Media Tip Sheets - Reaching Your Audience in a Global Economy

1. Commitment to quality. Make sure that a defined workflow and documented quality assurance procedures are in place and are used at all times. Look for a provider with a firmly established project management process involving different team members (translation, editing, proofreading). Don't be afraid to ask the provider how they ensure quality. Whether a $ 150 or $ 50,000 job, one-page or 200-page document, the level and commitment to quality and adherence to processes and procedures should be the same.

2. The price is right. To provide quality, it takes time and effort. Just because you select the agency with the lowest cost does not mean you will get the worst service - or the higher priced translation does not guarantee the best accuracy. One way certain providers cut costs is to sacrifice quality. For example, they may choose not to follow a multi-step quality process. Instead, they use one translator and skip the editing and proofreading stages by other team members. Because of this, they might be able to offer rock bottom prices. On the other hand, there is no need to pay extra for extensive overhead costs. Keep in mind - price is only one factor to consider.

3. Industry expertise. Just as you would not hire a divorce lawyer to manage your meeting with the IRS, it is highly recommended you hire a translation agency or translator with experience in your specific industry. This is particularly important for highly regulated industries, such as medical devices, clinical research, finance, etc.

4. All words and cultures are not created equal. The experienced translation agency will address country-specific cultural and linguistic issues. Brand names, for example, may need to be adjusted to target cultures to ensure that they don't have different connotations in the foreign language that could prove to be damaging to the brand or even offensive. Coca-Cola sells a lot of Diet Coke in the U.S. However, "diet" in Germany and Italy suggests illness, thus the company renamed it Coca-Cola Light.

5. Use translation memory (TM) tools. Translation memory (TM) software analyzes repetitive text in the source documents and then queries a translation memory database to identify previously translated segments. TM ensures consistency of terminology, expedites future revisions, and reduces translation costs. Consistency is improved because the TM software will always propose the same translation for the same source sentence. Even a large group of translators, working from different locations, can produce consistent translations, provided they work from the same translation memory. These tools should not be confused with Machine Translation (MT) software.