EVENT RECAP: LOCALIZATION AND INTERNATIONALIZATION
So where are you reading this blog post from? Your home in Minneapolis. Your office over the River in St. Paul? Or a coffee shop in Mexico?
You know they call it “the world wide web” for a reason. And as the infrastructure to support it expands around the globe – and as the technology to access it becomes more affordable and readily available – the Internet truly is facilitating communication across widely dispersed geo-political boundaries. So visitors to your website could be coming from anywhere on earth, really.
Lots of smart interactive marketing professionals recognize the Internet’s burgeoning capability to facilitate international transactions. Recently, 200+ members of the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (and guests) met at W Minneapolis for our July event, featuring a presentation by Joe Kutchera an expert in online marketing and building sales in Latin American markets and founder of dotGlobal, an international e-commerce and media consultancy.
Joe spoke to the group about concepts related to localization and internationalization, using Latin American markets as an example. Here are select highlights from his full presentation.
Localization trends
Joe gave us some examples of how geographic boundaries can affect shopping behavior.
Price. According to Joe, who lives in New York City, many people in Manhattan cross the Hudson River to save on groceries and gas, because prices are less expensive and taxes are lower in New Jersey. Or compare the prices for the same products available on Dell’s U.S and Mexican online stores (both prices given in USD).
• Inspiron 13” – Dell.com: $499; Dell.com.mx: $665
• Studio Slim Desktop – Dell.com: $399; Dell.com.mx: $702
• Dell V305 Printer – Dell.com: $99; Dell.com.mx: $132
(Sources: Dell.com and Dell.com.mx, July 2009)
Availability. Joe shared several anecdotes about Latin American friends who frequently seek out U.S. sources to buy products because they often have greater selection and better quality. For a local example, who among us as creative and enterprising MIMA members have not crossed the St. Croix River on a Sunday afternoon at least once to replenish the liquor cabinet after a rollicking party the night before, because of Minnesota blue laws prohibiting alcohol sales on Sunday?
Internationalization trends
Joe provided a variety of figures verifying what we already know: the Internet is an increasingly international space. A look at the top 50 ostensibly U.S. websites shows that many are getting more traffic from abroad than from U.S. visitors. The New York Times web edition gets 42% of its readers from abroad, Twitter 51%, YouTube 81% and Facebook 82%.
Where could these visitors be browsing your website from? According to Internet World Stats, the top five most used languages on the Internet are: English (430.8 million), Mandarin (276.2 million), Spanish (124.7 million), Japanese (94.0 million) and French (68.2 million).
Indeed. For those of you who think visually — or for you verbal people like me who need context to put large numbers into perspective — try this on. The Minneapolis Star Tribune print edition reported two days after Joe’s presentation that China now has more people who are online than the entire population of the United States.
Opportunities for marketers
How are Latin Americans and Spanish-speaking people in the United States finding your website? By typing Spanish terms into their favorite search engines. Joe suggests making sure your SEO strategies include optimizing your site for Spanish (and other important international languages).
Look at your media plan. Joe said to think about your audience’s international language needs or professional interests horizontally across the vertical media channels in your strategy.
Target your messaging. Joe said there are a lot of ways to deliver messages to international audiences.
• By IP address or geographic region
• Re-target (follow up)
• Behavioral/linguistic
• Contextual (by subject)
• Profession/company/social network
• Country
Explore emerging g-commerce best practices. Joe said there is tremendous opportunity for marketers in the United States who make it easier for customers from around the world to buy their products.
• Give your visitors a choice of geographic denominations to transact in and make your offers available in multiple denominations.
• Give your visitors a choice of geographic locations to pick up products they order. If you do not have a physical presence in a foreign market where consumers are looking for your product or service, partner with a business there who can serve as a distributor for you.
July 19th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
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July 27th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Great post- one thing you need to be careful with is local companies saying that they understand localization. From an interactive standpoint some will say they are great (page10) but make sure they show you the work they have done- and get it in writing that it’s their work!
Bad work can kill you.
December 18th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Thanks for sharing. You hit on a growing trend that is causing marketers to take notice: Consumers are using the Internet to search globally. After all, the Internet is an international phenomenon. But, when it comes time to purchase, consumers tend to stay local, where they can get hands-on access to the products they desire. Local marketing, or hyper-local marketing, is causing even large corporations to rethink their strategies of targeting local consumers.
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