Localising your Content for Germany!
During this age of globalisation, companies tend to move internationally and leave a global footprint. Many businesses are looking for an expansion in Germany, as it offers a massive business potential and is a viable entrance to the broader European market. In this day & age, Localisation becomes an indispensable tool to make your mark on the Global Economy.
Germany is Europe’s Largest National Economy and has the world’s fourth-largest GDP. It is both, the second-largest global goods exporter and the third-largest global goods importer. A high proportion of Germany’s well-educated population actively buys online in contradiction to various other European countries.
Globalisation v/s Localisation
Realising the difference between globalisation and localisation is essential in order to study the goods & services and formulate coherent strategies in a much more comprehensive manner.
Globalisation means expanding the reach of a company internationally and transcending cultural, linguistic, and regional barriers to give it a truly global feeling. It basically involves designing your product in order to match Global and International Standards and Conventions.
On the other hand, product localisation focuses on making the product look as though it had been made by and for the target area. A well-localised product does not seem like it’s from a foreign market.
Globalisation means expanding the reach of a company internationally and transcending cultural, linguistic, and regional barriers to give it a truly global feeling. It basically involves designing your product in order to match Global and International Standards and Conventions.
On the other hand, product localisation focuses on making the product look as though it had been made by and for the target area. A well-localised product does not seem like it’s from a foreign market.
German Consumer
The History of a Country determines to a large extent, the social make-up of the cultures that it Harbours. It is important to understand and take into account, all of these various aspects when localising your product. When localising for Germany, one should be aware of the German Consumer Behaviour and Psychological Make-up.
- Germans tend to purchase from “German” online retailers. This is in part owing to their rather inclusive cultural growth as well as their unfamiliarity with the English Language. With a website presence on the German online marketplace, a German domain (e.g. “website.de”) may be highly influential.
- During their company lunch breaks, German online shoppers make almost one-quarter of all transactions, which is, from noon to 2 PM.
- A Postbank study showed that for the German male users, February is the busiest online shopping month, while for German female online users, September is the busiest month.
- Germans are very time-sensitive and work in a manner that conserves time and resources.
- German internet users tend to use electronic direct debit for online transactions instead of credit cards; 60 per cent of all German online sales are paid in this way.
- German men and the youth of both sexes are more likely to use online auction sites than the other German population.
All of this is necessary to understand the values that the German culture communicates and comprehensive extensive further research on these topics is definitely suggested.
Language Localisation for Germany
Language localisation is one of the primary things to consider when entering the German market. Here, you will ordinarily have to leverage the German language for entering the B2C (Business- TO- Consumer) Industry.
In Germany, there are several dialects, but we suggest that you use ‘high German’ for language localisation. When you approach regions within Germany that speak other dialects, such as Bavaria, use culture to localise, rather than language.
There are steps that you should take to make the translation more accurate. Download all of your work’s copy and check it to see if you’re using words and phrases that are not direct descriptions and have meaning only in your own country and area.
Also, when you continue to translate the content into German, think of certain items that should not necessarily be translated until they’re revised for the local market. User names, emails, and phone numbers, for example, fall into this group.
German SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
To promote a website internationally, you have to first create localised content and keywords, register local domains and then further indulge in online and offline branding and promotions through local search engines. DENIC is the central registry under the top-level domain “.de” for all domains. The ten millionth transaction for the domain .de was processed in June 2006, making it the second top-level domain after “.com”, which is a significant accomplishment on its behalf.
The top Pay Per Click ( PPC) Search Engines in Germany, according to Markus However of the Bloofusion Group, are:
- Overture Germany
- QualiGO
- Google AdWords
- Morango Deutschland
- Espotting
The Top Search Engines in the German language, according to the Bloofusion Group, are:
- Fireball
- Acoon
- AltaVista
- Lycos
- Freenet.de
- MSN
- Witch
- Yahoo! Deutschland
Germany represents a great business opportunity for many companies. It’s people have their unique history that should be taken into account when entering the economy with a new product and/or service!
By Prajal Narain
Team Loc-N-Apps
