10 Most Important Steps To Save On Your Yearly Translation Budget
We cannot compromise on things like food and water. We also need clothes and shelter for survival. These are the kinds of things that we must spend our money on. Then, some services and products are of secondary importance. We need them, too, but we don’t necessarily have to pay thousands for them annually. For instance, if a company sells its products in two different countries, it will need translation services. But it doesn’t have to pay highly for the services. A lot of money can be saved by taking the right steps.
10 Most Important Steps to Save On Your Yearly Translation Budget:
Businesses need to save as much money as possible to turn it into profit. However, that doesn’t mean they should assign all the translation duties to their bilingual employee. Neither should they get computer software for linguistic assistance. To get accurate results, companies will have to hire qualified professionals. But they can reduce their translation cost by taking wise steps. They don’t have to accept the first offer extended to them. They will only make a massive mistake if they don’t research before hiring an agency.
Here are the ten most important steps to save on your yearly translation budget:
- Pick the Right Language:
Whether your company operates in two countries or twenty, you must think carefully before picking the language you need to get your content translated into. After the primary language, you should select the vocabulary that is spoken by your target audience. If you are operating in a multilingual country, but your target audience is the minority, then you can go with their vocabulary and ignore the other tongues. This way, you can save money that would have been spent on getting translations you don’t need.
- Compare Prices:
When you decide to look up language service providers, there are a few factors you should check. Although quality should be your priority, you should also compare prices. When you have selected a few service providers, you can get quotes from them separately and then compare their prices. This will help you in choosing the agency that charges its clients fairly.
- Check Source Text:
Before you translate it, make sure your source text is error-free. If there are any errors and they get added to the translated text, you will have to edit a lot of content. You will also have to hire a linguistic expert again to get the correct translations of your text. This will waste both your time and money. Avoiding this problem is very easy because all you have to do is check your source text. You can also remove outdated news and replace it with the latest information.
- Provide Context:
If you make the job of the linguistic expert easier, they will get done much quicker than you can imagine. As a result, you will be charged less, too. So, provide context to the translators whenever you assign them a project. The more background information you give them, the easier their job will be.
- CAT Tools:
Pick service providers that use CAT tools to make their translation budget more efficient. Linguistic experts save much of their time using tools like translation memory. If the results reach you quickly, you won’t have to waste time before reaching out to your audience.
- Glossary of Terms:
Every business document contains a lot of unique terms. It is up to you to create a glossary of terms for the linguistic expert. It will not only help them in finishing the tasks quickly but also in keeping the language of the translation consistent.
- Short and Clear Content:
Remembering your content creators that their work will be translated later is essential. They should keep their sentences short and their message clear. If they add too much slang and idioms to the content, the linguistic expert will have to spend a lot of time finding their alternatives. Translating the content will not require too much time if the content is short.
- Stay Loyal to One Agency:
If you have hired a reliable agency, you should stay loyal to them. If you send regular projects their way, they will offer you discounts frequently. You will also get more consistent results if you hire the same company every time for linguistic solutions.
- Send Original Documents:
If you send in copies of your files or documents that cannot be edited, the linguistic expert must convert the text before they can begin working on it. They might even need software for that purpose. You could get charged for the software, so sending editable documents to the translation agency is better.
- Hire Native Experts:
When choosing an agency, pick one with native experts on its team. If you don’t want to spend money on hiring a separate localization team, hire native experts, and they will provide you with culturally accurate translations. With their help, impressing your audience will become super easy.
It may sound difficult to save on your yearly translation budget, but if you decide when to hire an agency, you can get the best results at affordable rates.
