Crafting a marketing strategy with accurate and effective copy is a work of art, but what happens when your campaign needs to go overseas and you don’t speak the language?
Launching global marketing campaigns entails endless planification, attention to detail and strategy redesigning. Your marketing efforts need to be effective, and a huge part of that is knowing your target audience. The way to approach a target audience and to craft a marketing message has a lot to do with culture, that’s why different countries require different strategies.
But how do you proceed when you want your campaign to reach new markets, you may be wondering. Well, that’s when Marketing translation enters the game!
What is Marketing translation
Marketing translation is the area of translation services designed to address marketing campaigns and materials and make all the necessary adjustments to make marketing efforts work in a new market.
And as you can imagine, that’s much more than just bringing words from one language to another: Marketing Translation is about understanding the goal of the source piece and crafting a target piece that can replicate that in a new market.
But what does that mean? Well, that usually implies some restructuring and re-conceptualization of the piece and its message, and not just finding word matches. For example, when launching a piece in a new market, a marketing translator will assess if the length of the piece is correct and the structure fits the target audience.
Benefits of Marketing translation services
If you launch international campaigns on a regular basis, there’s so much that Marketing translation services can do for your business.
Having a trusted marketing translator to help you on your internationalization quest can save a lot of time and money, and also add incredible value.
By hiring marketing translation services you’ll be provided with an expert knowledge of local marketing and how to adapt your current strategy to the target market for maximum impact.
Can AI do Marketing Translation?
While it can be tempting to turn to AI when we’re looking to reduce our costs and time spent on certain tasks, marketing translation is not a good candidate for AI.
Adapting marketing materials into a new market needs an expert eye: a linguist that’s also a marketer and knows how to communicate a message following a brief, conceptualizing ideas and considering KPIs. That’s something that AI isn’t capable of doing in terms of translation, and the result of entrusting these tasks to AI can be terrible.
Consider using AI to brainstorm, but not for detail-oriented, strategy-based translation work.
Types of marketing translation
There are different approaches to marketing translation, as well as different accessory techniques you can turn to depending on the nature of your project. Some of them include:
SEO translation
SEO translation is focused on optimizing blog posts and website pages for the target market’s search engines. This means that translating will be just a part of the process, but keyword research is equally important in order to choose the most suitable keywords for the local market and therefore maximize the impact of the piece.
Localization
Localization focuses on adapting concepts and ideas so that they work in a new environment. This involves considering culture, usability and other related aspects.
Transcreation
Transcreation is the most creative approach to marketing translation. It focuses on crafting copies that trigger the same feelings in the target market. Transcreation is widely used in highly creative marketing and advertising contexts, such as adapting taglines and ads.
How to find marketing translation companies
There are different collaboration formats you can choose when entrusting your marketing translation needs to a new vendor. Here are the main options:
Large LSPs
Large LSPs can offer a wide variety of services, and sometimes they can offer lower rates. On a negative note, they can’t provide high attention to detail, since normally they will be juggling a large amount of projects and the members involved in your translation may change throughout the process. This can affect the final quality.
Boutique translation agencies
Boutique translation agencies can be a great option, since they’re normally niche agencies that will be specialized in specific topics. A boutique agency will assign a dedicated team for your project that you can stay in touch with and will provide the possibility of building multilingual teams. On a negative note, it might get pricy.
Freelancers
If flexibility and cost efficiency are essential for your project, a freelancer might be the answer you’re looking for. Working with a freelancer will ensure ongoing communication and commitment to your project, which will translate into a more consistent and higher quality result. With a freelancer it’s easier to negotiate, and you can always find a collaboration formula tailored to your specific needs and budget, whether that’s a retainer, a service pack or a per project fee. On a negative note, freelancers can only take in a certain amount of work.
In-house marketing translator
If your marketing translation needs are long-term, and you need translations to just one or two languages, an in-house translator might be the best option.
Investing in creating your own linguistic department has many benefits:
- Developing corporate glossaries, translation memories and style guides.
- Tailoring the translation process to your specific needs.
- Ensuring high quality and consistency.
However, this might not be the case for every company, since linguistic needs sometimes come in waves, i.e. when launching new products or updating marketing materials as part of a seasonal campaign or relaunch.
Conclusion
Working with a marketing translator can come in many shapes and forms, but there’s always going to be one for you. Also, by investing in a quality linguistic service, you’ll enhance your CX by providing tailored marketing messages for every locale.
Spanish Marketing Translation for international SaaS companies
Do you need some help with your ES content opps? I’m all ears. You can explore my services or reach out via hola@translatingmarketing.com to ask for further information.
