Translation – The Solution You Need - Vocalink Global, a Propio LS Company

Posted March 20, 2019

In our recent blog post, Translation – A Service Rather Than a Commodity, we explored translation as a powerful component of your business, rather than a simple commodity to be purchased. But just as a carpenter builds a custom bookshelf for a given space, a true translation partner ensures the completion of your localization project meets your needs. Further, that partner helps your business grow in ways you never thought possible.

How does language translation promote business growth? Let’s explore.

Reach New Customers

When thinking of translation, the potential to reach new markets is usually the first thought. Consumers are more likely to buy when information is available in their own language. Assuming your customers speak your language well enough to skip translating your content won’t get you very far. Buyers look for experiences that feel authentic and welcoming. Struggling to understand words in another language (or even worse, being insulted by literal but nonsensical machine translation) just doesn’t cut it. Translating your marketing content, website, product descriptions, payment methods, brochures, etc. helps you reach new customers.

Protect Your Brand Identity

You invest heavily in your brand. You spend time and money ensuring your logo is just right, your tagline is powerful, and your messaging is clear. But when you don’t localize your content for different languages, you lose control over the perception of your brand in other cultures. A quick Google for global marketing fails will turn up many examples that will have you laughing. One of our all-time favorites is from an airline in the late 1980’s trying to entice passengers with its new leather seats. Unfortunately, the translation of its U.S. slogan, “Fly in Leather” ended up as “Vuela en Cuero” in Spanish. This technically means “fly in leather,” but “en cuero” is common slang in Mexico for “naked.” “Fly Naked” didn’t quite inspire the way the airline intended.

Brand identity expands beyond attracting new business, however. It also includes your after-sales activity, from returns and complaints to troubleshooting, maintenance, and repair. Marketing your products or services in your buyers’ language, but not offering support in the same language, can really cause problems. Consumers can be left feeling like they got the “bait and switch,” or that your company was only concerned about making the sale. That’s why it’s so important to include manuals, online help resources, and FAQs in your overall localization strategy to secure and promote your brand in new markets.

Form the Right Partnership

For the most part, translators translate text. Translation is a vital, core service for brand localization and marketing to audiences from different cultures. But partnering with a multilingual solutions provider goes beyond translation. When you invite your language solutions provider inside, as part of your team, he or she takes on the role of a communication specialist. Your language solutions provider can help you identify new markets and opportunities for growth for your business, avoid the pitfalls of idioms, colloquialisms, and cultural references that won’t resonate or might even offend a new audience, and even help you craft campaigns designed to resonate globally. How do you find the right partner to invite inside your team? Find the company that shares your values and not just those selling words for a price. Keep these factors in mind:

Value is not determined by price– remember, you get what you pay for.
Find out how your new partner plans to interact with you. Will you have a dedicated Translation Project Manager? This role is vital, as PMs take care of the translation project from start to finish.
Look for a company with a range of expertise that matches your needs, including everything from subject-matter-expertise to languages offered.
Get a demonstration of the company’s technology. How does it ensure a seamless transition of work? Will it integrate with your technology and processes?

Translation = Solution

If your brand isn’t accessible to multicultural consumers, then translation and localization are your keys to promoting inclusion and creating loyalty with customers you haven’t even met yet. Allowing you to spread your ideas and information across cultures and languages, it is the solution your business needs to reach its growth potential.

At Vocalink Global, we offer real, multilingual solutions to our client-partners. Your success in connecting to your target markets is our success. Our translation and localization solutions include: