A media campaign for a new product or service usually uses various different channels. Your marketing communications plan will often feature all sorts of steps in which you try to create awareness. You arrange a great launch, an attractive brochure and a newsletter for customers or distributors. You also need a press release, a new web page, a blog item and an introduction video on YouTube, and you want to tweet a few teasers too. And ideally, you’d also like to share the new product on LinkedIn.
Involve your translation partner in your schedule
If your company operates in several countries or you want to take your product 
over the border, you’ll need to have your campaign translated. It is a good idea to put together a step-by-step plan including not only the writers and designers, but also your translation partner. All too often the texts have to be translated quickly at the last minute, and that’s such a shame. Just like the copywriter, the translator needs to know the aim of your campaign, who the target group is, what the style is, what you want to achieve and what emotion you want to evoke. And what’s also very important is that the translator has to get to know your product or service. That’s not possible if translation is reduced to something that has to be done quickly at the last minute.
A translation team that also takes care of the DTP and subtitles
Your campaign will usually feature various communications that need to be launched at different times and you don’t want someone different translating those texts every time. If you include your translation partner in your campaign, you can be sure that the same translators will work on all of the texts, and this will guarantee a better result.
If you use various channels, you’ll have different file types that need translating. The file type for subtitles, for instance, is completely different to the file type for a beautifully formatted brochure. So be sure to select a translation partner for your media campaign who can subtitle, translate InDesign files directly and translate your website. And for even greater convenience, a professional translation agency can usually handle exports from your content management system, saving you a great deal of time.
A translation team that combines different disciplines
Not all translators have the same skills. The technical translator understands the ins and outs of a new machine, the financial translator knows all about financial products and services and the marketing translator is able to translate a marketing text in such a way that a new advertising text is created in a different language, while still retaining the purpose, key message and emotion of the text. In other words, not every translator can translate every text.
Even so, your campaign will often involve different types of text, some of which will be more technical, while others will be mainly intended to create awareness. So it’s a good idea to engage an agency that works with translation teams consisting of technical or financial translators who work together with the marketing translator. This ensures that technical and financial terms are translated correctly, but the text still has the marketing translator’s special touch. Uniformity and continuity are guaranteed, always with the right tone.
All in all, it’s crucial to involve your translation partner in your marketing strategy, both in terms of content and practical issues:
- This guarantees continuity, because the same team works on all of the texts.
- It guarantees better texts, as your translation partner knows what you want to say and who to.
- It cuts the amount of work, as your translation partner takes DTP work off your hands.
A professional translation agency translates your entire campaign, from the newsletter to the subtitles, and also formats your brochure afterwards.
