What Your Competitors Can Teach You About Localizing Your Brand
In a competitive marketplace, it is important to stay on top of your strategy for marketing your products effectively. Getting to know your direct competitors helps to give you a better understanding of what your business can do to stand out in the market. It can help you retain your current customers and bring in new ones. It can even help draw some clients away from your competitors and into your own customer base! An important aspect to consider is whether your competitors are localizing their products.
Localization is simply adapting your product (or service) to a particular culture or group of people. This could include language and cultural references, among other things, to really give your product or service the look and feel of being created for your target audience. As a business, you will run into two potential scenarios when looking into your competitors’ marketing strategies: either your competitor has already localized their products/services, or they just haven’t done so… yet. So what can you gain from such research and insight?
If your competitor has already localized its products and services, you really cannot afford not to localize your own. Not doing so would keep you at competitive disadvantage. If a potential customer is looking into the particular market in which you specialize and comes across both your services and your competitor’s, he will feel more comfortable if the information is available in his own language. Localization doesn’t just stop at language choice, however. Even if you offer a superior quality product or service, you could potentially lose that customer to your competitor if you do not appeal to him in the same way.
On the other hand, if you find that your competitor has not yet localized their products/services, it would be to your own great advantage to begin that process for your own products. This gives you an edge in your market and keeps you ahead of the curve. The same customer, browsing for information in your market, is now likely to turn to you instead. Localization is proof to your customers that you are committed and dedicated to offering products and services in a manner which makes them feel most comfortable.
All good business leaders know that standing out in their market is the best way to ensure success for their business. It is important to remember that the language of your business isn’t English; it’s the language of your customers. Localizing your products and services helps your customers feel like their needs are important, and their voice is heard, no matter the language.