Transcreation & Localisation
Why Creative Translation?
When you address a foreign customer, you need to speak the language they understand. And it is not just about understanding the words. It is about conveying a clear and comprehensive message with all the nuances and intricacies – often very fine and subliminal. Ultimately, it is about translating feelings and emotions and the story behind your brand in a culturally appropriate way, while shifting the focus from words and meaning to ideas, emotions and motivation.
One evening, while strolling the streets of London, among many beautiful and eye-catching billboards, I saw an advertisement for a renowned daily newspaper and it particularly drew my attention. The slogan amusingly said: “The Guardian. For facts’ sake!“
Even if you are not a native English speaker, the clever and crafty wordplay (and pun intended) will be obvious and apparent to you. How would you translate it into a different language so that the catchline resonates with the reader in the same way?
‘’If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.’’
Nelson Madela
Our professional Polish, Russian and English transcreation and localisation services can help your business have its voice heard loud and clear by target audiences outside of your country. We will work closely with your team to make sure that you reach your target markets with messages that sound natural and the tone of voice your customers are familiar and comfortable with.
Get in touch to discuss your project today.
SEO Translation and Optimising User Experience
Both search engine optimization (SEO) and user experience (UX) are critical to the global success of your marketing efforts. SEO plays an important role in improving website performance. This creates new expectations and responsibilities for marketing translators where they can demonstrate their know-how and skills in the field of digital marketing. Mr Coach SEO translator can help to find the right keywords and phrases, localise them and select the best ones based on their search potential. Inserting the keywords organically into the target text will increase the visibility of your internationalised website for search engines.
User experience will also need to be adapted to what is locally acceptable. This often goes beyond language and includes things like localisation of links, adaptation of button labels, navigation menus and on-screen messages or re-structuring copy and layout to reduce bounce rate.
In an ideal world, we would start working closely with your team of user experience designers as early as the development stage. But in the reality of large projects, where the whole marketing communication needs to be translated into multiple languages, it is impractical and too difficult. Unless some of the user’s perceptions and behaviours still need to be fully understood, the role of an SEO translator usually begins with keyword research and mapping for existing content in the source language, followed by crafting and optimisation of the target copy.
There is more room for the translator to get involved in the last stage of the SEO translation process – localisation of user experience and interface. This is where the remits of an SEO translator and a UX writer overlap and a relatively new discipline – UX translations – emerges. It calls for closer collaboration between language professionals and marketing departments to ensure the focus on the reader as a product consumer. The aim is to achieve the same experience for source and target users including their emotions, reactions and interactions with the content. Contact us for an informal chat.
We can help you with:
- Keyword research, analysis and localisation
- Transcreation of marketing messages online ads localisation (SEA)
- Multilingual / International SEO – optimisation of content such as:
- Websites,
- Blog articles
- Product descriptions
- Social media posts
- UX translations and UX copywriting
- Cultural and language consultancy
Language Consultancy and Cultural Adaptation
We delve into your customer’s jargon or even slang to make sure you strike the right note in their hearts, souls and minds so that your audience falls in love with your message.
It is imperative to carefully manoeuvre in no-go areas and taboos, be alert to false friends, and avoid funny misunderstandings as well as potentially offensive language or ridiculous situations. Sayings, idiomatic expressions, and alliteration often cannot be translated literally. Culturally accepted forms of address can also be very different in some countries. Even the meaning behind colours and symbols varies from culture to culture. You may not be able to notice such subtleties, but your audience surely will.
Localisation and Internationalisation
If a technical translation of your product descriptions and cultural adaptation of your marketing messaging were not difficult enough, another set of pitfalls is already looming. And some of them may be quite technical. Different spelling, punctuation and capitalisation rules as well as local formats for dates, addresses, and phone numbers have to be all taken into account. Layouts, graphics and imagery may also need to be modified and aligned to local standards. Currency and measurements must be adapted to reflect the system used in the target country.
Remember, your product needs to remain real, genuine and branded, but with a local feel. It should be perceived as if it was created by, and exclusive to, the local community.
Mr Coach can help you localise your products and culturally adapt your marketing messages so that you avoid costly mistakes and potential damage to your brand. Visit our Marketing Translations page to read more about our core online and offline marketing translation services or contact us with your enquiry.
Ultimate Skill Set and Competence
Mr Coach has a sound academic record in the areas of quality assurance, marketing, education and translation complemented by over 15 years of work experience in commercial roles including at management level and as a freelance translator. Mr Coach is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists – Chartered Linguist holding a postgraduate Diploma in Translation as well as a postgraduate diploma in International Trade with Cultural Differences and Negotiations. To find out more about all our qualifications, visit the About Mr Coach page.
Mr Coach can also help you with other tasks such as proofreading, editing, technical translations, MTPE, technical writing and terminology management as well as certified translations of your documents. Contact us for more information.
