Fighting Inflation: More customers and sales abroad through the translation of websites, prospectuses and advertising brochures
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Interest rates are low and money is gradually being devalued. The official inflation rates are low, but perceived and actual inflation are considerably higher and are putting both future and pension schemes at risk.
Dividends on shares are a good alternative but are not without risk. What can you do to retain the value of money and be well-prepared for the future?
Increase the number of sales and inquiries and gain customers abroad! Increase the conversion rate with a good translation of your website, prospectuses and advertising brochures!
First of all, a definition of the conversion rate: The conversion rate is a percentage share, for example interested parties or buyers, of the total number of visitors to a website or the number of readers for a prospectus. This is usually between 1 and 2 percent but can be much higher or lower.
Generally speaking, a company that is active on the Internet wants to cultivate its image on the one hand and generate contacts (especially customers and interested buyers) on the other. This is why companies focus their attention on good design, as the appearance of the website showcases your image and creates trust. This happens a lot.
However, if internationally active companies do business in quite a few countries, they also provide foreign language versions of their websites, as well as downloadable advertising brochures, catalogues, brochures, etc., usually as PDF or Word files.
This allows these companies to expand their home market to other countries. Websites and prospectuses in other languages make it possible for potential customers from other countries to read the advertising messages in their native tongue and contact the new supplier directly by form or e-mail.
In order to make this possible, the company’s websites as well as prospectuses, catalogues and brochures available to download or order are translated into several languages; preferably languages in which the company's employees can also correspond. Because a fantastic Chinese version is of little use if an inquiry received in Chinese can neither be read nor answered.
Spanish therefore plays a special role because of its widespread use in Latin America, the USA and Spain, along with other languages such as German, Italian, French, Russian, etc., depending on the target market and the employees' language skills.
The only question now is how to translate these websites and brochures. Companies take different approaches, often the wrong one, which they end up bitterly regretting.
Option 1: Your own employees translate the websites, prospectuses and advertising brochures:
Many organizations have employees who speak various languages. On the one hand, these may be language skills they acquired themselves (school, higher education, language courses, further training, self-study, etc.). The problem with this, however, is that on the one hand, such language skills generally suggest widely varying levels of proficiency and are often insufficient. On the other hand, even someone with very good language skills will still be unable to achieve native-speaker fluency.
Or the company employs people from other countries, In this case, however, they often lack sufficient knowledge of the foreign language.
In both cases, i.e. Spanish-speaking employees or employees from other countries, what is still lacking is translation competence, unless the company is fortunate enough to have employed a trained graduate translator. Large concerns, such as Microsoft for example, have their own translation departments.
Because translation at a professional level goes far beyond the use of "normal" language skills. Professional translation is a creative process performed by talented and highly-trained language experts. At reputable universities specialized in translations talented students receive sound training at the highest level. Therefore, Lengua Translations works exclusively with graduates of such universities, who often undergo very selective entrance examinations before admission, with only a small percentage of applicants being accepted.
Option 2: Free translation tools such as Google Translate are available on the Internet:
Using translation tools or translation software such as Google Translate is very tempting, as it is fast and free of charge. If you click on the Google start page and enter the words "translation" or "German-English translation" for example, Google proudly presents its "Google Translate" translation programme in a prominent position before all other search results. On the left you enter the German text or speak into a microphone (which failed to work when tested) and on the right you then see the English "translation". For example, the German saying "Wein trinken und Wasser predigen" is translated word-for-word as: "Drinking wine and preaching water" (Correct idiomatic translation: "Practice what you preach").
Well, at least it's entertaining if you want to take a little break now and then from your work.
However, if you seriously use this tool to translate websites or prospectuses into other languages, not only will you be setting the conversion rate for the website or the prospectus to zero, but you will also cause lasting damage to the image of your own company. Nobody will buy from a website that contains linguistic errors or contact the company in question if he or she is a native speaker of the target language.
Option 3: The company uses a professional translation agency or a qualified, professional translator:
The third option is to use an external professional service provider (such as Lengua Translations). The company entrusts its websites and brochures to language experts. If you do not have your own translation department, this is definitely the best option.
However, you now face the difficulty of choosing a translation agency to carry out this work. You request quotes from translation agencies. Generally speaking, all of the offers will sound good and some will seem particularly cheap.
Unfortunately, it must be said that there are many black sheep in this industry. Because you trust these supposed language experts and either do not speak the respective foreign language yourself of have only a limited command of it, many cheap providers manage to sell their substandard services by significantly undercutting professional translators in terms of price.
Providers like this may, for example, even use translation software such as Google Translate, thus delivering an extremely poor product at virtually no cost to themselves, which in turn costs the client money, even though it is of no use to him and results in absolutely no conversions (customers and prospective buyers).
Or you use the services of "students, immigrants or extremely under-qualified translators", who have never seen the inside of a university specialized in translation and thus have very little competence in translation.
The result is that the client receives a product that is about as useful to him as Google Translate, namely zero conversions and a bad image, which he has also paid for. If he then realizes that his foreign language websites and prospectuses are not generating any inquiries or purchases, he will most likely have to order a completely new translation. By then, however, not only will he have lost numerous interested parties and potential customers as well as perhaps thousands of dollars in the short term, the damage to the company's image will usually continue to have an impact for years to come.
The money supposedly saved is therefore lost many times over.
Because of this, professional translation agencies such as Lengua Translations operate in a completely different way. At slightly higher prices, they focus consistently on quality and translators with the highest level of language competency, e.g. through:
- the exclusive use of graduate translators (with degrees from renowned universities specialized in translation)
- the native speaker principle (all translators only translate into their mother tongue from the language they have studied)
- specialization in the relevant area of expertise
- membership of organizations such as accredited translators' organizations like ATA, IoL etc.
- public appointment and sworn translation/authorization in the case of certified translations
- monitoring of all translators and their services
- consideration of client feedback
Using the highest level of expertise, we contribute to optimizing the conversion rate. We are successful if our clients are
Ask us. We will gladly help you with your translation requirements, be it websites, prospectuses, advertising brochures or other texts.
Contact and quotes by e-mail: info@lengua.com
The latest website translations by Lengua Translations:
- Translation of a medical website from German to English and French, client: A medical technology company from Switzerland (joint-stock corporation)
- Translation of the website for a four-star hotel from German into English
