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Why translation and localization services are a critical part of your international strategy

By Acclaro

You may be part of a team tasked with building an international strategy to take your product global. But let’s think about your own buying behavior first: When you shop for a product, you are more likely to buy if the product information is in your language. Research bears this out: As many as 76% of online shoppers prefer to buy products with information in their native language, and 40% will never buy from websites in other languages. It’s clear that providing an experience customized to your language and culture is necessary for gaining you as a customer.

In a nutshell, buyers today expect a customer experience in their native languages.

This calls for multilingual communication, which plays a pivotal role in any complete global growth strategy. It helps businesses overcome one of the most significant obstacles to success in a global market: the language and cultural divide.

Let’s take a deeper look at how localization and translation and localization services can boost your international strategy.

The importance of translation and localization services in your international strategy

Strategic use of language services enables faster time to market in key regions, improves user experiences, and boosts conversion rates as your brand expands globally. Let’s break down these benefits further:

Market diversification: Reducing dependence on a single market gives you more stability in the face of economic fluctuations or market changes.
Revenue growth: New customer bases and revenue streams create opportunities for significant business growth.
Competitive positioning: A strong presence in global markets gives you a competitive advantage and makes it harder for competitors to outmaneuver you.
Resource usage: Accessing the full potential of global resources, from talent to supply chains, helps improve operational efficiency and innovation.
Innovation and learning: What you learn from diverse markets can be applied across your business to enhance products, services, and strategies.

However, these benefits come with significant challenges ranging from ensuring regulatory compliance with local laws and managing supply chains to handling currency fluctuations and navigating the risks posed by political instability. The most significant challenge remains how to approach cultural differences, which requires a deep understanding of each new market’s unique norms and consumer behaviors.

A keen understanding of these cultural differences influences everything, from marketing to product design and customer service. This is where the strategic use of localization services plays a vital role, helping businesses to adapt their content effectively for new markets and create strong connections with global consumers. When you overcome language and cultural barriers, your brand can see a consistent return on expansion efforts and drive consistent growth in new markets.

How localization services support your international strategy

Whether you implement international or transnational strategies, every aspect of your product and related communication—from your website to your customer support—must be culturally adapted, linguistically accurate, and fully functional for the new market.

Delivering a frictionless local experience requires expertise and resources beyond what most companies can handle internally. Partnering with a localization agency, or language services provider (LSP), becomes essential. An LSP is a company that offers a wide range of services designed to help businesses launch and support their products effectively across different languages and cultures. These services include:

Translation: converting text from one language to another
Localization: adapting products, websites, and marketing materials to meet the specific cultural, linguistic, and regulatory needs of each target market
Transcreation: adapting the message’s tone, style, and emotional impact to resonate with the local audience
Testing: making sure that localized products and content function seamlessly in the new market’s language and cultural context

LSPs often act as an extension of the internal team, offering scalable solutions that grow alongside the business. Their expertise helps companies to adapt to market-specific nuances more effectively. They support various touchpoints, from product launches and marketing campaigns to customer service and legal documentation, ensuring content consistently aligns with local expectations.

Use language technology to increase efficiency and quality

While adaptation is fundamental, a successful international strategy is not just about converting the language of your content from that of your home market to your new ones. It’s also about getting your product to market quickly and at high quality. Partnering with language service providers can help you achieve this, thanks to their advanced tech stacks, optimized workflows, and automation in quality and workflow. A couple of examples include:

Translation management systems (TMS) that ensure consistency and efficiency across large-scale localization projects. These systems track and manage multilingual content, streamlining workflows, reducing manual effort, avoiding duplication of effort, and boosting productivity.
Computer-assisted Translation tools, such as translation memories (TMs) that enable the reuse of past-translated content and terminology databases that manage industry terms and their translations, automate their usage.
Machine translation, whether neural engines or the newer Large Language Models, can help you translate high volumes of content into languages you otherwise wouldn’t be able to cover, extending your budget and global reach.
AI-powered translation workflows to speed up work, improve quality, and increase efficiency.
Cloud-based collaboration platforms further accelerate the localization process by facilitating communication among global teams for alignment across all regions.

While tools can significantly speed things up, humans should always be in the loop. This combination of human expertise and technology enables faster turnaround times, preserves brand consistency across markets, and helps control costs.

Two examples of successful international strategies powered by localization services: Airbnb and Canva

Airbnb’s global success underscores the importance of culturally appropriate content in marketing and communications. They have strategically used translation and localization services to grow in multiple markets. The company recognized early on that scaling globally required more than simply translating its app into various languages. So, it invested in true localization across its platform, marketing, and customer support.

For example, it localized the booking process to match cultural nuances, displaying prices in local currencies and adjusting date formats to align with regional conventions. They also localized user reviews so guests could read feedback in their native languages, which helped build trust in local markets. Now, more than 220 countries and regions have Airbnb listings.

As the platform gained traction in different markets, it expanded its localization efforts, combining machine translation for large-scale tasks with human expertise for culturally sensitive content like marketing and customer service. Also, by collaborating with local experts for in-country content creation, Airbnb tailored its messaging to resonate with specific cultural values.

Canva, the well-loved online design software, offers another example of successful global expansion driven by comprehensive localization efforts. The company translated its user interface, templates, and marketing content into multiple languages to suit users’ cultural and linguistic preferences in diverse regions. Canva localized its platform into over 100 languages, making it one of the most widely accessible design tools globally. This extensive localization was crucial in Canva’s international growth: they now have over 170 million monthly users from 190 countries.

Canva’s story shows that expanding globally and maintaining a multilingual customer base demand ongoing cultural adaptation and the ability to scale localization efforts over time. Enterprises that lack this expertise in-house understand why forming a strategic partnership with an LSP is vital for long-term international success. As businesses enter new markets, a language service provider evolves into a strategic partner, helping them navigate the complexities of language and culture.

How can other brands replicate this success for a strong global presence? They must develop culturally appropriate marketing and communication strategies with local markets in mind. This involves understanding local preferences, regional idioms, humor, and cultural references to avoid common pitfalls and ensure that messaging carries the same emotional and persuasive weight as it does in the home market.

With services like translation, transcreation, and in-country content creation, you can make international communications and all your company’s content both linguistically accurate and culturally relevant. This approach will allow you to capture and retain the attention and loyalty of global audiences, ultimately leading to sustained growth in new markets.

How to find a localization partner and build a strategic partnership

To fully reap the benefits of localization, you need to choose the right language service provider and build a strategic partnership with the team. Start by selecting an LSP that aligns with your global strategies and business goals, has expertise in your industry, covers the markets you are expanding into, has expertise in relevant technology, and offers scalable solutions for your needs. Look for a provider with a proven track record in your target markets and a deep understanding of cultural nuances specific to those regions.

Once you’ve found the right partner, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Treat them as an extension of your internal team rather than just a vendor
Promote open communication by sharing your business objectives, brand voice, and market strategy with them
Involve the experts early in your localization planning so they can understand your long-term goals and the complexity of your operations.
Work collaboratively to develop a localization workflow that integrates with your existing processes and technology.
Define clear performance metrics, regular check-ins, and a feedback loop to refine the partnership.

A close, ongoing relationship means you scale effectively, and your brand can connect authentically with global audiences, driving sustained international growth.

Expand globally with the right partner by your side

You now know that your international strategy will require localization to be successful. Yet, managing localization for different local markets comes with numerous challenges–far too many for most companies to tackle in-house.

Language service providers will partner with you to navigate these challenges:

They adapt your content to reflect cultural nuances and regional expectations so your message is communicated with the right tone and intent.
They will adapt your product to function flawlessly for international users.
They can help you choose the most cost-effective localization approaches for your international strategy, including applying technology to speed up work, improve quality, or control costs.

Acclaro teams have extensive localization expertise and decades of experience guiding leading global brands through successful international growth.

Are you ready to take your business to the next level? Contact us today and discover how we can help you expand globally.