How to receive the correct marketing translation, which will not ruin your reputation?

One of the first and most important steps any company takes when launching their business, brand, products, or services on a foreign market is the translation of its marketing materials. No wonder: the reputation of the company and the success of their products or services largely depend on the quality of their marketing materials, which normally should be translated (or, to use a better word, localised) into the language of the new market.

With marketing texts, a simple, straightforward translation isn't good enough. In order to both convey the message of a source text and attract new audiences, the translator should make the text catchy and appropriate for the region where the marketing campaign will take place.

Translation of marketing materials is a complex process, whose purpose is to adapt the text to the linguistic, cultural, and financial requirements of a target market. So, professional marketing translators should both translate and adapt the text to the target market. As Warren Buffett said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it”. You can easily ruin your brand reputation in five minutes with literally translated marketing and advertisement materials.

• Let your translation service provider know the target audience.

It is essential for any translator to know the target audience of the translated text, especially of a marketing one. The translator will choose the correct vocabulary and tone of voice depending on who will read the text.

• Make sure your marketing materials are translated by target language native translators.

Non-native speakers could hardly know about such nuances. It follows that if you need the very best in marketing translation, you should search for a local translation services company with native target language translators, who understand and know preferences and realize the target audience region. 

• Marketing translations require more than just one translator.

Depending on the project, marketing materials include and relate to many areas. They can be of a technical or e-commerce nature, related to tourism or healthcare, or any other industry. Each type of document for translation may require a different approach and thus very often different translators and editors, who specialise in a particular area. 

• Never use machine translators for your marketing documents or website.

At least for the moment, human brains are much more complex and nuanced than computers. They can generate an accuracy of grammar, spelling, punctuation, style, and tone of voice that computers cannot even dream of. Here is a quick example of how machine translators do their job: 

Russian airlines once launched an advertisement campaign with a 100% machine translation of their slogan, reading:

1. Introducing wide boiled aircraft for your comfort. 
2. Doctor’s surgery, Rome: Specialist in women and other diseases. 
3. On a South African building: Mental health prevention center. 
4. Sign at a Mexican disco: Members and non-members only. 
5. In a Tokyo bar: Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.

• Do use CAT tools to save money on the repetitive text.

Today, technology is simplifying everything around us: automating the drudgery of routine work and freeing up staff for the things that matter. So it’s no wonder that translators now have a variety of tools at their disposal to accelerate the translation and localisation process.

• Make sure your translation services provider offers an extensive editing service as standard.

To guarantee the consistency and quality of marketing translations, editing is essential. To err is human, so no matter how professional the translator is, there should always be an editor or, better still, two editors – technical and linguistic – in order to verify the quality of translation. 

• Think about DTP services.

Marketing documentation comes in different formats, including Microsoft documents (.doc, .xls, .ppt), which can have graphics with text, tables, images, etc. Adobe Acrobat files (.pdf) with non-editable scanned text, files created in professional DTP software (InDesign, FrameMaker, etc.). 

The ever-growing variety of file formats and increasingly complicated layouts can cause difficulties for freelance translators, who might not know how to work with some of these file types. So, another important step towards a correct and effective marketing translation is to find a translation services company which also provides DTP services, to ensure that the layout of translated documents is consistent with, or even better than, the layout of source documents.

Our team of DTP specialists and graphic designers can handle almost any file format and solve any difficulties, such as making a non-editable text editable or converting complicated file formats into translation-friendly ones. Because we routinely handle all sorts of files we have a smooth workflow, with DTP specialists working in a team with translators, editors, and QA managers, coordinated by our project managers. So you know your text is in good hands from start to finish.