How to Promote Your Translation Service and Win New Clients, Even During a Recession

Promoting your translation services effectively is key to winning new clients. With the right approach, you can ensure that your professional translation career has the maximum chance of success. So how do you turn a desire to translate for a living into a situation where you have clients lined up? Read on to find out.

Promoting Your Translation Service

Promoting your business translation service doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed to win new clients. That’s why you need to pay serious attention to how and where you promote your translation services – to avoid expending time and energy (not to mention money) promoting your services in places where they won’t be seen by potential clients. 

Thankfully, there are plenty of promotional tactics for you to choose from. One traditional way of promoting your translation services is to pick up the phone and cold-call companies to tell them about your services. You can also reach out to introduce yourself by letter and email.

It’s worth considering an introductory offer as part of your promotion. Doing so can help to capture the attention of potential clients. Just be sure that the offer is designed to encourage the establishment of a long-term working relationship. 

In-person networking can also work extremely well, from attending conferences to joining business brunches. If there isn’t a local business network in your area, you could consider creating one. Local authorities sometimes even have funding available to help establish such initiatives and doing so could provide an excellent opportunity to showcase your organizational skills and other abilities.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, of course, online networking may be more appropriate than face-to-face promotion. LinkedIn is the ideal tool for business networking, so be sure to build up your contacts and regularly publish informative content that showcases your translation knowledge.

While primarily used for personal purposes, it’s also worth networking through Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. You never know who might need a translator, so it’s important to spread the word as widely as possible when it comes to promoting your professional translation service.

You might like to consider promoting your business translation services by using video as well. Having your own YouTube channel can work well when it comes to bolstering your reputation. You can showcase your knowledge and also how personable you are by publishing regular video content, which you can then promote via your social networks. Just be sure to focus on quality at all times–a poorly lit video with dodgy sound doesn’t speak well of your attention to detail and pride in your work!

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Show Companies How They Can Use Translation Services to Their Advantage

Now that we’ve covered how to promote your translation services, let’s look at how to win new clients. These are tips that you can (and should) incorporate into all of the promotional activities mentioned above.

First and foremost, you need to show the client how using your service will benefit them. Ofer Tirosh, CEO of translation company Tomedes, points out that the key to this is putting yourself in the footsteps of the business that you’re pitching your translation services to. You need to show them how they can use translation to their advantage and what they will gain by doing so. It’s all about making it easy for the client to see how your business translation provision will benefit them.

Of course, you’ll need to highlight why they should use your service in particular to meet their professional translation needs, rather than that of a competitor. You could do so by offering a special introductory rate, delivering benefits such as a quality guarantee, showcasing your other services (such as certified translation or localization) or demonstrating your incredible commitment to customer service.

Winning new business translation clients is also about demonstrating not just the quality of your work but also its relevance. Don’t just say you provide business translation; look at the industry the client you’re pitching to is in and show how your experience fits that niche.  

It’s also important to let clients see how committed you are to meeting deadlines, how effectively you communicate and that you always respond quickly. Professional translation is about more than just language, after all. 

How to Promote Your Business Translation Service on Freelancing Job Boards

We’ve focused on promoting your services directly to clients thus far, but it’s also worth bearing in mind that you can also win clients through freelancing job sites. If this is your goal, you’ll need to promote yourself through beautifully crafted applications, supported by online samples of your high-quality work and a link to an eye-catching online resumé.

When it comes to winning, you have a couple of options at your disposal. You can out-bid your competitors and offer the lowest rate in order to try and win. You can also make sure that your profile is packed full of relevant skills and experience and that you are in the top tier of feedback on the site in question.  

Why is Now the Ideal Time to Chase Your Professional Translation Dream?

Many people around the world are struggling financially, having lost income due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Others are having to travel into workplaces and risk increasing their chances of infection. A freelance career in professional translation can do wonders when it comes to removing such concerns.

Keeping your options open in order to cope with the stormy economic waters ahead is certainly a good idea. The International Monetary Fund is projecting global growth of -4.9% in 2020, as the world reels from the impact of the pandemic. That’s been revised down 1.9 percentage points since April, due to the greater impact of COVID-19 on the economy than was originally anticipated.

The impact is being felt by families around the globe. Those who speak two languages fluently, have impeccable grammar and a decent computer at least have the option to pursue a career in professional translation. If this is you, then the advice above should help improve your chances of winning new clients for your translation services. Good luck! 

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About the author: Louise Taylor is a professional writer who has been working in the language services industry for the past eight years. She holds qualifications in five languages and writes about everything from translation to localization.