Translating your website for international audiences is the first and most important step in launching your brand online overseas. Even if your target countries have a high degree of English-speaking consumers, recent studies show that 85% of online shoppers will only purchase from native language websites.
Translation, however, is not the whole picture. Optimizing your website’s usability for these new markets will help ensure that your brand is represented well. Just as with your U.S. site, your metrics for conversions and goal completion will depend largely on how well you’ve localized and tested interface and design elements of your site.
If you’re preparing for a new international launch, be sure to take these five tips with you as you meet with stakeholders in your global expansion project. A few smart technical decisions at the outset will boost the credibility and usability of your site in the long run.
Dictionaries are an important part of any translation process, particularly if the language is no longer spoken. Take ancient Egypt. While we might think of hieroglyphs as the language of ancient Egyptians, the language that everyday people wrote and spoke was quite different. Known as Demotic (from the Greek meaning "the tongue of the demos," or the common people), this language was one of the three scripts on the famous Rosetta Stone (shown above, along with Greek and hieroglyphs) that enabled scholars to translate the meanings of the hieroglyphs and unlock an entire period of history.
Scholars at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago have completed an almost 40-year project of a Demotic dictionary, expected to further unlock the many unpublished manuscripts from this period in history. Read on to find out more about Demotic, the dictionary making process, and why this language is relevant today.
Our resident globalization architect and localization geek, Jon Ritzdorf (see his Geek2Geek webpage) answers your localization and translation questions. Read on for the most recent Q&A about multimedia localization and how to manage a successful multilingual video project.
Are you launching your next global app for Android? Android currently holds the lion’s share of global markets, with a whopping 59% of global operating system share and a healthy lead in device share. (Google revealed earlier this year that there are currently one million Android device activations and fifteen billion Google Play app downloads per day!)
One of the well-known downsides to Android is how fragmented its market is, being that it’s multi-carrier, multi-OS, multi-device, multi-screen resolution, etc. However, you can alleviate some of these challenges with a little preparation.
As you begin to craft a localization strategy for going global with your application, let’s take a look at four Android-specific tips that can help you plot your course.
Have a layover in Istanbul as you jet from Europe to Asia? Or looking to spend some time after a business meeting with your Turkish partners? While a visit to Topkapı Palace demands at least half a day and the Grand Bazaar can be overwhelming, there are plenty of ways to get a taste of this eclectic and unique city without following the traditional tourist paths. Read on for our tips for enjoying Istanbul to the fullest.
Despite Europe's economic woes, unemployment remains low in Germany and consumer confidence is on the rise. Germany is the powerful motor driving Europe’s economy forward. If you’re looking for strong purchasing power and 80+ million new customers, this Western European market is not to be overlooked.
To truly connect with German customers and get beyond winging it with your “Genglish,” you’ll want to invest early on in translation for this market. Among your top priorities will naturally be client-facing communications, such as your corporate website, marketing materials and product information.
Attention to detail will definitely pay off as you continually build and refine your German branding. In this post we’ll take a look at five pointers to help you develop your strategy and go to task.
If you're considering creating a mobile app but aren't sure if a global audience will respond, let us reassure you: they will. Mobile apps are hot, and especially so outside the US. In fact, a majority of the fastest-growing mobile markets are found beyond American soil, and mobile app localization has moved from nice-to-have to an absolute must.
However, localization of mobile apps requires some unique considerations, such as the screen size and how much "real estate" it will afford, how much your content will expand or contract in translation, fonts, styles, images, and the various operating systems on which your app will be displayed.
But fear not. Read on for our tips on how to tackle mobile app localization with confidence.
A successful online launch of your website in new international markets depends on more than solid translation. While a recent study from the Common Sense Advisory found that 85% of online shoppers will only buy from a site in their native language, language alone is not the only driver behind global brand growth online.
In this blog post we’ll take a design-centric look at localization choices to consider before your next international launch, specifically the design elements crucial to succeeding in high-context cultures. Never heard of high-context vs. low-context culture distinctions? Don’t worry!
After the jump we’ll help you see the world with a brand new pair of eyes.
How did 7-Eleven realize a fivefold increase in sales in 2011 and add 36 stores in Indonesia in one year alone? It’s a case study in successful “glocalization,” a combination of “global” and “localization,” or shorthand for “think globally, act locally.” Glocalization covers everything from employee training to marketing collateral, point of sale (POS) software, product selection and even local labor laws.
Without thoughtful localization, a brand in a new culture runs the risk of coming across as rude, weird or unappealing in light of local tastes and customs. But if a brand goes overboard with changes, it runs the risk of becoming unrecognizable, and most of a brand’s equity rests in its consistent identity.
In this article, we’ll take a look at how 7-Eleven got it right. At the heart of their success? The Indonesian concept of nonkrong.
Although small, the vibrant and vocal market for film and television in Quebec has made the studios stand up and take notice. After years of screening entertainment dubbed in France, the film industry in Quebec began to call for market-appropriate products.
Today, more and more studios are double-dubbing films and TV series, creating one version for France and the international francophone market, and another for the Quebec market. If the trend continues, the dubbing and subtitling industry in La Belle Province may well become a serious contender against competition from France and Belgium.
Beauty is in the eye of beholder, which is why global cosmetics companies take care to adapt their products for a local gaze. Whether it’s a tweak to an existing product or a shift in marketing strategy to accommodate different beauty priorities, product localization in the beauty industry is nothing new. Now some major players are upping the ante in the beauty localization game for China’s ever-expanding market.
Global beauty giants like L’Oréal and Estée Lauder are competing with Japanese and Korean beauty companies like Shiseido, Kao, and Amorepacific for market share in China. How are these North American and European companies using localization to make themselves more attractive to Chinese consumers? Read on to find out.
In celebration of our tenth anniversary at Acclaro, we are taking a look back at how the translation and localization industry has changed over the past decade to accommodate technology and contemporary trends. Global marketing has changed dramatically in the past ten years and our clients’ needs have changed with them. Now, instead of localizing print campaigns, we’re more than likely to translate email and mobile advertising campaigns. Read on to learn more.
Acclaro has grown a lot in the ten last years, but it remains an organization that’s focused on doing good as well as doing well. Our employees regularly participate in charity events, and Acclaro’s proud to support their efforts, sponsor their participation, and in some cases, even match employee donations! Acclaro also supports charitable organizations in each of its three U.S. locations, which keeps our eyes on the “local” even as our localization work has us thinking, emailing, and talking all around the globe.
Over the past ten years, corporate eLearning and online training programs have become increasingly sophisticated and popular. So it's no wonder that Tiffany & Co., one of the premier American luxury brands, turned to an online model to train their thousands of employees around the globe.
As part of our 10th anniversary series, Ora Solomon, Acclaro vice president of sales and operations, looks at the surge in popularity of eLearning and then discusses a mini localization case study on "The World of Tiffany", a visually stunning and complex multimedia training video by the famed jeweler.
At Acclaro, we've helped Fortune 500 companies, tech startups and leading American brands succeed in global markets with their innovative products. One of the ways we try and communicate the most current, cutting-edge localization news is through our blog. While we've already brought you the 10 most popular blog posts in our Q1 2012 newsletter, we'd like to continue our 10th anniversary blog series with the 10 most interesting posts we've done, to date. Check them out....
Brazil is going to be busy. While recent news has focused on how the once white-hot economy has slowed considerably since 2010, there’s no doubt that an enormous amount of economic potential is ahead for the South American powerhouse.
An exploding middle class, greater internet access, and unique opportunities in the Brazilian franchise boom are all reasons you should keep Brazil on your radar.
In this article, we’ll take a brief look at the numbers behind the headlines and provide a few popular resources for exploring possible pathways to success among the Portuguese-speaking population of Brazil.
At Acclaro, we've helped Fortune 500 companies, tech startups and leading American brands succeed in global markets with their innovative products. Fashion has become one of our fortes over the past decade.
In today's 10th Anniversary slideshow, we take you directly to the localization runway. The featured clients in this show have worked with Acclaro to adapt their marketing, digital presence, training programs and more to global markets.
Our resident globalization architect and localization geek, Jon Ritzdorf (see his Geek2Geek webpage) answers your localization and translation questions. Read on for the most recent Q&A about externalizing strings using a grep tool or Lingoport's Globalyzer, and what Jon has to say about internationalization.
At Acclaro, we've helped Fortune 500 companies, tech startups and leading American brands succeed in global markets with their innovative products. It’s not an easy job. From preparation to execution to quality assurance testing, your typical localization project can get pretty complex, and unexpected surprises can pop up.
Fortunately, there is a dedicated and knowledgeable team of people ensuring projects flow smoothly, stay on track, and our clients’ expectations are fully met (or better, exceeded). But who, exactly, are they? In this post, meet 10 of the loyal Acclaro employees who put the TLC back into L10N.
The cost of localizing training programs, product demos, commercials, eLearning modules and other scripted pieces can add up pretty quickly. When it comes to multimedia localization, it pays to prepared. Or rather, it costs more to be unprepared! The more pre-production prep you do, the more time and money you can save in the studio.
In this post, we’ll take a look at 10 pre-production tips that can make multimedia file and script localization quicker, easier and less expensive.
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