Translation as a service: A quick guide for digital agencies

As a digital agency, finding new ways to add value for your clients and become a more strategic partner to them is a core part of the game. And if the brands you work with are already international or planning to expand to new markets, offering translation as a service can seem like an obvious good fit.

Perhaps you’ve been asked by a client recently if you offer translation services and you’re thinking about it as a potential markup opportunity. Or maybe you’re looking for an additional income stream alongside your core content or SEO offering.

Whatever the case, joining up with a translation partner can be a great way to better support your clients as they take their products into new countries. Let’s explore how to go about finding a translation partner, and some of the best practices for working efficiently with them.

 

Agency vs freelancer vs machine translation

If you’re looking to add translation services to your agency’s offering, your first step is to figure out how best to do this. Assuming you don’t have a natural polyglot with plenty of free time already on your team, you’re going to be looking to outsource. But what is the best avenue to go down – partnering with a translation agency, hiring freelancers, or using machine translation?

 

Machine translation

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room first. There is one clear benefit to using AI or machine translations, and that’s the cost.

But we should be clear here, because when we say cost, we really mean upfront cost. The best form of machine translation is one that’s also undergone human review – and if you don’t speak the target language yourself, that means still paying for either a freelancer or translation agency partner.

Then there are the hidden long-term costs. Even if the machine translation isn’t full of mistakes – which they often are – AI has no insights into the nuance of speaking to different markets. It can’t advise on how marketing claims will be received differently in Germany and the UK, or how to tweak English SEO keywords to make the most impact in French searches.

Without that human insight, your clients’ translations won’t have the right impact on their customers – and this will put your clients on the lookout for a different translation partner.

 

 

Freelancer translators

In many ways, freelancers are the backbone of the translation industry, and there are plenty of advantages to working with them.

For one, freelancers tend to be cheaper on a per project basis than hiring a whole agency. You can also have more direct communication with the translator themselves rather than speaking account manager to account manager.

As an agency, you’re also likely to have experience working with freelancers in other areas – like design or copywriting, for example – so a freelance translator might offer a more familiar working relationship.

And lastly, working with a freelancer often means you’re working with a translator whose skills are very specialised in their chosen language and field. This can be perfect if the work you’re briefing out is the same kind of content and needs to be translated into the same language each time, because you can find a freelancer who excels at that and build a continuous relationship with them.

But if you have a lot of variety in your translation needs – whether that’s translating into multiple languages or for different sectors and types of marketing materials – you might have to build up a network of freelancers to cover all of your bases.

 

Translation agencies

Partnering with an agency might seem like the most costly option at first glance, but it could also be the option where you stand to gain the most value.

One of the biggest benefits of partnering with a translation agency is scalability. Agencies have built-in availability to handle multiple languages at once, as well as varying project sizes and deadlines. And that capability doesn’t come with increased management from your side of things – you’re only dealing with one project manager rather than juggling five or six separate freelancers.

You’re also able to take advantage of a broader range of sector expertise. At AJT, we have a highly collaborative process that means there’s always more than one person’s insights being brought to the table.

And last but not least, there’s the question of quality control. With a translation agency, part of what you pay for is the assurance of having at least two pairs of eyes on every translation before it comes back to you.

Reviewing work is essential when it comes to translation – not just for accuracy but also for style and impact. You want to make sure the right loan words are in place, and the message still has the right flow and resonance with the audience once it’s in the target language. A translation agency can review their own translations to ensure this happens.

 

 

Selecting and briefing your translation partner

Whichever type of language service provider you choose to work with, offering translation as a service requires a solid partnership. Your ideal translation partner should slot into your workflow like an extension of your agency.

To make that a reality, it’s best to spend some time getting to know how your translation partner works. What are their processes and workflows? Their minimum fees and standard turnaround times? What’s the best way to share files with them?

For instance, if you know that your translators work best when they’re sent InDesign files they can edit directly, you can save yourself and your clients from paying for unnecessary file prep time. If you know how many words their minimum fee covers, you can advise your clients on how to batch smaller pieces of copy together for better value.

Getting to know your translation partner like this is all about making sure you know how to get the most out of working with them.

For example, one of our clients brings us in on SEO briefs which often span several months. Because of the longer nature of those projects, staying organised is essential for both of us.

That’s why it’s so helpful that this client communicates what they’ll need from us ahead of time, and provides thorough Gantt charts so we can all keep track of what’s happening with the project. As a result, they get the most value from AJT because we’re able to properly organise our resources to deliver what they need.

 

 

To find out more about working with AJT to support your clients’ international campaigns, get in touch.