
Phrase and beyond
Localization strategy
If you’re going to spend time and effort in readying your app or website for new markets and languages, you want to be sure it’s all for a good reason. Likewise, if you pay external translation agencies to turn your text strings into Spanish, you want to see your money coming back with friends attached.
If the concept of a localization ROI is new to you, here’s a simple definition.
Return on investment is the comparison between the net amount of money you get out of a project (your return) and the money you put into it (investment.)
The ROI is often expressed as a percentage. For example, if after deducting all your translation expenses you end up with a net profit of $5K after having invested $50K, then your ROI is 100% x $5K/$5K, i.e. 10%.
A bigger, positive ROI is usually better. If your ROI is negative, then you spent more money than you made, which is no way to run a business over the long term.
Most of your potential market or audience across the world doesn't speak your language (even if that language is English). In fact, the dominance of English as an internet language has been stagnating at about 26%. A global study by CSA Research also confirms that internet users around the world prefer to make buying decisions in their own language:
These figures make it obvious that localization may not be a choice but a necessity. However, ROI considerations may push you towards a certain priority for your localization program. Naturally, it makes sense to serve bigger, more profitable markets for your app or website first. Either way, to make sure your efforts actually bear fruit and you hit your ROI goals, it'll be essential for your business to implement the right localization strategy.
Whether Japanese, Georgian, or Javanese should be your first choice for localization depends on your app or website and your marketing goals. Your first step in calculating the return on investment in localization is to decide where you want to sell—which may be a totally different country or region, compared to somebody else’s choice.
Next, you must estimate the sales revenue from the markets that you're planning localization for. This can be a tricky proposition at the best of times, but information to help you do that may include:
SWOT is a marketing and business term that stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Checking out these four aspects can help you decide if a particular localization effort is likely to be worth it or not. For example, let’s say you are considering the localization into Spanish of your app that helps users learn how to play drums. Your SWOT analysis might look like this:
On a relative basis (compared with other projects you know about) or in absolute terms (when you can quantify impacts and dollars), your SWOT analysis can help you decide if you’ll make money, and how much.
Accepted wisdom says that any necessary investment should be made as close as possible to the launch of a product and that all possible revenues should be collected as soon as possible after launch. That way, you avoid tying up the investment too early and having to wait for returns, whose value will be eroded by inflation over the time you have to wait for them. However, there are other factors that you should consider too:
Return on investment basically depends on two things. The first is making more sales revenue and profit. The second is properly managing your localization costs. So, your next goal is to run a tight project ship for each localization. This means monitoring time, expense, and progression towards deadlines to ensure that localization projects are kept on track towards goals and that costs are contained. You can also plan cost reduction actions to help boost your ROI even further. This doesn't mean omitting essential tasks or deliverables or trying to grind partners into the ground for the lowest possible prices. Doing this will make quality suffer and could cause your localization to flop in the market.
Some cost reductions make sense all around, especially in terms of cost-efficiency in translation:
After you've made sure marketing and development are firing on all six cylinders to help generate a positive ROI, you'll need to make sure that your merchandising is up to the job as well. Put it this way: If customers don't know that a localized version of your app exists for them, they won't think of buying it. So, as a marketing expert once said, don't release your product to an unsuspecting market. Your advertising, PR, and other suitable forms of content should be the wake-up call your market needs to sit up, pay attention, and start thinking about all the things they'll be able to do as owners of your localized app. All of this can ensure that your localization ROI stays positive: You’ll have an extra budget to develop a new blockbuster app or further improve your website—complete with delightful localized versions.
Last updated on October 1, 2022.