Wherever your business is based, once you’ve set your sights on global expansion then you need to start thinking about how you will tailor your products and services for the local market. In-depth market research plays a pivotal role in helping you understand whether a market exists for your products and services and what changes you need to make to your products, the packaging, the price and the promotional material to meet their demands and preferences.

Market research includes everything from surveys, focus groups and interviews to statistical research and comprehensive market analysis. Market research translation allows you to communicate with prospective customers on their terms and gain accurate, valuable insights into the target market. While a plain translation of your marketing research material is a good start, it’s also essential to ensure any translation reflects local cultural and societal norms to generate the best possible results.

So what is market research translation best practice? These are our professional tips…

1. Always check the language skills of your fieldwork partners

If you’re using a native language market research team then their ability to write and speak the target market’s language is assured, but do they speak English well enough to communicate their findings accurately?

If not, a market research translation team can help. Equally, your market research team might have good written native language skills but poor spoken skills, in which case, a telephone interpreter could be just what you need.

2. Put a clearly defined translation approval process in place

Many research agencies waste a huge amount of time and money because they have failed to consider how they will agree on the final translation. Working with a dedicated translation agency with extensive experience removes this potential hurdle and ensures you receive the translation on time and within budget.

3. Choose your local preferences before you begin

One of the biggest roadblocks many businesses have to overcome before market research goes to the field is the in-country review and validation. This part of the process can be problematic because, without clear communication, the end client may have subjective linguistic preferences that have not been taken into account.

Creating an agreed glossary with the market research translation team before the work begins will help to ensure any industry-specific terms or company preferences are taken care of. The result is faster translations that are a more accurate representation of the business.

4. Ensure the tone of voice varies across different channels and segments

Different types of language should be used for particular market research types. For example, the type of language used in group discussions and focus groups is likely to be informal and chattier to help initiate a discussion. That might not be the case with a one-to-one interview or written survey.

Equally, if you want to create a survey for smartphone users, you’ll have to think carefully about likely respondents and the right type of language to use.

5. Take your branding and house style into account

Humour, plays on words and stylistic touches that might be an important part of your brand are exactly the type of linguistic elements that do not always translate well.

For that reason, it’s essential you work with a translation team who not only translate your documents word for word but can also incorporate original elements to help maintain your branding and house style.

Your market research translation experts

Whatever your needs, in whatever format, our team of market research translation experts are ready to add value to your product or service launch. Please call 02392 987 765 to discuss your market research translation requirements with our team.

Document translation is one of the most popular services we offer, so it’s hardly surprising that we’ve picked up a few hints and tips we can give you along the way. When our clients send documents to us for translation, they almost always want them back as quickly as possible, and of course they want the work completed to our usual exacting standards and priced as competitively as possible.

We’re certainly not believers in cheap translation – you get what you pay for in this industry – but there are steps our clients can take to increase the speed and reduce the cost of their document translation projects.

So, what can you do to make our job as easy as possible and subsequently make your quote as low as it can be?

1. Keep the language simple

We appreciate that it’s not always possible to simplify the language you use, particularly if there are lots of industry-specific technical terms involved. However, if you’re creating a document that’s going to be translated then it does pay to keep the sentence structure simple, remove jargon and colloquialisms and even keep humour to a minimum (unfortunately, jokes rarely translate well).

This will not be possible for every document. For example, your marketing communications may rely on intricate wordplay and legal documents will always be technical. That’s not a problem, as we have specialist translators for that. However, if you can keep it simple, do.

2. Use a design that’s easy to adapt

Making translated documents look just as good as the original is exactly what we do. However, the more complex the original design of the document, the more time it’s likely to take for us to get it right. That’s because the amount of text will expand or contract on translation, while some languages such as Japanese and Korean tend to require more vertical than horizontal space. Then there are the languages that read right to left.

If speed is of the essence or you’re on a budget, having an uncomplicated, clean layout to start with will help us get the finished article back to you quickly and for less.

3. Be consistent with your terminology

We understand that sometimes industry-specific terminology or technical words and phrases have to be used. In that case, we work with our regular clients to create terminology databases, which act as a centralised glossary of the company-specific, industry-specific or technical terms you use. This serves as a guide to our translation and transcreation team on how to manage this type of terminology.

Importantly, for terminology databases to work, it’s essential you are consistent with the wording you use. Understanding exactly how to handle these terms will increase the efficiency and speed of the translation and help to keep the cost down.

4. Create a style guide

Many of the larger organisations we work with have a style guide, but that’s not true of all of our translation clients. A style guide can be a relatively simple document that sets out how your brand looks and sounds across visual media. It should reference things like tone, vocabulary, grammar, word usage and point of view. That might sound like a lot of work, but it will ensure consistency across your communications, no matter who produces them.

It will also be extremely useful for our document translators, providing a source of reference they can use to create documents that speak your business’s language. There will be less guesswork and faster translation times, which is all good news for you!

5. Choose the right translation team

Undoubtedly, the most important tip of all is to choose the right translation team in the first place. That’s a team that has a reputation for quality work and excellent customer service and ideally has experience in your sector.

At Linguistica International, we work with leading names like Manchester United, Santander and Orange as well as a diverse range of SMEs. Take a look at our translation services and call 02392 987 765 or email info@linguistica-international.com to get in touch with our team.