Is your business planning to leap into the metaverse to reach more global users? Don’t forget about localization.
Your business should be where your customers are. Recently, the top place to be — both for brands and consumers — is in the metaverse.
To keep up with the newest trends and establish a distinctive presence in the digital world, at some point you’ll need to build metaverse strategy into your business plan. Many market leaders have already tapped into this exciting world. Samsung launched its first metaverse store in Decentraland attracting more than 120,000 customers, Nike created an interactive world in Roblox, where visitors can play mini-games and immerse into the sport lifestyle, and Coca-Cola launched its NFTs collection to promote friendship with the power of their products.
In this hectic strive to stand out by offering immersive experiences for the global users, there’s one key element that can’t be ignored: localization.
What does localization have to do with the metaverse?
Localization takes place every time you adapt a digital product to your foreign customers. It goes far beyond changing the language of the user interface items. To make your website, game, or platform truly accessible for the global users, you’ll also need to meet the expectations of your target audience in terms of culture, navigation patterns, visuals, or purchase decisions.
Localization plays a key role in ensuring immersive metaverse experience, as well. For example, by adapting colors, images or digital activities to the target user’s culture you can increase the comfort level of your visitors and ultimately encourage them to spend more time and more money in your digital world.
How to implement localization to make the metaverse more inclusive?
The first step is to define your target users. Even global brands, such as Nike or Samsung, are not equally popular in every region. When you build a metaverse strategy, it’s worth considering the background of users who are very likely to interact with your brand in the digital world: Where do they come from? What language do they speak? How much do they know about NFTs, digital wallets, or surfing through the metaverse? All these aspects will help you define a precise image of your target audience to create a more inclusive experience.
The second step is to decide on the level of your localization efforts. Will you only adapt the user interface language or go a step further to modify visuals or remove culturally sensitive items? The best approach is to involve localization and culturalization experts in this step, to make sure your mini-games, digital stores or other experiences are relevant and engaging for your visitors coming from the specific culture.
What are the benefits of localizing your metaverse activities?
When you implement culturally adapted elements into your store or game in the metaverse, you take the communication with your consumers to the next level. Once they hear a voice in their language or see a landmark from their region, their comfort level will increase and with it also their willingness to explore other parts of your platform. The more your users explore, the more likely they are to become your customers, rather than just random visitors focused merely on free entertainment. Adding local components is also a great way to impress your consumers who will become more likely to recommend your digital product to other local users.
If you plan to build a metaverse strategy for your brand, you can’t overlook the needs of your local users. Start creating digital experiences with the culture of your target audience in mind to make sure they can fully understand and engage with your products.
Dorota is a localization consultant for digital brands and a co-founder of an NFT project. This article was first published on her blog at https://www.polishlocalisation.com/
