Are you looking for marketing opportunities that will further your business goals? Doing business in Australia over the course of 2020 and 2021 has been an unusual experience, to say the least. At the time of writing, Sydney is once more locked down to battle a COVID-19 outbreak. And while we can hope it will be the last such lockdown, the odds of that aren’t great. So, how can translation services help local businesses ride out the storm? Let’s find out.

What could translation services do for your business?

Connecting with customers online has never been more important. That’s why using translation services to provide the expertise you need for your digital marketing strategy has moved from many companies’ ‘nice to have’ list to their ‘top priority’ list. In short, businesses that can connect with people who speak different languages have more potential customers within their reach. And, right now, reaching out through digital channels is many businesses’ only way of connecting with people.

The need for translation isn’t new. Nor is the need for effective digital marketing. The latter needs to flow smoothly across platforms. As of 2019, half of all website traffic came from mobile devices (excluding tablets). That means that businesses need to implement a cross-channel, cross-platform strategy to engage as many customers as possible. They need to deliver across language barriers too if they’re serious about maximising their income.

Sydney is the most multicultural city in Australia. Around 30% of its population speaks a language other than English at home. As such, translation is essential for any company that wants to reach out to more than 70% of the city (as online shoppers by far prefer to shop in their native tongue). Marketing businesses properly these days means partnering with a decent translation company, particularly when that marketing takes place digitally.

Translation services that businesses need

Using translation services to develop your digital marketing strategy can deliver multiple benefits. Firstly, you can connect with more customers in your local area. Locked down or not, you can reach out to local audiences in their own languages and build relationships that will encourage them to purchase your goods or services.

Secondly, by using a translation service, companies can connect with customers across the country. Sydney isn’t the only multicultural and multilingual city in Australia. By embracing other languages as part of your digital marketing strategy, you widen the net in terms of capturing new audiences for your business.

And when it comes to the benefits of translation services, businesses can set their sights even higher. After all, why stop at domestic customers when you can take on the world? If your products have international appeal, then a translation service can help you to explore demand for them in other countries – and then to engage customers in the most promising markets through your digital marketing efforts.

Digital marketing – what’s at stake?

Estimates suggest that locking down Sydney for two weeks knocks around A$2 billion off Australia’s GDP. Clearly, local businesses will be some of those hit hardest, so it makes sense to do all you can to ensure that your company contributes as little to that A$2 billion as possible.

Many companies have matured their digital marketing efforts since the pandemic began. Some out of necessity in order to survive and others as a result of lockdowns providing people with more time to focus on strategy while normal operations are on hold. If you’ve not yet updated your own digital marketing strategy, now is the time!

Finding the right translation service

Where do you start when it comes to finding translation that your business can rely on? Well, you could tap translation agency near me or something similar into your search engine. You’ll find plenty of results for companies serving businesses in your city.

However, there’s a lot to be said for using a company that comes with a personal recommendation. As such, reach out across your professional network to see if any of your contacts can recommend a translation service that they have used themselves. These types of recommendations are superb, as you can grill your contact on everything from how they found working with the translators to the quality of the work to the company’s level of customer service.

Of course, if you don’t have any contacts who have used translation services before, then you still have the whole of the internet at your disposal. This means you can not only create a shortlist of potential companies but also do your own due diligence, looking at how long translation services have been in business for (the longer the better, obviously), how well (or otherwise) clients rate them on review sites and how broad the range of languages and services that they provide is.

The other thing to remember is to focus on is finding an agency that has plenty of relevant marketing expertise. Translation isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ kind of deal. Translators can specialise in a vast range of different areas of work, such as legal, financial or technical translation. As such, be sure to shortlist translation services that have extensive marketing and digital marketing experience, in addition to the language pairings that you need.

Fine-tuning your multilingual digital marketing strategy

Digital marketing is about much more than writing a few social media posts. Your digital marketing assets include your website, video content, infographics and imagery, blog posts, guest posts and more. That’s why it’s so important to work with an agency with the right expertise. You’ll need to think about search engine optimisation, mobile and email marketing, content marketing, analytics and more – all in more than one language. This can present a challenge, but it’s also a huge opportunity. By finding a translation service that can work with you as a long-term strategy partner, you could do much to grow your business.