Many entrepreneurs who want to start a business nowadays wish to reach an international audience. This doesn’t necessarily mean opening offices worldwide. But perhaps you want the products or services you offer to be available to more than just your homebound audience.
This means that your online presence should be in a universal language. Alternatively, depending on your offerings, you may want to focus on specific markets, in which case it is necessary you provide information in the respective languages. If you wish to do this, accurate translation is of the utmost importance.
Looking at well-established businesses, whether e-commerce or not, you can see that the information on everything from their website, social media accounts to packaging details is featured in languages that their target audience can understand.
Indeed, this can be a challenge, mainly because there are many language barriers you need to overcome. And to do this, it is crucial to use professional and accurate translation services. Any enterprise that wishes to penetrate markets outside its initial location needs to be aware of the communication challenge and be prepared to tackle this obstacle with a strong strategy.
The best approach to ensuring translation accuracy is a combination of Artificial Intelligence technology and human translation, a service Pangeanic is committed to provide. Such technology can scan through large amounts of data, while specialized individuals can focus on finer details like translating technical terms and so on. With this strategy, enterprises will be able to extract insights from data of various fields in a scalable manner.
So, here are six reasons accurate translation is crucial for your international business:
Ensuring Clear Corporate Communication
First and foremost, as a business, dealing with other companies, suppliers, clients, and customers is a must. Corporate communication issued and received by a company is, therefore, indispensable. It may be an obvious aspect, but it is crucial to mention it when it comes to translation.
In order to avoid any communication misunderstandings, an accurate translation service is necessary, especially if your potential clients or business partners are from a different country. What’s more, the language barrier must be eliminated when it comes to corporate communication and doing business abroad with foreign partners.
Only this way can you penetrate another market abroad and be able to communicate both parties’ goals and mission and reach an understanding. It almost goes without saying that there is no room for errors, given that what can get lost in translation can affect a business deal.
Accurate Marketing Adaptation Across All Channels
If you plan to expand the business in other countries, it is crucial that you implement marketing strategies relevant to the respective market and target audience. So, whether you have to create content in English or other languages, it is crucial that you carefully translate it so that it conveys the same message correctly.
Because idioms and phrases can be extremely diverse and most of the time difficult to translate, given that a culture can have meanings that don’t necessarily have an equivalent in another one, translating marketing content is challenging.
There were times when businesses translated inaccurately or misused a particular word, leading to repercussions and an affected brand image. In order to avoid this and ensure your content is clear and correct, you should consider using both machine and human translation.
Improves Reputation and Nurtures Trust
As mentioned above, the consequence of incorrect translation within a business can be severe. For instance, you could risk offending a culture by misusing words that are not properly translated or jeopardizing a business partnership.
Such an issue can negatively affect the brand’s reputation. Therefore, an accurate and high-quality translation service will help you reach target audiences abroad in an effective manner.
This way, the brand will be perceived as trustworthy and reliable, and your foreign customers and possible partners will see you are considerate to your international audiences. A brand that has a good reputation internationally has higher chances of business growth, given that the customers trust it and consider it an expert in the field.
Gains Global Consumer Appeal and Loyalty
Retaining your customers should be among your top priorities, as without them, your business has no way of functioning and being profitable. Plus, chances are you want to create products and services of top-notch quality that people will want to buy. But if you’re going to expand internationally, it is crucial to understand the consumer in the respective countries and cultures in order to gain their loyalty.
It takes more than just tailoring your product to match each target audience from different markets, to retain customers. Accurate translation of any promotional materials across all channels is of the utmost importance, as discussed before.
But to gain global customer appeal and loyalty, you must have a professional translation service to use in any interaction with your customers, including your customer service support, not just when creating online content. Because cultures and languages are so delicate, it is crucial the message and context are accurate. For this reason, machine translation should be used together with human translation.
Avoid Legal or Financial Consequences
It was said before that any misunderstandings due to incorrect translation can have major consequences. Legal and financial repercussions are also a possibility if a business translates words, idioms, or phrases improperly. For example, when it comes to publicly traded companies, stock prices can be affected if there are any misunderstandings in communication.
Even if legal or financial consequences can happen rarely, it is still possible. Hence, a noteworthy mention would be to be extremely careful and cautious when it comes to translating any information or message. Because there are so many different meanings and words that could easily harm the brand’s reputation if not used correctly, it is vital to invest in translation services that are reliable and accurate.
Avoid Misinterpretations Within Business Operations
When a business expands internationally, communicating with employees, suppliers, and clients from different countries is a given. What’s more, this communication is not only informal and carried out via emails or in person.
As a business, involved parties must sign contracts, confirm terms and conditions, and other vital documents. For this reason, accurate translation to detail is crucial, as any misunderstanding can have financial or reputation consequences.
To handle international business operations across all the company’s departments, you should consider using machine translation services to scan, analyze and translate large amounts of data. In addition, a specialized translator will help ensure the context is clear and any technical terms are not misused.