TRANSLATION TECHNIQUES FOR ADVERTISING MATERIALS

Today, the global market is increasing and as a result of this, the demand for marketing translations has expanded.?During the translation process, there are unique considerations to make that don’t arise with other types of translations.

Launching a marketing campaign in two languages brings a new way of seeing a product to an existing campaign. To this end, the marketer has to question the following puzzles; what colours, images, names or slogans will resonate with a new audience? How can the intended message be conveyed without losing the meaning? What examples should be used?

To ensure accurate and culturally relevant translations, using a marketing translation agency is the best way to reach a larger market, given that the aim is to sell the product to as many customers as possible.?

Good-quality translations are essential for multilingual advertising, and without them, the possibility of achievement is incredibly reduced given that the aim is to reach a larger customer base.

Best Practices for Translating Marketing Materials

Localisation

Localising is essential for all translation projects. It is important for a translation company to know its audience so as to localise the content properly; that is why, it’s important to ensure you’re using language that resonates with your audience. Localisation extends beyond words into abbreviations, idioms, numerical and measuring systems.

Determine the Target Audience

It is worth mentioning that before sending your text to a linguist, you should be able to determine if the project is global or regional. This, along with your budget, will determine your target languages. To be effective and appealing, marketing content needs to reflect the habits, tastes and lifestyle of the target audience.

Humour

Humour may not be the same within a large country. What’s funny in one language may be offensive in another, so it’s essential to understand the various cultures and humorous styles of the languages you’re translating into.

The Translation of Videos and Imagery

There are several types of marketing materials, not just print ads or billboards. They include image captions, alternative text, infographics, and video captions that must be both translated and localised. Video translation services are good marketing strategies that give you captions for video content, which is an inevitably best practice to allow your content to reach a wider audience, including the deaf and hard of hearing community. Moreover, apart from multilingual subtitles, multilingual voice-over is another way to make your video multilingual.

The Impact on Design and Usage of Space

It’s common for a text to expand or contract during the translation process. This simply means that the final piece’s layout may look different from the original and will need adjustments. This is applicable for both digital and print pieces, from website to brochure translations.

It is a good practice to design from the beginning with enough white space to allow for expansion, and review the translated content to adjust the design or typesetting of the translated content. From the above, one clearly sees that this is one of the benefits of working with a translation agency, having a team of multilingual designers and typesetters to manage the multilingual DTP (its meaning in the bracket) on the projects.

Be Concise and Mindful of Slogans

When writing a marketing content for be translation, the copywriter should use simple sentences and avoid double meaning or cultural references to avoid unnecessary stress on the part of the customer.

In order to save time during the translation process, brevity is a standard marketing best practice being taken into account. Slogans should be reviewed and tag lines so that they are relevant and proper for your international campaigns. Most often, these are often culturally specific and won’t translate well.

International SEO

New markets require the study of the relevant keywords and search style of the new audience.

Given that search engine patterns vary from country to country, and that the translation of a term might have 3 different options, and you might need to use all of them, digital marketing requires translation and updates to reach an international audience. Regarding website translation services or targeting blogs to a particular language, you need to conduct keyword research in the appropriate language, not just in the source language. Using two or more keywords with the same language, a blog may reach two audiences in different countries.

Share the Knowledge

To produce a copy that consistently meets your expectations, your translation partner should understand the purpose of the text, the goal, the target audience and the brand’s voice and style. An effective translation glossary and style guide are necessary to getting the message right.

Review an Early Sample

It is important to set up a review team in advance, including one reviewer for each language who will be involved from the beginning. Ensure that your translation partner is on the right track by reviewing a sample of the translation piece early in the process. At this stage, you’ll want to check for style and tone. Reworking style is very time-consuming, so it’s better to correct it right away.

Expect Feedback

Language is subjective and reactions can come in when it comes to marketing or stylistic texts. When scheduling, allow enough time for a final refinement step where the feedback is analysed, synthesised (if you have more than one reviewer) and implemented.

Allow Enough Time and Budget

Marketing translation is time-consuming, the same timeline or costs as when translating technical or general business document translation are different. Moreover, headlines, tag lines and creative copy will require extra attention and usually involve transcreation. Given that style consistency is especially important for global marketing content, you might also want to count on linguists who know your brand voice.

The Main Techniques of Translation

a. Borrowing: Borrowing refers to a situation where words or expressions are taken directly from the source text and carried over into the target language

b. Calque (loan translation)

c. Literal Translation

d. Transposition

e. Modulation

f. Equivalence/Reformulation

g. Adaptation

h. Compensation