We’ve seen a definitive trend in how B2B buyers are researching products and interacting with marketing content. They’re online, on their desktops and mobile devices. Research shows that 89% of B2B buyers are conducting research online, according to Think with Google.
And according to an industry analyst, Common Sense Advisory, 75% of buyers agree or strongly agree that when faced with the choice of two similar products, they prefer to purchase the one with product information in their own language.
What does this mean for B2B marketers? Translating digital content, like websites, mobile apps and documents, is a competitive advantage for your business. Even on a global scale, all purchasing decisions are local. By creating localized experiences, businesses can uncover more opportunities to enter new markets, expand business in existing ones, and deliver more meaningful experiences for buyers that build trust across borders.
In the past, localization has been a challenging endeavor. Traditionally the process is complex, highly manual, costly, and a strain on internal resources. A lot of businesses struggle with missed delivery dates of content, uncertain or poor quality of translations, and a total cost that is too high.
So with all of these challenges, how can B2B businesses successfully translate digital content to increase usage, conversions, and customer retention? Additionally, how can they translate websites and digital content efficiently to hit delivery dates and keep costs under control? The answer to both questions is a data-driven translation management system.
Dashlane asked themselves what wasn’t working…
“It had become impossible to scale our workflow into additional languages,” Manon Berdu says. Berdu is Localization Manager at Dashlane, a global password management company. Early in the company’s international growth cycle, Dashlane’s bilingual employees performed translations themselves. As the company grew, it didn’t take long for this to become a nightmare. “We needed to make a move,” Berdu adds.
So Dashlane hired a translation agency. But the agency’s work had quality issues, and it was unexpectedly difficult for Dashlane’s developers to gather the strings needed for localization then replace them with the agency’s translations. Employees were overloaded and the pace of product updates suffered. Without a data-driven approach to uncover translators’ mistakes and without an automated system to manage translated content, Dashlane lost precious time and money.
…what was working
Dashlane’s first step was to find a new process that would give its product development team back their time. They simply could not be distracted by translation on a daily basis any longer. So the software startup sought a tech-driven solution.
Smartling’s unique visual context interface piqued the Dashlane team’s interest immediately. From inside the Smartling system, Dashlane’s team and their translators could see exactly where a translation would be displayed on any page or app without having to guess.
…and how to optimize translation spend.
By partnering with Smartling, Dashlane now simplifies and standardizes content delivery across every language. “By keeping all the copywriting complexities invisible to our developers,” Berdu says, “we can quickly address marketing requests without taking engineers away from where they’re needed most.”
Both translation quality and turnaround time have dramatically improved. In the first year, all Dashlane employees were able to return to their original jobs full-time. What’s more, the number of active Dashlane users quadrupled.
Learn More
Smartling’s industry-leading translation software and language services prioritizes process automation and intelligent collaboration so that business-to-business companies like Dashlane quickly and cost-effectively localize their website applications and marketing content. Contact us today and let us know what translation outcomes you’d like to see for your global business.
