7 Tips for Selecting the Right Translation Provider and Making It a Positive Experience

“It is the task of the translator to release in his own language, that pure language that is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his recreation of that work”

 Are you taking your business worldwide? You are if you own a website on the internet. Technology has allowed for the adoption of international transactions, and it is important that your web content, and all customer oriented documents, such as brochures and user manuals, are accessible and readable in other languages so that your company can reach a wider audience. Conducting business internationally is within your reach, with the simple implementation of translation services.

Translation services are becoming extremely popular in today’s global market, as it helps in cutting across language barriers and interacting with people in other countries. As with any service, a thorough investigation and research prior to choosing a translation company will benefit you in many ways and ensure a positive and successful experience.

●     Set expectations with the translation company

It is important for them to understand who your target audience is, and what type of document you are having to translate. E.g. translating a brochure or website content for a niche market requires a different set of translation skills as opposed to translating an installation manual

●     Check the capabilities of the translation house

●     Quality Control

Ensure that the company houses a translator, and an editor (a qualified linguist) who proofreads to document for errors. Obtain a guarantee that multiple revisions are included in the service until satisfaction in the document is delivered

●     Conduct a test translation

Send a paragraph or two to several translators/translation companies for a mock translation prior to committing to a specific translation house. This “test” translation is a way to demonstrate the quality of their work. The review of the work should be conducted by one who is fluent in the foreign language, fully understands the industry terminology, and knows the target audience.

●     Verify prices and deadlines

Most companies charge per source word. Obtain a few quotes before making your selection. Verify that the company you choose can meet your deadlines, including formatting the final document and translating the image descriptions.

●     Check the availability of the translator

Once you have chosen the specific translator house, ensure that your documents will be worked on by the specific translator who conducted the trial testing.

●     Create a glossary of industry related key terms

This offers guidelines and saves all parties time when translating and proofreading. When receiving the translated document, review it to ensure that industry related terminology, style, document layout, look and feel are identical to the original text.

Finding the right translation provider that can reliably deliver high-quality translations can be a daunting task. Take the time to check them out as this will save you time, money and headaches.  If you are unable to do the translation work yourself, think twice before outsourcing the work as it can be more harmful for your business than beneficial if not done correctly. Most importantly, you will want to insure that you are working with a full-service company that offers quality work, multiple language translations, and offers superb customer-client relationships. Ultimately, those are key!

* Quote by Walter Benjamin

A Marketer's’ First Measure of Success

“People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care”
― Theodore Roosevelt

Customer Satisfaction. It is now, and should always have been the marketers’ first measure of success, as it is the most important principle of marketing a business successfully.

Marketing has now entered the "age of the customer", where customers have more information, choices, and power than ever before. The “customer experience”, the culmination of all brand and customer interactions, now matters more than
anything.
When customers interact with a brand, they expect consistency. They expect their interactions across any channel to be the same. This demonstrates to them that the company that they are dealing with really knows and understands them. They develop a "connection" and loyalty to that company.

Marketing teams have shifted their mindset and tactics from marketing at customers, to focusing on creating a cohesive customer journey, from beginning to end. If we truly put customers at the center of our thinking, we connect the heart of the business to the heart of the consumer, and that is the connection that is resilient and hard to break . It is the connection marketers and customers pursue.

image courtesy of http://www.foresee.com

In 2016, as Digital Media is declared "the King", the "customer experience" is considered the crown jewel of marketing, and both are now shaping the pace for the profession. Predictive intelligence tools such as Salesforce are making it easier for marketers to track customer behavior and use insights to create highly personalized interactions. By collecting customer data in real time, these marketers apply what they know about individuals to tailor the customer experience.

To ensure success in the future, companies must redirect all tactics, both internal
and external towards customer satisfaction. They should implement corporate wide regulations in all units and departments to align in the same vision, creating the ultimate customer experience.

*Data derived from State of Marketing Report, 2016, Trends and insights from nearly 4,000
marketing leaders worldwide

Child-Targeted Marketing Isn't A Kid's Game

Image courtesy of

http://foodgirluk.com

Every year 100s of billions of dollars are spent by advertisers on inspiring, persuading and manipulating people into a consumer routine which has desolating effects on the environment through its indulgence and improvidence. Advertisers play on our insecurities, create deceitful needs and offer fake solutions. They succeed in raising a certain level of dissatisfaction which directs into consumption and kids especially are defenseless to this sort of manipulation.

To marketers children represent a solid demographic as they are huge customers or potential ones; they influence their parents' buying decisions, spend money themselves as teenagers and will continue to do so as they become adult consumers.

As opposed to preceding generations, young children have more autonomy and a decision-making power within the family which can clearly be observed in a family's purchasing patterns. They uses to  influence which sweets and toys to buy, but these days it goes far beyond that;
they show their preference when buying cereals and other standard groceries, clothing, software and computer products, family entertainment, restaurants and family trip locations and even cars.

Consequently, children's "influence" is recognized by advertisers who nurture this situation and "use" kids as their marketing target.  Nowadays parents are prepared to buy more for their kids as they might have dual incomes and more disposable income in addition to guilt which can play a role as well;  time-stressed parents make up by purchasing material items for time spent with their offspring.

One of the strategies marketers use to target children is by relying on the kid to pester the parents to buy the product, rather than going straight to the parents. The "pester power" marketing strategy creates exactly what advertisers are after as parents easily give in into their children's persistence nagging; it is extremely powerful and works.

Building brand name loyalty
Large enterprises such as Nike, Adidas, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, to name a few, discovered that brand recognition can be established already in very young children and purposefully changed their primary corporate efforts from making products to creating a brand name image.

Brand recognition fundamentals are created by marketers in very young children, in the hopes that lifetime bonding with the brand is established, from the cradle to the grave.
Brand loyalties can be established as early as age 2, and by the age of 3 or 4, before they can even read, usually distinguish brands and status items

Image courtesy of

www.theinquirer.net

The Internet
Unquestionably this is an extremely desirable medium for child-targeted marketing by marketers.

Kids surfing the internet doesn't go without dangers and unethical advertising; often without parental supervision, children spend hours on unregulated sites and sophisticated technologies enable companies to easily collect information from the children for marketing research, and to target them with personalized advertising.

In my opinion this is unethical as kids do not quite comprehend the commercial and persuasive intent as well as the manipulation behind advertisements until they are 8 or 9 years old.

It is for these reasons that child-targeted marketing should be sensibly restricted, particularly the ones aimed at children under 9 years old. And this should include censored internet sites, television programs, and advertisements.

3 MUST-DO Tips for Marketing & Sales Professionals

From experience I can tell that companies not always understand, or do not wish to understand, the cohesive bond and close relationship marketing and sales departments have (or need to have) in order to conduct a profitable business!
Company size doesn't matter, since the foundation and structure for selling products is always the same; the goal is to close a deal!
As marketing juggles its magic box of tricks, the horse is brought to the water; sales will then convince the horse that it is in its best interest to drink.

Image courtesy of: Bob Moran

So, how is this done?
Though there are many more guidelines than the ones listed below, the most important ones are:

1. Set periodic cross department meetings between marketing and sales.
Determine through market research the sales goals and recognize the target audience.
   • Schedule follow-up meetings in order to examine the outcome of the completed actions.
   • Take the time to evaluate what has been done, its effectiveness, and if it reached the target audience.

2. Initiate and evaluate customer surveys (in many companies this is even standard practice as part of their ISO standards and Quality Assurance policy). This is a respectable way for  customers to express feedback on the service received.
In general, companies feel somewhat offensive when negative feedback is received, but it should be embraced!
   • Only customers who care for your company/product will take the time to fill in the survey and submit negative feedback. They are your best customers!
   • Negative feedback should be seen as a challenge to improve your service.
   • Last but not least: this is your opportunity to "WOW" your customers. Take immediate action and amaze your customers by not only making up for the bad service they reported upon, but also to give them something unexpected, something remarkable!
A must: Always thank the customer who took the time to fill in the survey and reassure him/her that the remarks are evaluated and will be considered in changing the company's policy.

3.Schedule meetings with customers. Listen to their needs, let them do the talking. Ask their opinion about a campaign carried out by you, what attracted their attention, their expectations from you, and so on.
Make sure to afterwards recap all accumulated information and share it during your internal cross-departmental meetings.

Good luck!

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