Midé Technology partners with Rubric to tap into new international markets

Midé Technology Corporation is a US-based technology company that designs and manufactures a wide range of advanced engineering solutions, with a focus on the aerospace, automotive, and manufacturing industries. Founded in 1989, Mide has since grown into respected market leader across the United States, known for its high-value, intelligent, and innovative products and services that are tailored to their clients’ specific needs. 

While local business was booming, Midé was aware that doing business internationally held a lot of potential. While around 20% of their sales were made overseas, this was primarily to English-speaking countries like the UK and South Africa that could navigate their website and understand the existing product brochures and data sheets. The fact that all of their product information was only available in English severely handicapped their entry into lucrative international manufacturing and automotive sectors, such as those in Germany, France, and Japan. 

But Midé faced a few key challenges getting their products into these international markets. For instance, their US sales force simply didn’t have the resources to explain the technical details of their products to new customers who didn’t speak English. Midé also sells everything direct, which means their international distributors aren’t there to support the product or explain key information to customers. 

The solution? Work with a specialized translation company to localize key product information into a select few languages based on the specific international markets they were looking to enter – in this case, German, Japanese, and French.

The documents would include key product details and technical specs for their enDAQ Shock & Vibration Sensors (formerly Slam Stick): portable shock and vibration data loggers that facilitate quick, easy, accurate, and cost-effective shock and vibration measurement in almost any environment.

Midé Technology had high expectations from the outset and clear goals in mind: increase international sales of their enDAQ Sensors product range by providing potential customers with key technical information in their own language. 

Rubric was tasked with translating key enDAQ Shock & Vibration Sensor product information into French, German, and Japanese, as these markets showed the most potential and could serve as a testing ground to see how effective localization could be. Specifically, the Rubric team worked on InDesign files that included the layout, design, and content. 

Midé were concerned about whether the localization team would be able to translate the specialist terminology, especially considering they did not have internal reviewers who spoke French, German, or Japanese. To deal with this issue, the Rubric team prepared a source glossary defining key technical terms and concepts for Midé to approve – so the translators could hit the nail on the head every time. The source glossary could also serve as a valuable resource for Midé to use in future global expansion initiatives. 

In addition to translating the written language in the documents, Rubric also had to account for localization issues such as converting all units of measurement from imperial to metric. Midé made the localization process that much easier by including both imperial and metric units for every included measurement. Kudos!

As expected, Rubric was able to step up to the plate and deliver outstanding results – the project was completed on time and within budget. Feedback from Midé was overwhelmingly positive. They were especially pleased with the source glossary and were impressed with Rubric’s ability to grasp and explain highly technical terminology with great accuracy, providing a resource to be used in future global expansion initiatives. They were also very happy with Rubric’s translation of all the graphs and tables, as well as the response time of everyone on the localization team.

The end result? Comprehensive, accurate, and fluently translated data sheets for enDAQ Vibration Sensors in German, French, and Japanese are available for download on the Midé Technology site. Since going live, these newly localized data sheets have been quite popular. From all people who have clicked through on a CTA to download one, Midé has gained 32 new contacts- seven of which have already become satisfied customers. 

Not only do the international leads keep coming, those that actually download the localized data sheets have shown an excellent conversion rate. Based on the success of this localization service, Midé Technology is considering working with Rubric in the future to go the extra mile and create fully translated user manuals for their enDAQ product range.