Understanding the Impact of Cultural Localization in ASO

Did you know cultural localization can dramatically impact your App Store Optimization (ASO) effort? Many successful app developers and marketers use cultural localization to boost app ranking and installs. If you want to understand the impact of cultural localization in ASO, then you need to continue reading!

What is Cultural Localization in ASO?

Cultural localization with App Store Optimization (ASO) is the careful tailoring and designing of your app’s presentation, content, and marketing strategy based on the distinct or unique cultural preferences, norms, and expectations of specific groups of people or regions.

Cultural localization is more than just translating your app. It works deeper by analyzing the underlying cultural context, visual aesthetics, idiomatic expressions, and behavioral traits of your intended audience.

Why use Cultural Localization in ASO?

The simple answer is for you to stand out in a crowded market. Localizing your app according to your audience’s culture can help increase your chance of getting noticed, downloaded, and utilized.

According to Statista, the number of smartphone users worldwide will reach 5.1 billion by 2028. That is equivalent to more than 60% of the world population, or in simpler terms, six out of 10 people have a smartphone. In 2022, people spent about 167 billion U.S. dollars on mobile apps.

Source

As you can just imagine, mobile apps offer a huge potential for businesses to harness. Thus, it is not surprising that there are also millions of mobile apps available now — all doing their best to get the lion’s share.

BankMyCell estimates that there are about 8.93 million mobile apps across the globe. This tells us that mobile apps have increasingly become an indispensable part of our lives, but at the same time, it has made it challenging to stay on top of the competition.

While the mobile app market is truly valuable and provides attractive business opportunities, you will soon realize that it is not that easy to earn from your mobile app or game. The competition is fierce, especially in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store — two of the biggest app stores in the world.

Thus, you need to be more creative in your app marketing. If you wish to scale your business or access new markets, you should not ignore cultural localization.

With that said, here are some other important reasons you should do cultural localization:

• Increased user engagement
• Higher conversion rate
• Improved discoverability
• Improved credibility and trust
• Improved communication
• Higher chance of getting positive ratings and reviews
• Obtain competitive advantage
• Global expansion for your business
• Personalized user experience
• Increased visibility
• Get more downloads
• Increased revenue

How to Use Cultural Localization to Improve ASO

Performing cultural localization is one of the best ways for you to improve your App Store Optimization. However, you need to ensure that you understand how cultural localization works and how you can effectively do it to obtain positive results.

Here are some of the essential ways for you to improve ASO with cultural localization:

1. Prepare Your App through Internationalization

Internationalization is making your app ready to take on different languages without losing its functionality. This means that you create app codes that you can easily manipulate when you need to localize your app.

While you can perform localization without internationalization, you don’t want to go this route. If you don’t do internationalization first, you’ll need to create a new app code version every time you take on a new region.

Simply put, you need to perform internationalization first to allow localization to happen in the easiest way possible.

2. Identify Your Target Market

There are just so many regions, languages, and markets to target. You don’t want to spread your marketing effort too thin to the point that you don’t see any significant results anymore.

Source

What you need to do is identify the best market for your app and scale from there. Research your market and see which of them gives you the highest possible return on investment.

When identifying your target market, consider factors such as user demand, language, market potential, and, of course, your app relevance.

3. Gather Cultural Insights

Since the main focus of this article is cultural localization, it is only natural for us to concentrate on gathering data, information, and details about a particular culture. You need to gather cultural insights about the following:

• Primary language spoken in your target market
• Cultural norms
• Values
• Behaviors
• Communication styles
• Social etiquette
• Cultural symbols
• Traditions
• Idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms
• Cultural taboos
• Religious sensitivities

Studying the culture of a particular group of people can tremendously guide your localization effort. For example, you should be aware of symbols, words, and behavior that might be offensive to certain users. You may not know, but you have already offended the same people you want to attract.

4. Incorporate Cultural Elements into Your Design

When trying to use cultural localization for ASO, you must re-design your app store listing to use visuals and creatives that resonate better with your target audience. You need to use screenshots, app videos, and texts that reflect the culture of the people you intend to target.

For example, if you’re trying to penetrate the Japanese market, consider using photos of people who are from that country. You can also add pictures of items that reflect Japanese culture, such as a picture of Mt. Fuji, kimono, Cherry Blossoms, Origami, ninja, samurai, torii gates, and other related items.

Source

When you add visuals that your target audience can easily identify with, you’ll instantly create a connection with them.

5. Consider Annual Events

There are certain celebrations that are unique to one particular region. You don’t expect that all countries would celebrate their Independence Day on the same day, right? In the same manner, you need to take note of the annual events. If there’s an upcoming event, then think of how you can redesign your app’s icon, screenshots, app videos, and text to reflect that event.

6. Be Alert to Trending Topics

Keep your ear on the ground. Check local news and current affairs in that region. See what is trending in social media and online communities. There will be a time when these things are so trending and popular that adding them to your app’s design would definitely score more cultural points.

7. Use Localization Tools

To make your job easier, consider using localization tools, resources, and platforms. You’ll be amazed at how these tools can automate a lot of work. For example, localization tools can provide cultural insights and keyword suggestions.

Moreover, tracking the performance of your cultural localization effort can be overwhelming if you do it manually. Thankfully, localization tools should help you gather and interpret data. Localization tools can also give you suggestions on how to improve your marketing strategies.

Master ASO and Cultural Localization

Cultural localization plays a major role in improving your App Store Optimization. Remember that cultural localization is an ongoing process. You have to test your localization efforts regularly and update them as necessary.

By investing time, energy, and money into your cultural localization, you’ll have a better chance of getting more positive results.

While this article has been helpful in explaining how cultural localization affects ASO, you can learn more by getting in touch with ShyftUp.

ShyftUp is one of the leading user acquisition agencies today that can explain to you further how to perform effective cultural localization. They can guide you into creating the right marketing strategies that engage people, convert them into loyal users, and create more business opportunities for your app.

Give ShyftUp a try today!