When a company decides to enter into a particular market, it is looking to increase its sales targets or improve brand awareness and its position within a specific sector. In both cases, whether it be from a mix of stores or e-commerce, by holding online negotiations in a new country, the company must adapt to its laws, rules and requirements.
Internationalisation as an essential for growth in e-commerce
The first stage is called the internationalisation phase. It includes the planning and preparation stages of a product or service created to meet the needs of a worldwide market. At this point, there is still no incorporation of cultural references or country/language-specific content, that product adaptation will be made at a later stage.
If e-commerce is used, meaning either online stores or marketplaces, only products or services that have been found to be interesting will be promoted following market research. During this selection process, adaptations are made to communicate the brand to the target audience and to the target market.
Adapting communication doesn’t mean simply translating e-commerce content into another language but localising it as well.
Localisation as the key stage in the internationalisation strategies of e-commerce and online stores
Localisation means adapting communication to the culture of the target country. It means “speaking their language”, not just “speaking the language”. In the online world, every single word is important to “make a sale”. And this sale is made at the content and SEO levels. It also ensures that the target audience can maintain a long-term relationship with the brand and feel like part of a community.
For example, an online car dealership trying to enter into South American market has to think about the linguistic variations that may be more appropriate for its objective. In this case, changes such as saying “carro” instead of “coche” will have to be implemented. For a marketplace attempting to sell into the London market, it would be better to use the British variant of English, along with idiomatic expressions associated with that particular region. All of the above doesn’t only bring the potential client closer to the product or service being sold, but could also improve SEO, making the business appear more easily in searches made by users. In addition, even the style can be adapted. For example, colour changes can be applying to the online store according to the target market.
In fact, colours have different meanings depending on the culture. In an online wedding dress store targeting the Russian market, or that of Eastern European countries, describing a wedding dress as the colour red would be somewhat normal. Thus, all these variables make it essential that keywords and other communication must be adapted or changed for the new market.
Translation and localisation must go hand in hand
After choosing the internationalisation route, if a company wants to enter into a new market, it must to go deeper into its culture.
The goal isn’t for the target audience to “read and listen”, but to “read and understand”. At the beginning, translating an e-commerce website with an automatic translation system can result in saving money. However, in the end, it will have been harmful to the brand and won’t have helped to achieve the objective: reaching the target audience, gaining interest in the company and increasing the online sales of products.
The perfect ally for completing the internationalisation process and selling online to the target market.
The perfect ally in such an important process is the project manager of your trusted translation agency. He or she will assess the company’s needs and know how to set the guidelines in order to reach the objective. When localisation takes place, you don’t just have to keep in mind the grammatical and orthographic variations of the country or region in which you want to sell, but also the adaptation of graphics, local currency conversion, appropriate date formatting, addresses and telephone numbers, colours, and many more details.
Original Spanish article at https://www.emarketservices.es/emarketservices/es/menu-principal/actualizate/red-expertos/hablar-idioma-cliente-estrategia-clave-internacionalizacion-empresa-rep2022912891.html