7 Tips To Cut Down Your Market Research Translation Costs
24th July 2015
Small changes in the planning of your market research translation projects can help reduce expenses and improve profitability. These changes can also help prevent unforeseen costs later on. Here are our 7 tips to help you improve profitability when it comes to market research translation.
Tips to reduce your translation costs:
1. Account for translation at the planning stage of your project.
The style of language used in your project will have been carefully chosen in order to obtain the results specified in the Client’s brief. However, it is important to remember that other languages can have a formal and informal tone, as well as having a completely different sentencing structure. Therefore, it is important to be as un-ambiguous as possible in your style of writing.
Depending on the language, text can expand or contract through translation by up to 50% for some Asian languages and between 10-15% for some European languages, French and Spanish for example. If you are having a presentation, or marketing concepts translated, it is important to take this into account too at the design and planning stage.
2. Involve Foreign Tongues early on in the project.
We can help you plan your translation by providing advance solutions to any potential linguistic pitfalls within your original copy and the most efficient turnaround times. Involving Foreign Tongues early on in the translation project allows our project managers to allocate linguists that specialise in your given field and subject matter, whether it be medical, legal or technical.
Our Scheduled Service will help to reduce your costs further if you can allow for a less pressured turnaround time for your files translation. Planning source material delivery times to Foreign Tongues and deadlines well in advance also helps avoid the need for any urgency rates to be applied to “urgent” assignments!
3. Try to avoid any ‘back and forth’.
Extra costs can be incurred if you make changes later on to a document and after it has already been translated. Following on from the planning stage, it is important to have your final version documents signed-off before proceeding with the translation stage. This avoids any back and forth as minor changes are made, which can also affect project deadline.
4. Provide as much supporting material as possible.
Additional background reference information and glossaries are of great help to linguists when it comes to translating your files, especially if they contain brand or company specific terminology. While it may not be practical, or indeed desirable, to involve Foreign Tongues on every conference call, by providing us with a brief summary as to the intended audience and background of each project, we will be further enabled to capture the ethos of your Client’s requirements.
5. Always use Foreign Tongues Translation.
Once you have worked with us, we are secure in the knowledge that our level of service will ensure you keep working with us. More importantly, building a professional relationship with Foreign Tongues helps us to understand your language requirements in depth, allowing us to provide further suggestion and insight as to how your translation procedure might be further streamlined and, therefore, more cost effective to you.
6. All translation is not the same.
Foreign Tongues are the market leader in providing language translation services, specifically to the market research industry. Some agencies may well offer to provide translation for a lower rate, but beware – cheap prices usually mean poor quality! This will lead to your having to pay for your translation once again, or allocating extra money to ‘fix’ the poor quality translation you have been sent from elsewhere. By working with Foreign Tongues, you know that every translation you receive has been produced by experienced, professional linguists – from a company dedicated to maintaining the highest standards.
7. Stick to common file formats.
When planning your project, it is much more efficient to provide the text to be translated in common file formats, examples such as MS Word or Excel. Once the text has been translated, you can then provide your design team with the text as it appears, rather than trying to fit expanded/contracted translation copy into a pre-designed, English language, template. This helps you cut down on the time/money spent in finalising your international documents and avoids having to employ additional foreign language editors to work on your in-house design aspects.
We are more than happy to offer advice on your translation needs, free of charge and without obligation. We hope that by following these tips and guidelines, not only will you save money on your next translation project, Foreign Tongues will help you to make the translation process a lot more efficient and stress free.
Next time you need market research translation and language services make you sure you contact the market research translation experts, here at Foreign Tongues.
Contact us now on 0800 032 5939 or translation@foreigntongues.co.uk to see how we can help you with your next project.
