Mirela
A localization brief is the document that explains how your content should be adapted for a specific market or language. It covers your business goals and various aspects relating to localization, gives direction, and helps you get the expected results. Here’s why you need a brief and what it should contain.
Why a brief is so important
First and foremost, a brief keeps your brand consistent across markets. It contains specifications about the tone, voice, and terminology, which is the information most important so that a piece of localized content feels like it belongs to the same brand family.
A brief can also it reduce questions and revisions because you’re giving the context, audience details, cultural notes, and technical requirements your localization team needs; they won’t have to ask for clarification at every step. They’ll also be more efficient in their work because they can make confident decisions.
Since localization is quite a cultural sensitive industry, you have to be really careful with what you put out there. Markets have different norms, humor, and sensitivities, but a brief flags these considerations in advance. Surely, you want to prevent any embarrassing mistakes.
What your localization brief should contain
Your brief doesn’t have to be long, but it does have to be clear. Every section you include should reduce ambiguity and guide your team’s decisions.
Project context
What your localization team needs to know, before anything else, is what your project is about and where it fits in your business. Context changes the tone, vocabulary, and pacing. Things change depending on whether the content will be part of a new market or an existing expansion, if it’s time-sensitive or evergreen, and where in the website or app it’s going to go. Make sure the context is clear.
Business goals
We mentioned goals. Localization works best when it supports a clear goal. In this case, a goal is what you want the audience to do after reading or interacting with the content. That action could be buying, signing up, understanding a feature, or simply trusting your brand.
Your translators need to know what your goals are because they influence the wording. If you have a conversion-driven page, for example, they will need to use persuasive language. Without a stated goal, your translators cannot prioritize.
Target audience
Your localization brief should also contain the audience definition. But don’t make it shallow! Describe the audience in human terms, mention their roles and familiarity with your product(s). It’s important to state if their new or experienced users.
Localization works when it reflects how people actually speak and think in that market. In this section, you also want to clarify whether they expect a formal or casual tone. Some audiences expect more formality than the same audience elsewhere.
Language
The next thing you don’t want to be vague about is language. Your localization brief should specify the exact locale, not just the language. There are different spellings, grammar, idioms, measurements, currencies, and references depending on the locale. If you already have existing content in that locale, reference it as a standard.
Brand voice
Brand voice is the unique personality or style you, as a business, use to communicate with your audience. In your localization brief, you should describe what the voice should sound like and what to avoid. This helps translators make choices that actually fit your brand.
Terminology
One of the best ways to strengthen your brand during localization is terminology. Through the localization brief, you can make it clear which words define your brand and which ones can be adapted. Once a term appears in your product, marketing, and support content, changing it becomes hard and expensive. So don’t make the mistake of not providing clear terminology guidance!
Cultural considerations
Now, you do not need to solve every cultural issue, but acknowledging the cultural context is mandatory in localization. Your localization brief should flag anything that may not translate directly, and also warn about topics that require care due to cultural or legal reasons.
Legal constraints
Some markets are stricter than others, and if you’re already working in an industry that’s more regulated than others, you also need to add any rules regarding claims, data usage, consumer protection in your brief. It should also mention any required disclaimers, mandatory wording, or restricted phrases.
Technical and formatting requirements
Since localization interacts with technology, you need to consider the user experience. As such, your brief should call out character limits, text expansion in interfaces, and layout constraints so that translated content fits without truncation or overflow.
Date formats, numbers, units, currencies, and punctuation rules vary by locale and can confuse users if left undefined. You could also mention platform-specific or file-format requirements, like HTML, mobile app fields, or CMS restrictions. These technical notes should help minimize the risk of reworks.
Wrapping up
A localization brief is one of the simplest tools you can use to ensure and improve the quality of your global content. It gives clarity and a shared understanding of what success looks like. So take the time to define the goals, audience, terminology, tone, and constraints. And this applies to anything; from a single blog post to scaling content across multiple markets. In the long run, this level of clarity saves time and reduces friction.