subject: How To Accurately Evaluate Your Companys Global Translation Needs [print this page] Once youve made the decision to launch your brand in new international markets, you face the daunting challenge of deciding what sort of translation services your company needs as well as the right language translation company for the job. Considerable future profit resides almost entirely in non-U.S. markets, but in order for your efforts to capture them to be truly profitable, youll need to be smart as to how you spend your translation dollar. One question you should ask before engaging translation services: How much do we really need to translate?
Since translation costs are directly connected to the volume of translation services you require, accurate assessment of your translation needs are key to economically introducing your brand to global markets. First, it can be helpful to make a complete inventory of every piece of content you could conceivably need to translate to mirror your domestic efforts. Once this is complete, it is a matter of choosing what is essential to your launch versus what is overkill.
The obvious translation services required include international versions of your website, marketing material, advertising, and search engine marketing materials for global SEO (search engine optimization) and global SEM (search engine marketing). Here youll need to work closely with a language translation who can provide not only translation services, but the essential localization aspects which ensure your brand is represented clearly and accurately within the cultural context of your target market.
But what other translation services will you need? Youll probably need a bit of document translation service as well. Dive deeper and you may realize that product manuals, training materials, legal and privacy notices, and internal document translation for in-country reps and operations staff will also be on the table. This is doubly true if you sell products or services which are highly technical in nature. A good language translation company will be able to provide linguists who can handle technical document translation services as well, including resources which involve subject matter experts in your target language.
Once you have a clear big picture of your potential translation inventory, you can work with your language translation company to pare down your total volume of content to the essentials. This might involve eliminating assets which are only applicable to U.S. markets. Secondarily, you may want to scale back the scope of your international launch in order to test demand. Ask yourself: What are the essential elements of our business to explore this foreign market? A thorough examination of this question may reveal you need far fewer translation services than you originally anticipated.
Finally, you will want to explore whether or not your language translation company can alleviate some of the costs of document translation by leveraging Machine Translation (MT) technology with human post-editing. MT can significantly boost the output of a translation companys linguists while providing consistency in terminology and clarity in communication. Typically MT is used in scenarios where a healthy dose of document translation service is expected and the quality of the translation is not vital. You would not want to use MT for marketing campaigns or web pages that are essential to your brand or sales process.
Preparation prior to project kick-off will save you massive costs, so spend the time auditing your need for translation services before you begin.
by: joseph
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