PART I

When you decide to work as a translator, it is frequently a gift because it is an exciting and enriching world. However, it is very different to make a living of this profession because it turns us into an entrepreneur, with all that this implies.

Whether if we are a translation company or a freelance translator, there is a priority that we have to consider to work in what we like and make a living of it: GAIN CLIENTS.

Next, we offer you 20 effective techniques to gain clients, whether if your translation business is in the creation, growth, expansion or maturity part.

We have decided to divide this post into several parts to make a fast and pleasant reading. In this first part, we will mention 6 of those techniques.

1) CONFERENCE ASSISTANCE:

Learning and gaining clients at the same time

a) If you are a translation company or a translator specialized in a specific area, we recommend you to assist to conferences of that area where all the companies that assist are your objective.

If you can participate with a stand, the physical presence is always very positive, and it is an investment that you make in a background where all the possible clients and the return of the investment can be directly measured.

Even so, if you are a translator or interpreter and you do not think about participating with a stand, you could also assist to those conferences with a visit card and a dossier of your services. In that way, you could give those dossiers to the companies with a stand in the conference.

b) Congress assistance of the translation area. Networking.

Different translation events are made every year. In Spain, it is very common that associations as ANETI, ATRAE, APTIC, ASETRAD, etc. organize very interesting and enriching events at a professional level. In Spain, there are also other very complete congresses as the SELM.

These congresses offer the possibility to assist to a very interesting presentation that keeps you up to date with the latest news of the profession, and they are also an excellent opportunity for networking, where freelance translators and directors of translation companies can know each other in person to begin collaborations at a professional level.

Of course, when you go to these congresses, we never have to forget our visit card.

2) SPECIALISED ¨MAILING¨

 That your potential client always has a brand in mind.

The marketing email is cheap. You do not need an expensive device or software, and you won´t waste time sending emails to your clients individually. Instead, you can cluster your communication by segmenting a potential group of clients.

It is also very easy to know the results. You will know which emails have been received, the absence of people, the opening ratio (how many people have opened the mailbox) and the achieved clicks (people that have opened and entered the link).

Remember that people receive a lot of content every day, so if your leads receive hundreds of emails, how will you highlight them? Think about what and who you want to send it to. You have to use very original subjects that could help to increase the opening ratio. You should adapt every campaign to specific public and send them interesting content if you want that the marketing email works.

Important: In the email, you should add a "wake up call", an example would be "contact with us". You should also add visually and quickly a contact button or place the telephone number in a visible place.

3) TARGET STRATEGY

Gain a "locomotive" that will bring you a lot of clients.

We recommend you to contact organizations and associations where you can find your clients and possible clients.

It is convenient to analyze to identify which are the fastest ways to gain clients. The objective of this analysis is to locate where these direct channels (main targets) can be. It is important to identify these targets and take care of them because they can recommend us to other possible clients. For example: Hospitality, Bookseller, Trader, Engineer and Bar Associations, etc.

If you also boost the subscription, it is better: There exist ways to collaborate with the targets that help to promote the subscription. For example, you can offer a discount or special price for their partners or members by sponsoring their events, etc.

4) TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR ¨PARTNERS¨

Following what we mentioned before, an ingenious solution to gain clients is to work with strategic partners. They will give good references for your company and at the same time, they will use your services for their clients.

Some partners that may need Translation or Interpretation Services are the following:

• Notary
• Law Firm
• Marketing/Web Design Companies
• Consultancy firm

5) NGO PRODUCTS

Being supportive also has its reward.

Corporate Social Responsibility increasingly takes more and more, and it is important to connect your services or products to a social purpose: Saying that a percentage of your services price goes to an NGO sells a lot. When they have two similar offers, the client tends to choose the one that contributes to a charitable cause and meets their need.

6) RECOMMENDATION PROGRAMS

Your client, your best target.

The shared testimonies and experiences of satisfied clients are an excellent and profitable way to attract possible clients. People love to see what other people recommend and their opinion. Word of mouth is also very cheap: satisfied clients are willing to promote your company or service for free.

You have to think about to whom you want to talk. You can ask for references at that moment or consider the motivation for them. You could ask for a recommendation just after having had a very positive experience with your customer service or after punctuating your company with a high score… or just talk about this with your loyal clients.

The recommendation marketing helps you to reduce your average sale cycle length. The people you contact in a recommendation program usually know your services and products, and their opinion will save you time in the sales cycle.

You do not have to force them, let them decide if they want to recommend you. Maybe a satisfied client does not want to do it, because for some people is important to recommend a brand and it may affect the reputation.

You can promote the recommendation with discounts or special prices for the person that recommends you, and the person that reaches your company recommended by another one.

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In all cases, we always recommend following all the commercial actions that you do. By doing this, you can detect which ones work to reinforce them and which ones do not work so you can check and improve them (or do not use them).

We recommend using a CRM tool to follow, detect the good actions and measure the results. It would be Good that this tool would be connected with a Project and invoicing manager so you could automatically measure the results with the real sales.

You could connect all the processes of your company, even the CRM tool to manage the commercial actions that you take with Gespoint Translator. If you want to know more about Gespoint click here: SEE + INFO