Several Ways to Market Translation Services
The Government of Canada’s Translation Bureau engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP to conduct a benchmarking and comparative analysis study of the linguistic services industry in Canada and globally in 2012. The global language services industry is highly fragmented: there are a small number of large companies such as Bowne global solutions and Lionbridge which account for less than 5% of the worldwide market. The study demonstrated that today the global market includes over 25,000 organizations that offer different types of translations services, often in a limited geographic range. This means that the translation services market is getting more and more competitive each year, and to survive, translation agencies and independent translators need to pay strict attention to their marketing strategies.
Independent translators need to be noticed, and one of the ways to do that is direct email. First, it is important to prepare a high-quality digital package that contains information about your education, mother tongue and language pairs, subject areas, translation/interpreting/voice-over skills, contact information, etc. Your documents have to be well organized, with references from clients if possible. Translators should contact as many translation agencies or companies as possible and say that you are available for work. Never forget about networking with people who work with foreign languages, translation, and international business, as they can help you find clients.
Translation agencies, in turn, need to keep their websites current to attract customers and update the language list they are working with, how quick their service is, and their rates. It is also crucial to promote their services on social media as one of the key components of today’s global communication. Social media helps translation agencies become more visible and learn from clients what attracts them: their concerns, preferences, and prejudices – everything that seems important for people who might need translation services one day. Translation companies can be bigger than what they already are – they can become a part of the broader community, which will make them even more attractive. The important thing here is that they truly have to care about the community projects they are involved with.
To be successful, both translation agencies and individual translators need to provide high-quality services and make sure this is obvious in a public forum.
At LingoStar, we work with professional translators all over the world who care about every aspect of their work and always provide high-quality translation in over 100 languages. For more information, call us today at 604-629-8420 or send us an email at info@lingo-star.com!
