International business suffered a few significant blows over the last 12 months or so. This is especially true in the United Kingdom, where the pandemic which forced several organizations to postpone their expansion plans was unfortunately additionally met with the concerns regarding Brexit.
Nonetheless, it seems that despite the difficulties businesses were faced over the past year, the coming months may possibly be more rewarding, at least to some extent. Certainly, the general business atmosphere appears to head in a much more positive direction than it has been recently.
As the different Brexit deals are coming in place and as governments around the world are able to control the pandemic much more efficiently, companies and organisations look into the forthcoming months with more confidence. As a result, many business owners are again thinking about approaching international markets and reaching out to new, foreign audiences.
In order to successfully trade with international partners and clients however, businesses must take particular steps and create a plan, which must be rigorously followed. One of the most important aspects of such plan, and approaching foreign consumers in general, is making sure that you do so in their native language, allowing them to understand fully and easily what your brand truly represents.
A study conducted by CSA Research shows almost 60% of customers never or very rarely purchase goods from websites and retailers which are available only in English. He adds that “Considering the data from our survey, there should be no question about translating your website and product information if you want to sell more goods or services to global customers. Translation and localization can both improve customer experience and increase engagement in the brand dialogue.
As you can see, translating your corporate content can have a crucial impact on your business. In this article, we will take a closer look at the 3 ways, in which working with a professional agency specialising in providing translation services can directly benefit your company.
Sales and revenue
As found by CSA Research the study mentioned previously, a vast majority of consumers feel put off from completing a purchase, if they are not able to find the product or service information in their native language.
By carefully translating your business materials such as website, product or service information, brochures or leaflets or even business cards, you’ll be able to successfully target the customer sector within the target consumer market, which would not otherwise be interested in discovering your business. As a result, you will be more likely to increase your potential sales and revenue within the new, foreign country.
consumer-oriented brand image
In business, brand image is everything. Companies can often greatly increase their market share and revenue, just by making sure that the potential customer has a positive mental association with the business.
When approaching foreign audiences, translating and localising your content and business materials can help you in achieving just that.
Translated content will not only allow your business to increase sales and revenue in the short term, but will also create a long-lasting positive brand image. By translating your corporate and marketing materials, you will be able to build a customer-oriented brand, which within a new, foreign market can be absolutely crucial.
Working with business partners
Internationalisation is generally a lengthy, difficult and challenging process. It usually involves a number of different entities, in both – the company’s home as well as the target countries. Often, working with foreign business partners will be crucial in order to approach the market successfully.
Consequently, as you can possibly imagine, the number of legal and corporate documentations may be fairly high, especially if your target country is considered to be fairly bureaucratic with complex procedures.
Ensuring that these official documents are accurately translated may be crucial in the long run. Anything from contracts, warranties, business plans and other legal documents must be reliably converted, so that you as well as your business partners are able to understand the implications fully and precisely.
Finding a translation services agency
As you can see, translating your corporate and business documents can have a direct, positive impact on practically all aspects of your organisation during the internationalisation process. It is however, important to remember, that in order to take a full advantage of the benefits language translations can bring to your company, they must be completed by an expert linguist, as they might otherwise unfortunately create the opposite effect to what you wished for.
Generally speaking, if you or your company are based in the United Kingdom, working with an officially registered translation agency specializing in providing translation services in the languages you require is the best possible solution, regardless of your business size or sector. In fact, the majority of London-based organizations choose to work directly with professional translation agencies as it allows them to achieve the highest possible reliability of their translated documents.
Another benefit of working with a translation agency is that such provider will, in most cases, be able to cover a wide range of languages and document types. For businesses with large amounts of documents requiring translations and plans of approaching several target markets, this can be truly advantageous in terms of timelines and budget.
When approaching a translation company, it is however imperative to remember, that just like in case of any other provider you wish to work with, you must carefully assess their abilities and decide whether the agency of your choice is a good match for your specific requirements.
What to look for in a language provider
As a rule of thumb, one of the most important aspects to evaluate when approaching a new translations provider, is whether they work with native, human linguists or use machine translation tools.
Machine translation software, such as for example Google Translate, is a fantastic and useful tool when it comes to connecting with friends or family, or when requiring the understanding of internal corporate documents, such as memos or other similar messages.
Human translations, on the other hand, are usually utilized for legal, marketing, or corporate documents which are for external or customer use. When choosing a translation agency to work with, ensuring that the translators are native speakers of the target language can be extremely advantageous. This not only allows your documents to be translated by someone with the required linguistic knowledge, but at the same time someone who has a deeper understanding of your chosen market, as in a way, they are a part of it themselves.
Additionally, the language translation provider you wish to work with should have previous experience in translating content or materials for clients within your particular business sector. Medical, technical, legal, or marketing translations all require a different set of skills and linguistic knowledge, not to mention the sector-specific jargon used within each of them. By choosing an agency that has previously covered translations for businesses similar to yours (or perhaps even one of your close competitors), you can ensure that these linguistic aspects will be reliably covered and that your documents will be fully suitable for the target audience.
Obtaining a translation of your corporate documents and materials can undoubtedly be a challenging task, especially if you have never worked with a language agency in the past. Before going ahead, it is absolutely crucial to fully understand the different aspects of a translation process and only approach providers who are able to meet your specific requirements entirely and have the experience of working within projects/documents similar to yours in the required languages. Only by doing this, you can ensure the highest possible accuracy and reliability of your translated documents.
