Mariko Ohno — Founder of Lumina Studio

I help overseas small businesses understand how their products, services and messaging may be received by Japanese customers.

Based in Japan and working in Japanese as my native language, I combine local market research with practical website and customer journey implementation.

My role is not simply to translate what already exists. I look at your business from the Japanese customer’s point of view — what feels clear, what creates trust, what raises questions, and what may need to change before you invest further in the market.

Why I combine strategy and implementation

Research, messaging, design and customer flow are often handled as separate jobs.

But the customer experiences them as one journey.

What you learn about the market affects the positioning.
The positioning affects the message.
The message affects the page.
And the page affects whether a customer understands the offer and feels ready to take the next step.

That is why I work across both strategy and implementation — from market assessment and research to Japanese messaging, website localization and customer journey design.

A Japanese customer perspective

A Japanese sentence can be grammatically correct and still feel unnatural, unclear or unconvincing to the customer.

The same is true of a website. A polished page can still miss the questions Japanese customers need answered before they trust a business.

I help identify those gaps and turn them into practical changes to the message, proof, page structure, offer and next step.