The US is considered the largest and technologically most advanced economy in the world. It has a consistently growing GDP and is among the top three in the world when it comes to import and export. It is also the UK’s top export destination, with an estimate of around USD120 billion worth of traded goods for 2018. The major industries exporting goods and services from the UK to the US include vehicles, machinery, pharmaceuticals, technical equipment and precious stones and metals, while there is also substantial trade in both directions for services like finance and tourism.

If you are planning on exporting goods or services to the US there are, as with all other countries, a few things to consider. First, it is worth bearing in mind that the US is a federal system where each state must be looked at as a separate entity with big regional variations in laws and regulations. Contracts, for example, are heavily scrutinized and litigation is known to be very common. Culturally, there are also vast differences between the north and the south of the country, as well as the east and west coast. Even though there are minimal language barriers – the official language of the United States is English, after all – speaking ‘American’ can be a huge plus when trying to ‘make it in America’, as they say.

This is where localisation should be looked at as a helpful measure to make sure that access to US market goes as smoothly as possible. Localisation involves adapting a text from one language variant to another, rather than translating from one language to another. During this process, professional language service providers, address grammatical or typographic differences, and, if the client wishes, also adapt cultural sensitivities, currencies, date forms, addresses and phone numbers, or any idiomatic expressions that are used in the original language variant. This ensures your content is aimed at the relevant target audience without alienating your product or service from this new potential market, which could also provide access to the global supply chain and other export markets.

Having a professional language provider makes exporting easier and safer, as we can provide assurance that marketing texts for your products or even legal documents are in the right hands and can give you the upper hand in a new market that comes with a lot of competition.