Should Businesses Localize Their Marketing Collateral?

Many businesses are under the impression that most international companies speak English. They do not! In fact, many global business managers don’t speak English and don’t think they need to. Although English is one of the most important languages on the Internet, addressing the rest of the users gives your business a better chance.

Below are some of the benefits of translating your company’s marketing collateral, ads, website, plus more:

• ·        Help international customers find you on search engines and referring websites, in their native language.
• ·        Help global audiences understand your product and offering.
• ·        Help clients share and recommend your brand and collateral with their colleagues and friends.
• ·        Help customers to contact you.

·        If you’re an e-commerce – help you convert global businesses into customers.

·        Spreading your SEO efforts into other languages is cheaper, since there’s less competition on keywords.

If you’re not translating your marketing collateral and targeting a global audience, you are turning away that many potential clients. The time is now to market your company to the international audiences. Businesses who make the jump into multicultural marketing now will reap the biggest benefits in the future. Many businesses think they can’t afford translation, but of course they can’t afford not to localize their marketing collateral! Contact our translation agency for a free marketing collateral translation quote today!

Taking your business abroad? Take the safe route!

Does anyone remember those infamous Budweiser TV commercials, where some guys –that eventually came to be pretty famous – simply called each other on the phone yelled “wassuuuuuuuuuuuup!” with their tongues out?

"Hey, wassup!" "Just watching the game, having a Bud." "True, true."

Something as simple as that went VIRAL.

However, it may come as a surprise to many that the American beer is not the only “Budweiser” around. There is, indeed, a Czech company called Budvar, which also manufactures a beer with the same name and has been doing so for nearly a century now. That is, in fact, the reason why the American “Budweiser” is known in Europe simply as “Bud”.

A conflict has been brewing –if you pardon the pun- between this company and the US beer producer Anheurser-Busch ever since the latter decided to expand its product into Europe, back in the 90s. Turns out, Budweiser is an actual German word. An adjective, to be precise, that was used in the 19th century. It meant “from Budweis”, the German word that used to designate the Czech town of Budejovice. There is a nice piece of trivia to take to the bank.

Fact is, the Czech brewery Budvar does make its beer in Budejovice, aka Budweis, whereas the US company bases its arguments on the fact that the founders of Anheurser-Busch were German immigrants that brought the ‘budweiser’ brewery techniques to the US.

Regardless who you’d think is right or wrong, this is an interesting example of a conflict that can happen when you decide to expand your business and take it abroad. Before exporting the things that you consider most important, like your trademark, your logo, your slogan, etc… It’s highly recommended to take some time for extensive research in other markets in order to avoid this kind of unwanted surprises.

And when it comes to translation, it is imperative that you wisely choose the best agency out there to make sure that they do their job properly. Not literally – properly. With a healthy dose of good judgment, a pinch of imagination and, most of all, a big spoonful of communication skills, to keep you up to date and explain why something is good the way it is, or why something else should be change by any means.

Thorough market research AND reliable translation services. Gee, where could you get both things at the same time, with high quality translation work and affordable prices? :)

The money you invest in good quality translations today is the money you save on unnecessary complications tomorrow. Just look at poor Budweiser in the example above. Correction: look at poor Bud. Be “Weiser” than that - choose the best. inWhatLanguage will welcome you – with a nice pitcher of beer, if the occasion calls for it. Contact our international translation firm for a free marketing translation and business translation quote.

Translation Services: what to do to get what you want

Being a translator is not an easy job. It is beautiful and rewarding most of the time, but as with most jobs, it’s not always a cake walk. Sometimes, a job might go wrong.

Granted: sometimes, a translator can make mistakes. To err is part of human nature. We are all professionals and can admit that perfection is a matter of trial and error. But some other times the technical aspects of a project might just not be on the translator’s side, or life gets ahead of oneself and doesn’t give him/her a break. And sometimes – just sometimes – the biggest irony of all happens: the translator is unable to understand the client’s language.

A translation is not like building a Lego castle: it is a flexible creature, subject to many variables, changes, different tastes and opinions. We, inWhatLanguage translators, are always undoubtedly going to try our best to fulfill your needs, but as qualified and experienced as we may be, we cannot follow guidelines that are not explicitly written down in the job description, or understand a text that’s placed out of context.

So here are some tips to make sure a translation job meets your exact expectations:

1. 1.      If you want only part of a particular text translated, please send the whole text and specify which part you want translated. If you want to translate a website, make sure to send the link. The translator needs to read the whole thing to know what’s going on.
2. 2.      If you want to have an instructions manual translated correctly, describe the product the manual is intended for and feel free to provide any additional details that might otherwise be overlooked.
3. 3.      If you have a brilliant trademark for a product that you don’t want ruined by a translated term that sounds terribly different, specify that you don’t want that word translated. If the translator suggests otherwise, consider the options. The translator is not gaining anything for doing it one way or the other - his/her advice is out of experience and goodwill.
4. 4.      English is a “short” language – as soon as you translate it into something else, the size of the text expands. If you want your translation to fit certain space limitations, please specify how many characters are allowed, and take into consideration that it might not be a literal translation anymore: poetic license is in order.
5. 5.      If there are terms that you know that even the most experienced translators are not going to understand, explain them beforehand.
6. 6.      Make the formatting of the original text easy to edit. A translator’s worst nightmare is a long to-be-translated text that cannot be copied and pasted.
7. 7.      And last but not least, have your text proofread. As good a writer as a translator can be, he/she is not 100% safe from typos and repetitions.

Translation is all about breaking communication barriers, but it is rendered meaningless if the communication between client and translator fails.

So… inWhatLanguage must we speak?

The language of cooperation!

Contact our experienced translators for a free translation quote or for more information about our proofreading and editing translation services.

Translation services done the right way

If inWhatLanguage were an actual person, this past week he/she would have worn a silly grin on his/her face for the past few days. We have received the best gift a translation agency can get: the recognition from our clients. And this time, in tangible form: a video.

Mona Vie is a global leader in premium nutrition products – it is a huge company that provides services to millions of people around the world. Not only that: it is also one of inWhatLanguage’s translation services’ clients. Even more so: it is one satisfied customer. And we couldn’t be happier to actually hear it from the mouth of its International Communications Writer, Mindy Eardley.

“What you can expect with inWhatLanguage are consistent results: if you send something out, you’ll know when you’re getting it back” says Mindy. “If there are any delays, or any impediments whatsoever, you’ll find out what they are, and what to expect.”

Apparently tired of working with other agencies that lacked in reliability, Mindy insists on the importance of personal contact with the translation agency. Which suits us fine: we love to establish a connection with our clients. Translation is all about communication, after all. It makes little sense to translate a text based exclusively on a dictionary and the translator’s judgment: the document is for the client, therefore the client must dictate the guidelines. And if the client is happy, we are happy. We have provided a good service. We’ve done a good job.

“With inWhatLanguage, I feel that their success is built on our success, and that we are a team”, Mindy adds. “They get to know me, they get to know what I’m about, my business and what my company is about and what drives our success. That makes me feel that they are really invested in me and my business.”

Well, isn’t the relationship between a client and a translation agency reciprocal? We don’t earn anything by doing a choppy job on a translation: the client will complain, and potential future customers will think twice about asking for our translation services. But above all that, there is an emotional component that really defines us as a company: we like to do things right. And we feel great hearing our clients say nice things about us!

“They’ll do what they can to make you shine.”

Yes, we will. Be it legal translation services, interpretation services, website translation services or multimedia translation services, we are sure to go into it wholeheartedly and do a first-rate job in the time allotted. And casting aside the matter of the prices –which are, by the way, the best out there for high quality translation-, the best reward is, without a doubt, messages like this one, and new request for further collaboration.

Thank you, Mona Vie!

Languages galore

From the point of view of a multilingual translator, an airport is like Disneyland.

And I’m not talking about the endless lines before entering the ride –although that, too-, but about the world of languages and variety of cultures one can find in there.

I mean, if a translator hits a dead end for whatever reason and doesn’t see the point in his/her profession anymore, I’d advice him/her to go to the nearest airport, sit down on one of those awfully uncomfortable seats and just observe the surroundings.

Airport and plane staff are amazing, from my perspective. Not only are they elegant, polite, well trained and versed in all kinds of practical knowledge, they also know languages. Perhaps it is because I come from a country that is maybe a little too proud of its own language and never before saw the point in learning others, but to me, that is amazing.

English: that’s an absolute must. Other than that, it all depends. They also usually speak the languages of both the country of departure and the country of destination. And more often than not, they speak the language of the country where the airline company is based in as well.

And if not… Who can blame them? I mean, for a normal human being, speaking two languages is quite enough. Speaking three is worthy of admiration. And speaking more is usually having a mixture of a lot of languages half-learnt, and rarely put to practice. No offense to the exceptions.

And still, it doesn’t seem to be enough. There are always people who still struggle to ask for a window seat, or to explain that they want their dogs travelling of their lap, or to get an orange juice instead of a soda.

We are in 2013, many many years after the phenomenon known as ‘globalization’ began, and after English was claimed as the official international language to avoid miscommunications in these kinds of situations. But it doesn’t matter: language is identity. Language is comfort.

The world is still hungry for translation.

Well, call us philanthropists, but we just cannot observe this without taking action. We at inWhatLanguage, may not be able to sate the world’s hunger for translation, but we are definitely going to do our part. Starting with an awesome 20% off promotion until the end of February for projects in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese and Chinese!

Think of it as a little New Year’s bonus!

Contact inWhatLanguage at 800.580.3718 to request a free language translation quote or for more information on our quality translation services.