Finding Your Client’s Voice

Marketing translation is about so much more than transferring words on a page into a different language. Marketing texts are meant to be persuasive, so even if your translation is completely grammatically accurate, if it doesn’t compel the reader to go out and buy a product or engage with a brand, it isn’t fulfilling its purpose. So, what’s the key to a good marketing translation? I’d argue it all comes down to tone. 

In a perfect world, your client will have prepared a style guide. These tend to be used by larger corporations who have a wide range of people producing content for their brand. They offer guidelines concerning the type of terms they’d prefer you to use and the intended demographic they need you to write for. Style guides are great, but the reality is that you won’t always have one to work with. Particularly if you’re dealing with a smaller client who hasn’t had their work translated before, you may be on your own. So, what do you do then? These are my tips for finding an appropriate brand voice so that you can produce the best possible marketing translation.

Personality

It helps if you can think of the brand you’re working for as a person. In some cases, for example if you’re working for a solo entrepreneur, they might really be a person. Think about their values and the qualities they have. Are they fun and jokey or polished and professional? Do they speak in romantic, poetic language or do they like to get straight to the point?

As an exercise, you can ask yourself: “Who would this brand be if they were a celebrity or television character?” Obviously, in order to do this, you’ll need to do your research. Check out their website and social media platforms to get a sense of how they present themselves to the world. 

Once you’ve got this down, you’ll make better linguistic choices when it comes to your translation. For example, you’ll know whether you should go the colloquial route or keep things formal.

Audience

As well as having a strong sense of who is speaking, you need to know who you’re speaking to. There’s that famous marketing cliché that if you aren’t speaking to somebody specific then you aren’t speaking to anybody at all. In this case, it’s a cliché because it’s true. Your client will have had somebody in mind when they wrote their content and it’s your job to make sure you’re speaking to the equivalent person in your target language.

If it isn’t immediately obvious, you can ask your client who usually buys their products and services. A lot of companies will have a fictional customer in mind when they produce their marketing materials. They may be able to give you some concept of their gender, age, marital status, earnings, hobbies, interests, values, etc. It’s important to know this because it’s possible that the exact same customer has different expectations in your target language. Maybe they’d prefer a more formal tone or something a bit chattier. This is where your nuanced cultural knowledge comes into play. Is there something in your translation that the appropriate reader might find offensive or not understand? You’ll need to make the relevant changes so that your text can serve its purpose.

Purpose

This brings us perfectly to the next point: what exactly is the purpose of your text? It’s easy to assume that all marketing texts are focused on direct selling, but that really isn’t the case. Modern day personal branding is all about authentic connection, so more than anything, you’re probably trying to communicate a feeling. You really need to know what that feeling is so that you can select the words that are most likely to invoke it.

There are also times when you may need to deviate from your brand’s usual tone. For example, if a brand is releasing a formal apology following some kind of PR disaster, you’ll want to keep the tone serious. Even if a brand usually uses a jokey, quirky tone, it just wouldn’t be appropriate in this instance. 

Similarly, a lot of companies will have a slightly different tone they use for recruitment texts or business to business marketing. This means it’s really important to know how a text is going to be used.

Consistency

I really can’t emphasise this enough, but consistency is key when you’re looking to recreate a brand’s voice in a different language. This is where your translation memory software really helps you out. It’s essential that you’re always translating slogans and key terms the same way every time they occur. If you’re working on a project with multiple translators, you all need to stick to the same script.

Consistency will make a brand’s voice recognisable to customers. There’s a lot of repetition in marketing, because it’s important to keep reinforcing key messages. You can’t do this if you aren’t being consistent.

Since consistency is so important, you’ll want to think carefully the first time you translate key words and slogans. Make sure they’re really effective, because once you’ve settled on something, you’ll be stuck with it for a while. There’s nothing worse than your own sloppy work coming back to haunt you.

So, there you go. In many instances, finding your client’s voice might seem like quite an intuitive thing, but it’s still worth thinking through your choices. It’s important that you can confidently explain yourself to your client and any other translators working on a project. Instead of saying something like, “Well, this just sounds right here”, you want to be able to explain that you picked a certain term because you’ve done your research and you know that it will resonate strongly with the client’s target audience of X, Y and Z, for example. By doing this, you’re demonstrating your expertise and this builds trust. You’re showing that being a specialist marketing translator is about so much more than good grammar and linguistic prowess.