Happy 2011 to everyone out there in the translation blogosphere! To start the year off, here’s a very interesting interview I came across: sports writer Bill Simmons interviewing New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell. Both Simmons and Gladwell draw some interesting parallels between sports and the rest of life, but my favorite is Gladwell’s take on [...]
Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category
Happy 2011: Are bad habits a form of self-protection?
Posted in Freelancing, Marketing, Productivity, Translation quality, Working from home on January 5, 2011 | 4 Comments »
Reader question: cold-contacting with holiday cards
Posted in Clients, Marketing on December 17, 2010 | 10 Comments »
Here’s a followup to my post on What to send clients and colleagues for the holidays. This is a question that recently came up in the online course I teach, and I’d like to put it out to a wider audience. Is it appropriate to use holiday cards as cold contacts to potential clients? If [...]
Making translation easy versus making translation cheap
Posted in Clients, Marketing, Money on October 11, 2010 | 21 Comments »
When you’re inquiring about a professional service, let’s say taxes, computer help or marketing consulting, which is more attractive to you: a service provider who seems ultra-competent and gives the impression that the process will be easy for you, or a service provider who charges low rates and gives the impression that the process will [...]
Issue #2 of the ATA Compass
Posted in Announcements, Marketing, Professional associations on September 16, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Issue #2 of ATA’s new publication for translation buyers and consumers, the ATA Compass, is online now. It’s entitled “First, Do No Harm: The Myths of Healthcare Interpreting” and features interviews with Dr. James Rohack, the Immediate Past President of the American Medical Association, and Doug Green of the Texas Association of Healthcare Interpreters and [...]
Are your marketing materials missing critical information?
Posted in Freelancing, Marketing on September 14, 2010 | 5 Comments »
In the course of preparing for the ATA conference coming to Denver in October, I’ve been visiting the websites of a lot of Denver-area businesses. Many have excellent sites, but it amazes me to see the information that is missing from some of them. Actual examples: a restaurant that does not have its address or [...]
Responding to a request for quote
Posted in Clients, Marketing, Money, Rates on May 24, 2010 | 7 Comments »
When you receive an “out of the blue” request for a quote from a potential translation client, what’s the best next step? Is it more advantageous to call the client, e-mail them, ask for more information or send them a rate sheet…or something else entirely? The beauty of impromptu inquiries from potential clients is that [...]
Marketing your services to translation agencies
Posted in Marketing on May 10, 2010 | 15 Comments »
Whether to work with direct clients, translation agencies or both is a personal and business decision. I work with both types of clients and I feel that this mix keeps my work volume and income up while giving me a wide range of projects to choose from. Paula Dieli’s blog has an insightful interview with [...]
The tyranny of the sub-goal
Posted in Marketing, Productivity on April 13, 2010 | 9 Comments »
I learned the expression “the tyranny of the sub-goal” from my husband, who most frequently applies it to chores around the house, as in “We need to paint the living room but before that we have to fix the hole in the sheetrock where we smashed the corner of the washing machine into the wall.” [...]
Potential clients and sticker shock
Posted in Marketing, Money on April 7, 2010 | 17 Comments »
Wiktionary defines sticker shock as “Disgust, shock or fright upon learning the price of an item offered for sale,” and this roughly describes the reaction of many would-be translation buyers when they learn the price of a professional translation. This leaves the professional translator with a dilemma: how to handle a sticker-shocked client. In my [...]
Some thoughts on business cards
Posted in Marketing, tagged business cards on March 5, 2010 | 15 Comments »
Despite the explosion in online and offline marketing techniques, the lowly business card remains one of the most cost-effective and widely used marketing materials in a freelance translator’s arsenal. Small, inexpensive, customizable, easy to distribute… business cards have a lot of advantages, so it’s worth looking at what makes a good (and bad) business card. [...]
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If you enjoy Corinne’s blog, check out her book!
Corinne McKay is an ATA-certified French to English translator specializing in international development, law and non-fiction books. She launched Thoughts on Translation in February, 2008 as a way to connect and share ideas with freelance translators around the world.
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