In today’s guest post Translation Services 24 kindly shares with us 5 digital marketing tips for professional translators from the perspective of a translation agency.

“Many people, unfortunately, still associate being a professional translator with a hobby, rather than a difficult and challenging job, which requires not only specific set of skills, but often also years of experience. Nonetheless, nowadays a rapidly growing number of business owners starts to truly appreciate the importance of translations and understands how working with linguists can positively impact their business when expanding abroad or approaching foreign customers.

As a direct result of the growing demand, the translation industry became extremely competitive in the recent years. Today, only the most talented and experienced translators are able to work with the biggest clients and build long-term relationships.

Still, even the most qualified translators must be able to market themselves successfully to the potential business partners or translation agencies and be capable of standing out from the large pool of translators, who may be just as qualified.

In order to do just that, professional translators should market themselves. Today, we’ll take a look at some of the ways in which linguists can showcase their skills and expertise using the digital channels.    

1. Explore Social Media

Today, over 3 billion people around the world are active users of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. As a result, the importance of social media and the influence it has on the marketing world is unquestionable. From large, multinational organisations to small, locally based SMEs companies and business owners use social media platforms not only to promote their products/services, but also to communicate directly with their potential customers and to create a positive, user-friendly company image.

By creating and managing social media accounts, a professional translator will be able to build-up their personal brand, which would then subsequently convey into higher customer’s trust.

2. Brand yourself via website

As translators, most of our work is done online – whether contacting clients, receiving work or delivering projects. Unfortunately, still a great number of professional linguist do not fully appreciate the true importance behind branding themselves through a personalised website.

By creating your own little space on the internet, your personal brand will not only be perceived as more approachable and professional, but you’ll also be able to easily showcase your skills and expertise.

Whether approaching translation agencies or clients directly, being able to contact them from a personalised email address and display your experiences or testimonials in an easy-accessible and convenient way can be truly advantageous to your career.

3. Become an expert

In today’s saturated translation market, simply being a translator often isn’t quite enough anymore. Now, in order to be able to work with the best customers and most interesting projects, a linguist must be not only a language expert, but also be an expert within their field.

When you establish your website, you’ll be able to additionally run a professional blog. By doing this, you’ll be able to prove to your clients your in-depth knowledge on any given business sector that you specialise in, whether it’s marketing, legal or medical.

Combining your linguistic knowledge with sector-specific expertise and showcasing it through different mediums, such as website, blog or guest posting will attract customers who are looking for a truly expert approach.

4. Email marketing isn’t quite dead

Over the years we’ve heard it over and over again – ‘email marketing is dead’. Well, let’s be completely honest, it isn’t quite ‘dead’ yet. In fact, it’s doing pretty well for itself!

If approached correctly, email marketing campaign can be a great way of approaching potential clients directly. Whether it’s a translation agency or a direct client, a well written email sent just at the right time can be a start of a great business relationship.

However, it is vital to keep the content in your emails short, yet suitable and effective. If you specialise in translations for the legal industry for instance, mentioning this as well any accreditations and experiences that you have will increase your chances with the potential client.

5. Be in all the right places

Creating profiles on external platforms such as Proz.com can be a great way of increasing your potential reach, especially if you’re fairly new to the industry. A great number of freelance translators use professional associations and directories to grow their online presence.

One of the most important aspects of branding through such websites is keeping your profile up-to-date with all of your latest experiences, skills and testimonials, making you stand out from the pool of translators who are aiming to do the same thing as you are.

As you can see, professional linguists must not only be experts in the languages they cover and business sector they specialise in, but must also have a pretty good understanding of the digital marketing world! Being a translator is definitely not a hobby…”

Translation Services 24 is one of the leading & fastest growing translation agencies based in London, UK. Specialising in marketing translations and transcreation, we cover over 150 languages from every corner of the world.