If you want your fashion website to make it in a new market and the global marketplace, localization is not a nice-to-have. It’s absolutely essential. Your website is the digital front door to your business, so it must make your target audience feel welcome. And the only way to do that is to address them in a tone and language they’re comfortable with, which is exactly what the localization process ensures.
In this post, we’ll be looking at the key benefits of using localization as a means to tap into international markets. We’ll also be sharing a few tips on the best practices for localizing your website for a new market!
What is Website Localization Anyway?
In short, localization is the adaptation of your local market content, services, and products to complement the needs of a specific target audience. Matching the linguistic and cultural needs of your target market through website localization and social media channels significantly improves your visibility within that market, which in turn drives traffic and sales.
Why is it So Important to Localize Your Fashion Website?
Now that you have a better idea of how you can go global with website localization, here’s a look at the reasons why you need to prioritize localization as part of your brand growth strategy!
Competition on the International Market is at an All-Time High
The global pandemic forced the world into doing pretty much everything online, and this meant that many of the leading fashion brands had to pivot and adjust their content marketing strategies accordingly. Marketing efforts through social media channels alone weren’t enough any longer. The competition to engage with international customers is fiercer than it has ever been, and the only way to personalize your offerings is through innovative localization strategies.
Consumer Demand for Online Content Skyrocketed
Over the last five years, consumer behavior has changed significantly. Your audience wants instant access to information, next (or even same-day) delivery options, and customer service that’s unmatched in quality and speed.
What you need to do is to combine a sense of the classics with extreme experimentation to satisfy today’s consumer demands. Failing to keep up with and meet customer demands will only lead your potential customers to your competitor, who is just a click away from you.
What Are the Key Benefits of Website Localization?
When you deploy innovative localization strategies, you create an online experience that attracts audiences from a wide range of locations, languages, and cultures. Localization goes further than website translation and ensures that your messages consider cultural differences.
As someone who has worked on several website and app projects needing localization services, the SEO specialist of Tomedes Bryan Patio said that during global consultations, they would ask for the purpose and goals. By knowing what their expectations were for localizing their platform, they could focus on what their clients needed for their websites and apps, whether it was implementing a multilingual SEO strategy, localizing platforms, localization testing, etc. Through this, they could create a more personalized customer experience based on their target market’s linguistic and cultural preferences.
When you localize your fashion website, you eliminate the risk of losing potential customers merely because you’re not addressing them in their native language. With 55% of consumers preferring to buy exclusively in their native language, it’s not hard to understand why you should prioritize website localization if you’re expanding into foreign markets.
Localization Helps You Create Personalized Content for Target Audience
You probably already have a target group for your fashion brand. Are these people young adults? Businesswomen? Athletic individuals? The chances are that your ideal customers have different characteristics in every target market. And to cater to these different needs and cultural factors, you can set up a multilingual website and separate social media channels for every language you cater to.
By creating different versions of your website for different markets, you’ll be able to present your message and product in the language and cultural setting of your target customer. In this way, your audience will understand your content better and be more likely to engage with your brand as if it were a local brand.
It Builds Brand Trust and Loyalty within Your Target Market
The first step to building trust with your audience is personalized content that addresses the customer in their own language. And with a localized website, you’ll create the impression that your fashion brand understands the cultural aspect of your target market. Localizing aspects like measurements, currencies, shipping and payment methods helps increase the comfort level your customers gain through their shopping experience. And this, in turn, will help boost sales and attract new customers.
Localization Makes it Easier to Expand from Your Local Market into New Markets
Thorough market research and localization are the two key components that allow brands to enter foreign markets successfully. If you’re only active on a local scale, you can expand your reach by speaking the language of and operating in the culture of your target foreign audiences. An English website isn’t enough to help you tap into new markets because the only thing that really counts is the kind of experience you can create for your audience, even if you’re not physically based in that country. And through a localized website, you’ll be able to achieve this goal and grow your brand across the world.
But there are heaps of other long-term benefits that arise from website localization, including:
- Reaching new audiences through higher SEO rankings
- Engaging with an extended audience
- Creating a personalized experience for your audience
- Staying ahead of the competition
- Building a global brand
- Building trust with your audience
- Boosting brand reputation and integrity
What Are Some of the Best Practices for Localizing a Fashion Website?
Naturally, you should pay close attention to elements like time and date, currencies, fonts, measurements, and acronyms when you roll out a localization project. But with that said, here are three other elements that make up the foundation of localization:
Research
You need to understand the language and culture of the location you want to target. Therefore, doing research is imperative to help you create an effective marketing strategy.
International SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is like the gentle giant everyone needs in their corner. You’ll need to implement multilingual SEO in your localization strategy if you’re entering the international market, so again, a good amount of research pertaining to search engines is on the cards. Naturally, partnering with the right localization service provider and translation company with expert knowledge in the field will help you stay on track with your localization strategy.
Cultural Competence
When you localize your fashion website, you must foster culturally relevant connections with your target audience. By paying attention to cultural nuances, you build relationships with your customers because you’re also paying attention to the choice of images and phrases you’re using to connect with them.
Wrapping Up
Localizing your fashion website is critical in successfully entering the international stage. Whether you’re just starting your clothing brand or looking to expand into a new niche, localization will help you reach more customers and increase your sales.
From creating adjusted content for your target audiences to building trust and loyalty and making it that much easier to expand into new markets, the benefits of fashion website localization are far too great to be ignored. So, what are you waiting for?
