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After your company sets off in your original market, it’s usually the time to start planning international expansion. The two things that can seem challenging are usually time and money. Translation takes time. And it also takes money, no doubt about that.

There are, however, some measures that you can take in order to reduce the time and cost required to implement translation and localization services for your business.

Optimize Your Content for Localization

Every time a client contacts a localization company, there are specific questions asked about the content. Its format, word count, layout, images are the core focus at the very beginning of the translation and localization project.

When it comes to marcomm translation, your part to cover is making sure your content is translatable. And if it requires a creative approach, meaning transcreation, you are the one that clarifies the message you want to relay. The tone, voice and the wording of your message must be consistent.

Is your content translation-friendly? Is the wording simple, lacking idiomatic expressions and emotionally neutral? When you create easy to translate content, you will most definitely save money and time, as there will be no going back and forth with the translators, making countless changes to the content. Check and finalize your content before sending it off to translation. Of course, there might be some changes that you decide to implement in your content afterwards. Try to make those as rarely as possible, though, as this will reduce the time and the cost of your translation. Every change that is put into the translated content means additional cost.

You pay by the word. Use words wisely to pay less.

Create Your Glossary

Your company its own flow, character and you want your content, regardless of the language, to reflect it. Do you want to stand out? Make it happen not only thanks to your outstanding products but also thanks to your multilingual content enticing your prospects with a message that they will not resist.

In order for it to happen, you need a glossary of terms – specific to your brand, industry and company culture. Every detail is relevant and every word counts. If you have internal staff that is native in your target languages, they can take part in creating the glossary in the given language. This will certainly save you time and money. Of course, the marketing translators will also be able to advise you and help you create a cost-effective termbase. When you use your own glossary of terms, not only you ensure the content’s consistency, but you also generate a substantial reduction of costs connected to the translation and localization process. These terms will, after all, be repeatable and will not be charged for over and over again.

Optimize Your Images and Layouts

Use images in formats that are accessible and localization-friendly. You want to use graphics that regardless of the language can be easily searched and indexed for the purpose of proper International SEO (ISEO).

The same goes for your layouts. Depending on a language, your content might take up more or less space due to the text length in a given language. Make your layouts as flexible as possible, keeping in mind the possible need of having to use a Desktop Publishing (DTP) service.

Choose the Right Translation Company

First of all, you need a professional translation company. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Even when you have your internal staff that is native in a given language, they are not specialists experienced in linguistic and cultural nuances. They may omit important changes occurring in the given language. They might also miss the risk of using inappropriate expressions, images or colors that in one country will be acceptable but in another will cause damage to your brand’s reputation.

Your company’s international expansion has to happen fast because the market’s demands are fast-changing. For this you need a professional translation and localization agency that offers the processes and resources ensuring your multilingual content is delivered on time and on spec.

A professional translation and localization agency will also make sure it’s done within the right, acceptable to you, budget.

You will also save on costs thanks to the tools and processes that they use. Translation memory, project management, quality assurance process and tools, computer-aided translation (CAT) tools. They all make your costs decrease because you don’t get charged twice for the same expression, once it’s placed in the translation memory. You save time because the translators, reviewers, post-editors and what have you, use CAT tools to automate the process as much as possible. You save money again because your translation company offers you processes and tools ensuring the quality of the translation, hence no need to go back and forth with necessary changes all the time.

And if you decide to go for a machine translation, your translation agency will offer skilled post editors that add that human touch necessary to ensure your machine-translated content sounds natural and matches the unique locale’s expectations and you will not have to wait for this to happen as this will all be delivered to you on time, as mentioned before.

Time is of the essence when it comes to introducing new products in the international markets. You don’t just want to match your competition. You want to be ahead of the game. Translation services providers make it happen for you.

Using translation services saves you money and time, and it also does the same for your team. They can focus on their own jobs, goals and tasks, without having to worry about the translation and localization aspects of making your content the real king in the markets of your choosing.

Just make sure you choose the right partner for the job. Do the proper research and ask the relevant questions.

Doesn't it all sound like a good way to reduce your time and costs spent on translation and localization services?