How to Add New Languages to Your Translation Services Portfolio?
The dream of every translation agency is to expand its business operations. And improve the number of language offerings in its services. In eLearning translation services you cannot survive without offering multiple languages. So rather than just sticking to one popular language, your aim should be to add a new language. This is how you can enable a customer-driven strategy for a new language development process.
In this article, we will discuss some of the major steps that are involved in this process. So let’s begin.
Generating the Idea For A New Language
The development of a new language starts with idea generation. It pertains to a well-structured mechanism and systematic approach for new ideas. Translation services are in a constant endeavor of incorporating dozens of new languages into their offerings. However, they choose only a few due to feasibility issues.
Idea generation for a new language, especially for e Learning translation agencies comes from two sources; internal and external. The internal source constitutes the Research and Development (R&D) that takes solace within the organization. So, every employee working within the organization, regardless of the department he works for, can chip in his suggestions.
External sources can also contribute to the idea generation process. For instance, professional translators working for the company can recommend a language to the company. As they are familiar with the general market trends for the translation industry. And which languages are popular among the masses and fellow competitors.
Screening The New Ideas
The main concept behind idea generation is to develop a large set of ideas. So, in the following steps, you could diminish them to a minimum number. This will not only allow you to select the best idea but will also assist you in eradicating the bad ones. So the next time you start the process of idea generation, you could avoid those internal and external sources.
The first step that comes under the process of eradicating unwanted ideas, or in this case, languages, is Idea Screening. This shortlist is given to the committee. The committee judges the new language offerings. The languages are analyzed on the basis of various factors.
They may include the availability of professional human translators that do not only possess expertise in that particular language but also have sound translation experience. Then comes the issue of company resources and availability elements, i.e, does the company have enough credit to hire these translators or should they move towards acquiring freelance translators?
Meanwhile, the company should also conduct an in-depth analysis of the target market or in this case the target audience that speaks that language. The research conducted on the target market will also create awareness pertaining to the level of competition.
For instance, if you are planning to offer literary translation services, you must be aware of translation agencies that are offering these services.
Once you know the level of competition and the market space availability, you can calculate the estimated rate of return, if you pursue to offer your language of choice.
Practical Testing Phase
Once the committee decides the most practical and attractive language choice for its eLearning translation services, it must develop that language conceptually. What happens is that the company goes through the entire process conceptually to see how the language offering will perform in the market.
In the testing phase, professional translation services target a small section or group of target customers. The language is offered in symbolic terms. This may include a small translation tutorial in which the customer gives a small paragraph or passage to the agency, and they convert it into the language of their choice.
Moreover, it may also include a depiction of visual representation. A video is placed on the website of the agency. It shows the language is being translated. Meanwhile, the cultural and traditional intricacies and nuances of the language are also kept intact. The reaction to these conceptual offerings and ideas will assist the localization firms to pursue that language or not.
Marketing Strategy Development
After the testing phase, the next stage is the development of the marketing strategy. It includes the medium through which the message would be conveyed.
However, during the marketing strategy phase, e Learning translation services decide three major issues. The target market is prioritized. It will consist of the people who benefit from your service. So if you are offering literary translation services, your target market will consist of people who are in that field of literature and social sciences.
The second part will determine the price of your service and what will be the allocated budget for the marketing plans. And the third part of the marketing strategy will capture the long-term sales plan and predictions for the service.
Conclusion
Professional translation services are catering to the needs of hundreds of businesses and organizations around the world are looking to penetrate foreign markets but they couldn’t due to language barriers.
In this article, we tried to cover a very important issue for the language service providers.
That issue pertains to the addition of languages into the service portfolio. Localization firms need to follow certain steps if they want to expand their services offerings.
These steps include; Idea Generation, Idea Screening, Practical testing phase, and marketing strategy development. Language providers can follow these steps if they want to add a new language to their portfolio.
