Preparing your business to go into the global marketplace can sometimes feel like an overwhelming task. The many aspects that make up a brand: name, logos, and graphics all need to be translated and made to be culturally appealing and sensitive to each country. Localizers utilize localization management software to help your business give global markets a native brand experience.

International Branding Gone Wrong

​The list of companies that have run into translation or cultural blunders goes on and on. The company, KFC, experienced some issues trying to translate their catchline for Mandarin speakers. What was originally, “finger licking good” was directly translated to “eat your fingers off.” Another well-known American company, Ford, discovered the power of synonyms when working to translate their catchphrase for European countries. The original advertisement read, “Every car has a high-quality body.” However, “body” can take on multiple meanings, thus their European advertisement translated roughly to, “Every car has a high-quality corpse.”

Although laughable now, these companies experienced large setbacks and had to work to gain back the customers that were unsure of the genuineness behind the brand. These cases show just how quickly international brands can be compromised. However, these easy to make branding mistakes can be resolved with tools part of localization management software including: real-time collaboration for translators, translation memory, and glossaries.

Localization Management Software and Brand Consistency

Translation Memory ​

Translation memory (TM) is one of the tools part of localization management software. Anytime your business has a translation project, TM stores what translations are made and can recall the same translations for new projects. This powerful tech is revolutionary for businesses hoping to expand their global reaches. Localization software and its tools work together to help businesses save time and money. TM provides a form of translation automation while localization software allows translators to edit and collaborate together which gets the word out about your business faster. Once text has been translated, businesses can save money for every following project. Companies such as Ford and KFC, that have experienced cultural blunders can easily avoid repeat cases by using localization management software tools which stores their translations and can be used for later projects.

Localization management software aids in keeping your brand consistent over many markets. Presenting consistent information to international audiences can help in building greater trust and confidence in your brand to customers. When marketers of Ford created their motto of “Every car has a high quality body,” they chose each word with precision. Instead of “body,” they could have used frame or construction. Localization software tools such as TM preserves the hard work your business’s marketing team has already done. Meaning that once initial translations are completed, your branding will remain consistent in any language you choose.

Search Engines and Localization Management Software

Getting your website found on search engines through Search Engine Optimization can be improved by using localization software tools. Translation memory working hand-in-hand with human translators provides a bank of consistent and most frequently used words of a language. In an international market, it can be difficult getting your business and brand recognized in new locales. Making your website text and SEO tags reflect accurate language translations and most common words and phrases helps people using search engines find your business faster and easier. Search engines are becoming more advanced and have improved technologies as they are now able to: search for natural language phrases (rather than keywords), take into account location of the user, and even utilize search histories. As search engines continue to evolve and incorporate more complex linguistic search methods, translation accuracy becomes even more vital to being found. Localization management software incorporates tools that can make creating native brand content a breeze.

Conclusion

Keeping your brand as consistent as possible in global markets helps in giving international audiences a clearer picture of your business–localization management software makes it possible. Using this tech allows you the opportunity to worry less about communicating the same ideas between languages, and focus more on the needs of your customers. With the capabilities of helping on any project from start to finish, localization management software can aid any business making the move to global markets feel seamless.

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Localization Management Software helps expand your brand into international markets. 

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