Many readers of this blog are gearing up to work on strategy development and budget forecasting for next year – whether they work in the B2C, B2B, or non-profit sectors. To support you in that endeavor, below we provide three datapoints that will resonate with financial, marketing, and engineering executives as you present your ROI proposal for language investment.

• At-risk audiences. Pinpoint the essential stages within your firm’s global customer experience; for example, research, purchase, and customer care. Identify the groups that you can’t reach currently due to a lack of local language access. Then take a hard look at whether you’re leaving a substantial amount of money on the table or permitting a competitor to push you out by not localizing. Our research shows that if you aren’t delivering local language content for a market, you risk losing more than half of your potential buyers.

• Depth and breadth. Whether big or small, companies struggle to maintain a proper balance between the number of languages (breadth) and the amount of content (depth) they support over time. How little is too little? How much is too much? One of our newest studies, based on a review of 2.4 million individual webpages at 1,348 sites with two or more languages, confirms that the general rule is still to aim for breadth over depth. At the same time, monitor how deep your main competitors localize as you continue to invest strategically in the markets that make the most sense for future growth.
   
• Language priority projections. What languages will be required to reach 97% of the global online addressable market today, five years from now, ten years? Our most recent research reveals the rapid rise of languages from emerging economies in Asia, the continued growth of Chinese, and a slow erosion of the dominant status of European tongues on the internet. It will take an increasing number of languages to reach 90%, 97%, and 99% of the addressable online market. More than ever, you will depend on data to spot current and future opportunities as you calibrate language investment recommendations for decision-makers.

Even though our research shows that businesspeople and consumers continue to purchase non-localized products and services from non-localized websites and mobile apps, the fundamental question for enterprises is, “How long will this behavior last?” Probably only until a nimbler competitor answers the unmet preference for local language. Therefore, even if your organization isn’t quite ready to commit to Indonesian, Kannada, or Telugu prepare your executive decision-makers now with the right data to build their ROI equations into the future. If you need more data to back you up during this year’s planning phase, don’t hesitate to reach out to CSA Research.