The current economic downturn has forced many businesses to make difficult decisions regarding their budgets, forcing them to cut costs and reduce budgets.
Sadly, many business owners see translation services as a ‘nice-to-have’ rather than an important pillar of their growth strategy for the future success of their business.
However, reducing your translation budget at this time might not be the best decision for your business.
In fact, there are several reasons why businesses shouldn’t reduce their translation budget during an economic slowdown.
Consider the positive impact translation has on your business
1. Expand your market reach
In today's globalised world, businesses that operate solely in their home country are missing out on a significant opportunity to expand their market reach. But international expansion comes with several challenges that translation can help overcome.
The reality is that your customers want to buy goods and services in their own language. The idea that ‘everyone speaks English’ simply isn’t true and this is borne out by market research.
After all, would you struggle to wade your way through a sales process in a language you barely understand? Then what makes you think your customers are any different?
By translating your content into multiple languages, you can reach new audiences and tap into new markets. This can help you grow and diversify, which can be crucial during an economic downturn.
2. Maintain customer loyalty
Businesses may experience decreased customer loyalty as customers become more price-sensitive and willing to switch to cheaper alternatives.
By supplying translated content in your customers' native languages, you can show them that you value their business and are willing to invest in meeting their needs. This increases customer loyalty, helping you to retain customers, even during tough economic times.
3. Improve communication with your international partners
If your business has international partners or suppliers, translation is critical for effective communication.
Inaccurate or incomplete translations can lead to misunderstandings, delays, and ultimately, lost business.
By investing in high-quality translations, you can ensure that your international partners understand your message and can respond appropriately. This helps you build strong relationships with them, at a time when business partnerships are more important than ever.
This principle also applies to larger companies that operate in several countries. Maintaining a solid corporate culture is much easier when individuals have a vested interest in seeing the company succeed – and good communication fosters that sense of community buy-in.
Making sure that everyone in the company can communicate without unnecessary barriers is fundamental when economic pressures are an additional burden to the normal intercultural challenges that businesses face.
4. Protect your brand reputation
Badly written translations can harm your brand reputation and potentially result in legal or regulatory issues.
By ensuring that your content is accurately and appropriately translated, you can help protect your brand reputation and stand out in a crowded market.
This is especially important at a time when businesses are more vulnerable to negative publicity and other threats to their brand reputation. After all, we’ve all seen those funny memes on social media where well-known companies have made silly mistakes.
Well, silly mistakes can give you a lot of publicity – but for all the wrong reasons! So it’s sensible to make sure any translated content is linguistically and culturally appropriate for the target market it was designed for.
5. Cost savings in the long run
While it may seem counterintuitive, investing in translations can actually save your business money in the long run.
Poor translations can lead to costly mistakes, delays, and even legal issues. By investing in professional translations, you can avoid these costly mistakes and ensure that your business runs smoothly.
And whatever you do, please don’t think you can get away with using Google Translate or ChatGP to translate customer-facing materials - that will only be disastrous for your business and reputation.
Reducing your translation budget during an economic downturn may seem like a logical decision, but it can actually harm your business in the long run.
By continuing to invest in translations, you can expand your market reach, maintain customer loyalty, improve communication with international partners, protect your brand reputation, and save money in the long run.
So, rather than cutting back on your translation budget, consider investing in professional translations to help your business weather the storm of an economic downturn.
If you’re struggling to make your translation budget stretch further, please get in touch and let’s see how we can work together to solve the problem.