One of the most commonly recurring questions from companies that have decided to go global is how to analyze the target market for localization?. After all, each and every target market you want to expand into is specific and carries its own set of rules that you need to follow.
Analyzing a target market for localization bears a lot of similarities to analyzing your initial target market for your product. You need to set up some parameters, define who you are actually targeting, and collect all the info before actually spending any money on localizing your content.
Today, we will focus on five steps that will help you analyze the target market for localization.
#1. Check your current customers
Even before localization of your content, you are bound to have customers from other countries who also speak other languages. You should collect as much data as possible about these clients and check what could be a common thread you want to follow. Are they all from a certain industry or from a certain geographical area?
You could also ask your current customers to provide you with some feedback on what drew them to your product. They will certainly also value the fact that you are asking them for feedback to aid the further development of your product.
#2. Check the competition
If you are entering a new market where you don’t have any current customers, but you think your product would do well in, then try analyzing what your competition is doing.
Check out your competitors’ actions anyway to understand which niche(s) they are targeting, so that you can perhaps avoid facing your competition head-on immediately after entering a new market.
#3. Define your product or service
You need to define all your products and services and decide which ones you will push in the new market. Try defining the benefits that your products and services bring to certain groups of people.
#4. Choose the demographics
Based on all the info above, you will be able to define certain demographic groups that you want to target. Since you cannot just target all people in a certain country, you need to start somewhere. You don’t have to get the target group 100% correct on the first try.
It’s important to start with a group which is as close as possible to the data you currently have at hand. You can adapt your strategy along the way, but the first step is the most difficult one.
#5. Research the decisive factors
After making the decision about the target market for localization, you need to understand the audience that it includes. Try to research as much as possible to find potential problems or corrections you need to make to your content.
For example:
- check how your target groups like to pay for products or services
- check which social platforms they mostly use, so that you can use these platforms for advertising
- check what type of products and services your groups mostly purchase online
- check what they value the most when purchasing products and services online
A lot of this information is readily available on services like Statista, where you will find info about online behavior and the digital marketplace for a specific target market. If you wonder about keywords and trends that will help you with your marketing campaign, use Google Trends and Keyword Planner.
Analyzing the target market for localization is not that difficult
Once all of this is done, you can start with the actual localization of your content. We have already covered this in another article, so you can continue reading and find out what to do once you do have a defined target market and group.
If you get stuck, or if you want someone to provide you with additional feedback or insight, you can always reach out to us. Our team will be glad to help, no strings attached!
