched in and are headquartered in. Now because of COVID-19, that market is likely driving lower traffic, engagement, and sales. Instead of trying to expand this current base, which could be an uphill climb that results in a losing battle given the challenging circumstances of each respective market, look back to the time before this challenging climate.

Check out all the non-native regions and markets that are driving to your site, both in the long-tail and the short-tail. Use your website analytics platform to see exactly which non-native markets may be (surprisingly) well and understand exactly what topics and content have actively resonated with them (in terms of clicks, engagement, visits). Use this information to start localizing and content into the languages of those foreign markets … this is where your global opportunity lies.

3. Leverage the automation capabilities of localization to scale easily and quickly.

Localization has been increasingly used by companies of all sizes and stages to scale their global content easily and quickly. Specifically, fast-moving companies have become the biggest fans of investing in localization because they understand the secret power of localization tools: affordable, easy-to-use, collaborative localization automation.

These globally-minded companies are using localization to get creative in how they are translating and localizing content to reach global audiences. With localization, you can set up automated localization workflows that can be easily setup and maintained. This way, you have automatically localized content being created so you can reach these new global markets – all while you can focus on taking care of other business priorities.

—

Ready to give localization a try? We’re offering our localization Starter Plan for 3 months to projects related to COVID-19 and to SMBs across the globe (new organizations only) — to access this offer, use the code OpenForBusiness20 after you sign up. If you have any question or are looking to connect with other localization professionals and global teams during this difficult period, visit and join the Transifex Community.