How Hopster Gains Global Presence in 100 Countries by Doing Localization Right

This interview is part of our series “Bring It to the World,” which is crafted for developers of websites and apps that offer localized versions to users worldwide.

We’re catching up with some of OneSky’s best-known users in order to ask them about their localization experiences, and to discover some of their secrets for building a global presence. In this installment of the series, we chat with Nika Kuznetsova, the Head of Customer Happiness at Hopster, an app that helps kids learn through their favorite shows by striking the perfect balance between fun and learning.

Q&A with Nika Kuznetsova, Head of Customer Happiness at Hopster.

1. At App Promotion Summit 2015, we learned that you targeted Western Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and a few APAC countries for your localization campaign. How did you choose those regions?

We used Priori Data to analyze the markets where we hadn’t launched yet. This data covered everything from market size to the “length of the tail” (which indicates how skewed download volumes are towards the top-ranking apps). The data also included monetization potential and saturation in key categories.

We also considered content costs, since we license the best kids shows around the world, and local attitudes toward screen time for kids.

2. What’s your app’s localization strategy?

In many of these territories, we started by localizing the app description and screenshots only. We think it is fine not to localize our app too early, as it is an English learning tool for kids around the world.

We’re currently in the process of localizing the entire app into a whole new language. Full localisation is hard in the best of cases, but OneSky is helping us to jump the translation hurdles pretty easily, so we can focus on the technical challenges of full localization.

3. What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced in localization? How have you resolved them so far?

At this stage, we haven’t yet fully localized our app. Our initial challenge was finding a centralized platform for translating all kinds of content—from marketing communication to  help articles to app store descriptions. OneSky allows us to manage all of this material without the hassle of sourcing translators.

3. How did you find OneSky? Did you try any other localization solutions first?

We read about OneSky in a blog post by the friendly people over at TapDaq. We looked at a number of localization tools, from specialized full-service agencies to self-serve solutions, and OneSky came out on top.

4. What are the three things you most love about OneSky? Why?

We love having a single, centralized localization platform like OneSky, which meets almost all of our needs so far. We don’t have to worry about sourcing and managing translators.

OneSky’s translation service offers quick turnaround times that meet our product launch timelines well.

This would be one of our favorite features, but we’re yet to explore it fully: the integration with iTunes Connect to seamlessly push approved translations straight to the App Store, removing any manual effort.

5. How has localization helped Hopster so far?

We entered new territories with app store translations already in place. As a result, we haven’t been able to do a before-and-after comparison. From a marketing communications perspective, we did see an uplift in engagement with our Facebook ads, but with the added challenge of receiving reply comments in the local languages.

ABOUT Nika Kuznetsova

Nika joined Hopster in April 2015 as the Head of Customer Happiness. Follow her on Twitter (@NikaFranco) to keep up to date with Hopster news and connect with her on LinkedIn if you’d like to chat more.

ABOUT Hopster

Hopster is an app that helps kids learn through their favorite shows, by striking the perfect balance between fun and learning. For one low monthly subscription with no long tie-ins, Club Hopster subscribers get access to all the best kids shows made even better with academically-vetted learning games on all their favourite devices. The #1 kids app in 12 countries (and counting), Hopster’s trusted by over 350,000 parents already to keep their kids entertained and stimulated.