London, like so many cities around the world, saw its economy nosedive as the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world in 2020. Businesses of all shapes and sizes suffered as a result, with many having to pivot their services in ways they had never previously considered in order to survive the city’s massive drop in footfall.
For some small businesses, that meant turning to translation services in London in order to court new customers for their goods. It also meant ensuring that small businesses can communicate accurately in whichever languages needed. Here, we look at four ways that London’s entrepreneurs can do just that.
London Business News: Is the Worst Over?
When it comes to business news London had a dire 2020. In 2019, the city attracted 19.09 million visitors, with Mastercard’s annual survey of the most visited global destinations ranking London as the third most visited city in the world. As global travel ground to a halt, and then domestic customs as well, as a result of a nearly three-month-long lockdown, London’s small businesses suffered blow after blow as the pandemic’s impact widened, despite a range of government initiatives.
Nor is the danger over. Far from it, in fact, with travel restrictions and altered working patterns continuing to impact businesses across the capital. Over a third of the UK’s total businesses are in London and the South East, highlighting the need for the capital and its surrounding areas to take the lead when it comes to thinking outside the box and surviving the pandemic’s economic fallout.
How Small Businesses Can Take Advantage of Translation Services
Translation services can help. London businesses have two main options when it comes to upping their game through translation. The first is to seek new customers within the city. People like to buy goods in their native language. In London, residents speak over 250 languages, so businesses that translate their marketing materials have the opportunity to reach out to plenty of potential prospects.
London businesses can also consider using translation services to sell their goods overseas. Exporting goods for sale involves a fair bit of research and certainly a healthy dose of translation expertise, but the rewards can be well worth the effort. Europe alone is home to nearly 750 million people. That’s a much larger customer base than London’s 9 million!
What Translation Service Do You Need?
If you’re ready to level up your small business using translation services in London, there are four key areas to consider. Let’s take a look at each of these now.
Firstly, building a web presence in another language can be a powerful marketing tool. How many languages is your current website available in? If it’s only in English, you’re missing a trick. The majority of the cost is usually in building the site in the first place, so translating your existing site into other languages can deliver an excellent return on investment.
As with all translation services, it’s essential to work with linguists who are specialists in precisely what you need – so seek out a London translation agency with plenty of experience of translating websites rather than trusting your site to a generalist. Don’t just search for document translation services near me and hope for the best!
It’s the same with the translation of your advertising materials, which is the second key area of translation that can unlock the potential of your London business. Advertising materials are carefully crafted to appeal to a particular audience, and that’s not something that’s easy to translate to another audience. It requires careful attention to cultural nuances, in order to land the messaging appropriately and produce the intended results (that is, selling products!).
With your advertising taken care of, it’s time to think about what translation can do for your social media strategy. While some social media sites offer their own, automated translation service, this is best avoided if you’re serious about delivering effective campaigns that generate the maximum amount of custom for your business. Translation that’s delivered by humans is unlikely to contain the same flaws as that delivered by machines – and in times when your business needs to do all it can to survive, there’s no room for flaws.
The final way to market your small business using the help of a translation agency in London is network-building. You can build local and international networks through social media, running events, attending conferences, cold calling and all manner of other methods. Key to building the networks is delivering something that benefits all those involved – otherwise they’ll quickly lose interest!
Using a translation agency in London can help you with everything from preparing written information in multiple languages to interpretation at online and in-person events. Again, seek out a service that can provide linguists who specialise in what your business needs and in the terminology that you use in your sector. Doing so can make all the difference.
