Posts in category: Blog

Location: North West, UK

Sector: Manufacturing / Sustainability

Project: Technical document translation for publication
Language(s): English > German

Client

Our client is a UK-based manufacturer of high-performance materials for the international flexographic and corrugated printing industry. With over 50 years of industry expertise, the company has established itself as an innovative leader in sustainable printing solutions. They recently pioneered the industry’s first bio-based plate mounting material specifically developed for corrugated printing, representing a significant step in decarbonising printing operations while maintaining high-performance standards.

Translating a comprehensive article outlining their sustainable innovations as well as the scientific and environmental properties of their unique product material from English to German was essential for our client to:

• Expand further into the German and broader European markets
• Communicate their sustainability innovation to German-speaking stakeholders
• Ensure compliance with EU sustainability reporting requirements
• Position themselves as sustainability leaders in the European flexographic printing sector

Challenge / Solution

Our task was to translate comprehensive technical documentation detailing the company’s innovation and sustainability strategy to be published in a well-respected magazine of a governing body in Germany. The content required expert handling and attention to detail due to its complex technical and regulatory elements.

We assigned a specialised team of technical translators with extensive experience working in the fields of manufacturing, sustainability and regulatory compliance. Our translators possessed specific knowledge of German and EU regulatory frameworks, ensuring accurate translation of complex compliance requirements, including sustainability reporting directives and legislative proposals relating to the simplification of sustainability rules.

The translation process involved rigorous terminology management to maintain consistency across technical specifications and regulatory references. We adapted the content to reflect German business communication preferences while preserving the document’s persuasive impact and technical credibility.

Special attention was also paid to translating sustainability metrics and ensuring precise communication of the product’s environmental benefits and other key features to support our client’s market differentiation strategy. Our team also undertook thorough and targeted research to accurately and effectively translate environmental impact indicators and their acronyms such as Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).

Impact

Our client was highly satisfied with our technical translation expertise and cultural adaptation of their sustainability messaging for the German market.

The successful German translation and publication will have a significant business impact for our client, including:

• Market expansion success: The translated documentation directly supports our client’s successful entry into European markets, supporting their strategic expansion into German-speaking regions where sustainability regulations and environmental compliance are increasingly prioritised.
• Enhanced credibility: Accurate translation of technical specifications and regulatory compliance messaging establishes credibility with German engineering and manufacturing audiences, critical for B2B success in the German market.
• Regulatory compliance support: Precise translation of EU sustainability directives and German supply chain legislation helps position our client as knowledgeable about local regulatory requirements, strengthening their market positioning.
• Industry leadership positioning: Our translation helps establish our client as a thought leader in sustainable printing innovation across German-speaking markets, enhancing brand perception and market authority.

Our team was proud to support our client’s mission to drive sustainable innovation in the flexographic printing industry and help them achieve meaningful business success in the German market through expert technical translation.

Get in touch with us today for a consultation on your technical translation and market expansion strategy: info@ecls-translations.com.

Quality assurance is a crucial part of the localisation process – premium-quality localised content shows you think highly of your customers and take the time to communicate with them effectively in their native language. This strengthens brand loyalty and trust, and can have a huge impact on building your positive reputation overseas. Conversely, when errors are missed, this can lead to reputational damage, dissatisfaction among customers and even legal issues.

But what is quality assurance exactly and what does it look like in today’s increasingly technological translation and localisation industry? We spoke to Isabel, QA specialist at ecls translations, to find out how her role has changed over the years, what processes are involved in quality assurance and how these processes benefit ecls’ clients.

Q: First things first, can you tell us what quality means to you when it comes to localisation projects?

A: I think there are many factors that define the quality of a localisation project. The meaning of the source content should be conveyed accurately but in a way that reads naturally to the target audience, taking any cultural nuances into account. There should not be any linguistic errors like spelling or grammatical mistakes. Dates, numbers and measurements should be localised correctly for the target market and any client-specific instructions, glossaries or style guides should be followed. Technical terms should also be localised accurately and consistently. I could probably go on, but they’re the main things I look for!

Q: Can you talk us through the processes involved in quality assurance at a Language Services Provider like ecls and what a typical day looks like for you?

A: The quality assurance process starts right at the beginning of any localisation project when a suitable linguist is assigned and reference material, such as glossaries, are gathered from the client. Technology plays a big role as well. Translation memories, for example, store previously translated content to ensure terms are translated consistently. There are also quality assurance checks built in to computer-assisted translation tools.

Once the initial translation is complete, the QA specialist will read the localised text against the source text to check for accuracy, as well as things like omissions, inconsistently translated terms, incorrectly localised measurements and terms that don’t adhere to the client’s style guides. After making any necessary corrections, they will do a final check of the entire content to ensure it reads well before any final formatting takes place for delivery to the client.

A typical day can be very varied. I might be checking another linguist’s work or a text produced by a non-native speaker, or I might be post-editing machine translation output. The end goal is the same but post-editing tends to require additional checks, as the output is not at the same standard as a human translator’s work yet, for example machines tend to overlook cultural nuances and might not take client preferences into account.

Q: You mentioned post-editing machine translation output, which seems to have become a more frequent task for human translators these days. Can you tell us a bit about how your role has changed over the years?

A: Previously my role was mostly proofreading translations that had been produced by human linguists. This meant that I could liaise with the translator where necessary to understand why they had made certain decisions in a particular project, and they could pass on any comments to me that they felt were necessary to explain their choices. While I do still check other linguists’ work, these days a lot of clients have strict deadlines or tight budgets, so they might ask for an MTPE (machine translation post-editing) service instead.

This means that the content is run through a translation tool and I then edit the output. I still check the same things – spelling, grammar, accuracy, consistency, terminology translated in line with the client’s preferences and reference material etc. Post-editing can often involve re-translating some of the machine translation output though, for example a machine will usually follow the punctuation of the source, but a professional human translator might split up a sentence if this improves readability. A machine will also not have a full understanding of the context in which the localised content will be used, which can mean that amends need to be made.

Another task that I sometimes work on these days is machine translation output evaluation. A client might ask me to check content that has been produced by AI translation tools and to give it a quality score. I then need to flag any errors and categorise them, so the client can see where the tools have got it wrong. The categories might be things like omission, mistranslation, terminology or spelling. Sometimes I receive two translations that have been produced by two different pieces of software and I need to assess which is better and requires the least editing.

I enjoy doing tasks like these, as it’s something a bit different and I feel like I’m using my brain in a slightly different way!

Q: Finally, what are the benefits of quality assurance for your clients?

A: There are so many benefits for our clients. Firstly, they receive localised content that is accurate, consistent, fit for purpose and culturally adapted for their target audience. They know that the final content is ready to be used and won’t require any further checks from their side. This saves our clients time and money in the long run. They will also see other benefits for their business, whether this be in the form of increased sales thanks to the product descriptions on their website now being available in other languages, or a decrease in support requests due to professionally localised instruction manuals, for example. It also goes without saying that high-quality localised content increases customer trust and satisfaction. Just think how you feel when you read something that’s full of linguistic errors or cultural faux pas on a website – it doesn’t make you want to put your trust in that company!

Thanks for your time, Isabel. It’s fascinating to see how the translation and localisation industry is changing.

If you’d like to discuss your localisation, AI editing and cultural consultancy requirements and plans for international growth with us, please do get in touch at info@ecls-translations.com and we’ll be happy to help.

Location: California, USA
Sector: General content to train AI
Project: Translating and proofreading online news and magazine articles
Language(s): German > US English

Client

Our client is a multinational tech company providing services in search engine technology, online advertising, e-commerce and artificial intelligence. They recently launched a new large language model (LLM) that is designed to generate content, answer questions, caption images, translate audio and much more. It’s already being used by approximately 275 million people around the world. Providing high-quality training data for a large language model like our client’s is essential to help it to:

• Learn language patterns from a large dataset
• Acquire knowledge across a range of subjects
• Understand how to perform a variety of tasks
• Recognise cultural references and idioms

Challenge / Solution

Our task was to translate and proofread around 20,000 words of online content from German into US English within a particularly tight timeframe. Quality was crucial in this pilot project for our long-standing multinational client. We needed to deliver translations that were not only accurate and faithful to the source, but that also sounded natural in the target language, while rendering any cultural references, idioms or humour in a way that would resonate appropriately with native US English speakers.

We were provided with around 30 pages of reference material, quality guidelines and specific instructions to ensure the success of the project, as well as a video tutorial outlining the key requirements. Our client emphasised that all content must be translated and proofread by human linguists, as the results would be used to train their AI tool and they needed to be free of any translation software bias.

A small, trusted team of our most highly qualified translators and proofreaders worked together on this project. We made sure that we followed the instructions and quality guidelines to a tee. Thorough and targeted research was required, for example some of the articles featured the names of German books and podcasts while others referenced social media posts. When translating quotes, we followed the original English versions that had been posted by established news outlets online while adhering to the client’s stylistic instructions.

We also made sure to strike the right balance between sticking closely to the source content, without any additions or omissions, and translating freely and creatively to produce natural-sounding translations; this approach was crucial to ensuring that the translations would be effective in training our client’s LLM.

We completed the project during an exceptionally busy run-up to Christmas and made sure we were available for linguistic quality assurance (LQA) checks carried out by our client. Our client’s reviewer confirmed that our translations were exceptional in terms of quality.

Impact

Training data is essential for LLMs such as the tool created by our client. Their AI platform is already being used by millions of people around the world to help them with tasks ranging from composing work emails to writing poetry! Companies that develop their own LLMs need specialised training data to:

• ensure quality
• differentiate their product from others on the market
• address specific use cases
• potentially reduce legal risks compared to using only public data sources

Our client was impressed by our team’s exceptionally written and thoroughly researched translations, which allowed them to further refine their LLM in the following ways:

• The texts could be used to teach the software language patterns relating to vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure
• The translations we provided covered topics ranging from cooking and music to travel and real estate, meaning that our client’s LLM could acquire a vast amount of information on a range of subjects
• Our fully localised and culturally adapted translations included idioms and other cultural references that the software can use to better understand context and nuance
• Our factually accurate and thoroughly researched translations provided our client’s LLM with diverse examples on a range of subjects to allow it to make efficient generalisations and respond appropriately to new inputs
• Thanks to our team’s dedicated work on this project, our client can feel confident in the quality of the training data being fed to its LLM, which will ultimately make it stand out among its competitors

Our team was delighted to take on this project and found the broad range of content fascinating to translate – this was a thoroughly enjoyable project to work on, covering a wide range of subjects, and we felt incredibly proud to be helping our client further refine its world-leading AI tool by providing our usual high-quality translations.

Get in touch with us today for a consultation on your AI language strategy: info@ecls-translations.com.

Location: Berlin, Germany
Sector: E-commerce / beauty
Project: Post-editing machine-translated product descriptions 
Language(s): German > UK English

Client

Our client is one of Europe’s leading online retailers who specialises in selling fashion and beauty products. The company was founded in Berlin and now serves around 25 European markets. In 2023, our client was estimated to have around 50 million active users with a revenue of over 10 billion euros, making it one of the most successful multi-brand fashion/beauty retailers in Europe.

Localising their website’s descriptions for hair, skin and makeup products from German into UK English was essential for our client to:

• Boost their sales in the UK
• Increase consumer trust
• Avoid confusing UK customers with incorrect translations or US versions of beauty and fashion vocabulary
• Improve their search engine rankings for UK-specific searches and drive more organic traffic to their website

Challenge / Solution

Our task was to post-edit around 60,000 words of beauty product descriptions to appear on our client’s website. The content had already been machine translated and it was our task to ensure that the output was accurately localised, consistent and in line with the client’s various stylistic requirements.

A number of reference documents were provided detailing the client’s preferences in relation to terminology, style and tone of voice. Due to the volume of the project and the tight deadline, a small team of specialist translators was selected for their vast experience in post-editing and localising e-commerce content to work on the project simultaneously.

We quickly familiarised ourselves with around 20 reference documents to make sure that the final translations adhered to the client’s preferred terminology and tone of voice. As the descriptions involved products from other retailers that our client would be selling as a third party on their website, we also had to adapt the texts to make sure they didn’t read as if our client had manufactured the products themselves. This involved an element of copy writing and required great attention to detail to spot anything that needed changing, as the machine translation tool would not have been able to follow such an intricate instruction.

As the project was shared across a small team and to maintain consistency, we consulted with each other on the finer details such as the way we approached localising numbers and whether to write them out or use digits, for example.

Impact

Our client was highly impressed with our quick turnaround of their project and they commended us for our attention to detail and strict adherence to the client's stylistic requirements.

Implementing properly localised UK English content on their website will have significant business impact for our client, including:

• Revenue growth: UK customers who encounter familiar terminology, sizing information and cultural references when it comes to fashion and beauty products are more likely to complete their online purchases and return for repeat orders.
• Strengthened market positioning against UK competitors: Localised content will place our client firmly among the top online retailers for UK consumers.
• SEO performance improvement: Accurate UK English terminology will improve our client’s organic search visibility, driving more targeted traffic to their website.
• Increased customer satisfaction: Effectively localised content will reduce customer service queries about sizing and product features, thus improving customer satisfaction and our client’s operational efficiency, reducing costs.
• Brand perception enhancement: Authentic UK English product descriptions will help our client to demonstrate cultural understanding and their commitment to the UK market, which will in turn strengthen brand perception and loyalty among British consumers.

Our team thoroughly enjoyed working on this machine translation post-editing project to help our client reach a broader UK audience thanks to effectively localised product descriptions on their website.

Get in touch with us today for a consultation on your website localisation strategy: info@ecls-translations.com.

Location: Paris, Île-de-France
Sector: HR tech

Project: Translating and reviewing video subtitles
Language(s): French > US English

Client

Our client is a software company that provides Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions – used by over 1,000,000 employees daily – that support over 7,000 businesses to automate their HR and administrative processes, including:

- Time tracking;

- Online payslip distribution;

- Leave and absences; as well as

- Performance reviews and monitoring employee well-being at work.

The HR tech sector is experiencing a period of rapid growth as employers look to attract and retain the best talent. With ambitious revenue goals, our client is now looking to build its product portfolio with its sights set on international expansion beyond French borders.

Challenge / Solution

Our task was to translate and review a number of high-volume video subtitles from French into English within several working days. We assigned three of our most experienced linguists to translate our client’s e-learning video subtitles. One dedicated proofreader was then responsible for having final oversight of the subtitles, reviewing them for accuracy, timing and correct synchonisation – alongside the usual grammar and spelling checks – to ensure the best possible viewing experience.

Not only did we have to quickly get to grips with the client’s preferred subtitling software but also the strict character restrictions per line and very fast speech. The end result was a subtitle translation that was not only accurate and faithful to the source, but that also sounded natural for US English-speaking viewers.

Impact

With English being widely spoken as the first or second language across the world, as part of our client’s international expansion plans, being able to provide their e-learning videos in US English alongside the original spoken French will ensure a much broader global reach for their growing product portfolio.

Our client also enjoyed a greater return on investment, with the same educational content being able to serve multiple markets and being able to be used time and again to help train customers on software features, maximising the value of our client’s initial production efforts.

Through offering multilingual content, our client also gains a competitive advantage, standing out in the marketplace as more inclusive and internationally minded. The high quality of the final subtitles ensured that any cultural nuance was preserved and that the viewer experience was maximised, ultimately leading to smooth collaboration and successful adoption of the client’s software for many years to come.

Our team was delighted to support a further client in the HR field. Get in touch with us today for a consultation on your international expansion strategy: info@ecls-translations.com.

Localisation projects are often complex and varied with a single project often involving numerous languages, documents, linguists and processes. Having an experienced project manager to oversee your project from start to finish can make a huge difference to the success of your project and is one of the main reasons clients choose to work with Language Service Providers. In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at project management in the translation and localisation industry: the processes involved, recent technological developments and how it all benefits you as a client.

The role of a localisation project manager

A localisation project manager will be with you at every step of your project – from advising you on the best solution for your requirements and budget to final delivery of the target-language content in line with your timeframes and formatting requirements. Even a project with just one document and one target language can include several complex stages.

The processes involved in a typical localisation project usually include the following:

• Assessing your requirements and providing guidance (depending on languages, service type, deadlines, budget, formatting, for example)
• Analysing your content to confirm the volumes and any repeated text (repetitions can then be charged at a discounted rate)
• Preparing a quotation in line with your budget requirements
• Selecting suitable linguists based on areas of expertise, service required, language combination etc.
• Preparing your documentation for the linguist team, e.g. in a computer-assisted translation tool, and providing them with your reference material and all instructions relating to stylistic requirements etc.
• Managing the linguist team and consulting you on any queries that arise throughout the course of the project
• Arranging proofreading (if required) and formatting of the localised text
• Checking over the final translated content and delivering to you on time and in line with the high quality standards you expect

A localisation project manager acts as the interface between you and the broader team of linguists (which can be quite extensive), using their excellent communication skills and in-depth knowledge of localisation to ensure you get the best result.

Technological developments

While the skills required to be an effective project manager – such as excellent problem solving, communication and organisational skills – remain the same, the role of a localisation project manager has changed somewhat in recent years thanks to advances in technology. Many of the processes mentioned above require the use of technology in the form of computer-assisted translation software, translation management systems (TMS) and integrations, and there are a number of increasingly efficient tools available that can make these processes even more automated and streamlined.

Translation Management Systems, for example, can be used for logging, tracking and scheduling projects, automating a lot of the repetitive tasks that project managers used to have to do manually such as importing word count analyses and sharing files with linguists regardless of their current time zone.

Thanks to these advances in technology, the time saved on manual and repetitive administrative tasks can now be spent on higher value-adding tasks for clients. Localisation project managers now have more opportunity to communicate with you to understand your needs and incorporate any feedback from previous projects, for example in the form of QA checks. Taking the time to discuss localisation requirements allows project managers to further improve efficiency for you as the client and to offer additional services such as consulting or training for linguists.

Client benefits

There are many benefits to having a dedicated localisation project manager to support you with your plans for business growth and expansion into international markets. Project managers are experts in their field and have in-depth knowledge of the tools and technology that not only ensure your translations are accurate but also guarantee projects will run smoothly. They can guide you at every stage of the process and organise complex localisation projects involving multiple languages, documents, linguists and time zones.

They will ensure that your localisation results are consistent by using software such as translation memories, which store previously translated content, and placing your projects with the same experienced team of linguists. They will manage the query process and ensure that your translations are delivered on time and in line with the highest quality standards, taking proactive steps where necessary – for example clarifying anything that is unclear in the source content.

Thanks to the technology that is now available to project managers in the translation industry, they will also be able to take more time to understand your specific needs, get to know your business and goals and work on making the process even more efficient for you. Every stage of your localisation project will be managed for you, leaving you with more time to focus on what you do best – running your business.

Example ecls project

We recently completed a 150,000-word project under tight time constraints for one of our clients, a multinational technology giant. We were tasked with translating and proofreading a huge variety of technical product descriptions from French into US English for their shopping service platform that helps users to compare products from different online retailers.

The project was instantly added to our orders system thanks to an API that we have set up to automatically accept and log projects from the client’s online portal. We assigned the project to a group of our most trusted and experienced translators and proofreaders via the same portal, who were then able to access the files in the client’s own translation software. These multiple integrations and automated workflows allowed us to save valuable time to focus on the finer details of the project itself, for example clarifying guidelines with our client regarding how they wanted us to localise currencies and measurements for a US audience.

We received a glowing testimonial from our client, who confirmed that our “professionalism, expertise, and commitment to excellence” made a significant impact on their organisation and that our “simple and straightforward workflow has significantly enhanced […] operations, resulting in improved efficiency and productivity”. Our client particularly appreciated our “collaborative approach” and “willingness to adapt and accommodate changes”, which made the project run smoothly and efficiently.

If you would like to discuss your localisation, AI editing and cultural consultancy requirements and plans for international growth with us, please do get in touch at info@ecls-translations.com and our team of friendly and experienced project managers will be happy to help.

Location: Switzerland
Sector: Chemicals
Project: Annual sustainability report – proofreading (Korrektorat)
Language(s): US English

Quote:

“I would like to pass on a compliment from our finance department. They were thrilled – the proofreading was completed to an excellent standard and very helpful in achieving our ultimate goal.”

Client

Our client is a leading multinational specialty chemicals company providing a range of systems and products for bonding, sealing, reinforcing and protection in the construction and manufacturing industries. With a turnover of CHF 10 billion and subsidiaries in over 100 countries around the world, their annual sustainability report is key to:

• Showing stakeholders how the business is managing its impacts.
• Helping identify areas for improvement, setting goals and tracking progress on sustainability initiatives.
• Differentiating them from competitors and attracting environmentally conscious customers.
• Providing sustainability metrics for investors to evaluate long-term risk and opportunity.

Challenge / Solution

When the report came to us, it had already been translated from German into US English and our task was to work through the 120 pages with a fine-tooth comb. We needed to immerse ourselves in our client’s culture and familiarise ourselves with over 50 pages of detail from their Corporate Writing Rules and Style Guide.

The level of detail ranged from tone of voice and preferred capitalisation to how many digits to use after a decimal point and spacing after en dashes. The client’s instructions were also to mark up any changes directly on the .PDF report and ensure that our amends and any instructions were crystal clear so that they could be easily understood by a non-linguist.

We had just two working days to carry out our review of the spelling, grammar, punctuation, layout and compliance with the client’s comprehensive corporate style guides and glossaries. Sections of the report included biodiversity and nature, resource use and circular economy, human rights, business ethics and integrity and innovation and digitalisation.

Our most experienced proofreaders were onboarded onto the client’s account at the end of 2024 following a strict proofreading test of a similar nature to this project. We made sure to allow ourselves time to read through the reference material before making a start on the task and to discuss our approach throughout the project, to make sure that the report would be edited in a consistent manner. It was important that we didn’t make any unnecessary stylistic changes to the report but at the same time, we needed to make sure the report read naturally in US English and that the client’s preferences were strictly adhered to, for example their official wording regarding key sustainability concepts and job roles within the organisation.

Impact

In sustainability reporting, where nuance matters and statements may have regulatory implications, thorough proofreading isn’t just about fixing typos; it’s about ensuring accuracy, consistency and clarity throughout.

Our team’s unrivalled attention to detail and commitment to delivering a first-class service had a significant impact for our client, including in the following areas:

• Enhancing their credibility, as errors and inconsistencies can undermine trust in the entire report’s accuracy and the company’s professionalism.
• Risk mitigation, as any mistakes could lead to regulatory issues or legal challenges.
• Message clarity – clear, error-free writing ensures the message is understood precisely as intended by all stakeholders.
• Brand alignment – professional communication reinforces a company’s image as meticulous and reliable, which should extend to its sustainability practices.
• Investor confidence – investor decisions increasingly factor in ESG performance and sloppy reporting may signal broader governance issues.
• Comparability – precise language and consistent formatting allow for better year-over-year comparisons and benchmarking against industry peers.
• Accessibility – well-proofread content is more accessible to international audiences, ultimately expanding the report’s reach.

Our team also learned a thing or two about exemplary sustainability governance and we were delighted to receive the following feedback:

“I would like to pass on a compliment from our finance department. They were thrilled – the proofreading was completed to an excellent standard and very helpful in achieving our ultimate goal.”

Thanks to the stratospheric rise of the internet, the world has never been more connected – and the opportunities for globalisation have never been greater. Online presence is now a prerequisite for most businesses, and is indispensable for any brand that sets its sights beyond local borders.

But while the internet makes it possible to reach potential customers around the world, it also exposes businesses to a much bigger audience, making it critical to get your branding, messaging and user experience right for any market you are targeting.

The importance of localising your online presence

Research has backed up what most of us probably know instinctively – that potential customers are much more likely to buy from a website that’s available in their own language. And while online tools have made it possible for users to automatically translate websites into a language they speak, this isn’t enough if you want to gain customers and win conversions. Not only is the quality of automatic translation generally not high enough to convince potential customers of the quality of your brand, it’s also limited to the purely linguistic elements of a website. If you want to succeed in international markets, it’s critical to consider the broader elements of UX localisation and remove as many barriers as possible in the way of potential customers making purchases. This could include converting currencies, units of measurement, clothes sizes and times and dates for your target locale, as well as localising colours, music, images, symbols and a whole host of other culturally specific features on your website.

Branding and tone of voice

Another aspect of your online presence to consider is your branding strategy. If you’re selling your products or services internationally, it’s important to think about how you’ll create a feeling of consistency with the overall global brand while still making your product feel like it was created in and for the target culture.

Alternatively, some brands opt to retain elements of the culture in which they originated for their perceived value. An example of this is Audi’s highly successful slogan “Vorsprung durch Technik”, used in the UK and USA as well as Germany. Keeping this catchphrase in German means it’s imbued with positive connotations about German efficiency and high-quality engineering.

Another example of the use of a product’s exotic “foreignness” to sell in international markets is the recent advertising campaign for Peroni Nastro Azzurro’s new lager Stile Capri, which centres on the concept “The Taste That Takes You There”. The UK TV advert shows a couple wearing swimsuits and sunglasses and drinking Nastro Azzurro beer on sun loungers in what we first assume to be Italy’s Amalfi Coast, before it becomes clear that they are in fact sitting outside a British garden centre. Italian cultural signifiers, including the product name and the Italian soundtrack, are used to add a sense of glamour and prestige to the product, while the everyday Britishness of the setting encourages viewers to imagine the drink fitting into their daily lives. These examples are a great demonstration of how brands can get it right when it comes to international branding, both online and offline.

SEO

SEO localisation is another crucial part of any internalisation campaign. This involves using keywords to optimise the contents of a website in order to increase traffic via organic search results in a given language or region. When done correctly, SEO localisation can help businesses increase their visibility when potential customers use search engines to look for related terms, increase the amount of time that visitors spend looking at their website and reach customers in a specific region in a more targeted way.

SEO localisation best practices include carrying out careful keyword research to ensure that you capture the most commonly searched terms and best matches for your offering within the target region, ensuring that you translate your website content accordingly, including meta titles, tags and descriptions, and inserting key words in a strategic way.

Social media

When it comes to social media, it’s vitally important to know your target audience and to stay on top of current trends, hashtags and buzzwords while maintaining a consistent and authentic presence. Social media is all about authenticity, community and interactivity, and therefore requires a very different approach from website localisation, for example. In addition to creating content in the language of your target audience, a successful social media strategy will identify a detailed customer avatar for the target segment, carry out careful research into the types of content that this customer is likely to engage with, and then maintain consistent visuals and tone of voice, incorporating local issues, cultural references and trending hashtags in order to build connections with potential and existing customers.

ecls’ expertise

It’s clear that creating an internationally successful online presence is a complex undertaking with a huge number of considerations and nuances. Fortunately, help is at hand. At ecls translations, we have a team of cultural and linguistic experts with detailed knowledge of specific languages, cultures and regions as well as significant experience in localisation.

Examples of areas where we have recently helped businesses expand internationally via their online presence include localising search ads, creating target language social media posts, translating newsletters, email campaigns, blog posts and product descriptions, transcreation services, localisation of landing pages and much more.

As well as translation, localisation and transcreation, we offer a cultural consultancy service provided by native speakers of the relevant target language. As a result, we can help with both upper and lower funnel marketing and support your brand to create an authentic online presence that is consistent with your global brand image, allowing you to reach new potential customers and ultimately boost your international sales.

Let’s secure your success in global markets together.

“Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.”

–Walt Disney

Times are changing, and we’re changing with them…

Our clients’ industries are undergoing a period of rapid change – as is our language services industry, with AI offering new possibilities for customers, translators and project managers alike. Many Language Service Providers are evolving and adding new services to their roster in light of new technologies, opportunities and demands.

As a boutique agency, ecls translations is perfectly placed to anticipate our clients’ requirements and respond to the changing landscape in a dynamic and agile way, and we are continuing to launch new services.

Our work as translation professionals really is unrecognisable from just a few short years ago. See the below table for a summary of our newest services on offer and, more importantly, the range of benefits our clients enjoy.

Transferable skills – technical writing

Our translators have a wealth of training and experience in critical skills including research, writing and adapting texts for our clients’ audiences, as well as subject matter expertise in the fields of technology, automotive and manufacturing. As a team, we are also always eager to seek out opportunities for development, training and growth to anticipate and respond to our clients’ ever-evolving needs.

When an opportunity recently arose to launch a new technical writing service, we jumped at the chance. There are countless affinities between technical translation and technical writing: both involve careful research, terminology management, and transforming sometimes complex information into clear and easily understandable text for target readers. For our client, we were able to use these well-honed skills to help create a knowledge base for customer service advisors at a company offering a corporate reward scheme. This involved absorbing and summarising a huge amount of information in an accessible way to ensure that call centre advisors can find the answers they need in an instant. This helped improve customer satisfaction and also contributed to a huge cost saving, as the knowledge base created has been designed for end customers too to reference and self-train on navigating the system and its multitude of features.

A further service we’re now offering in line with demand is the technical writing of software documentation. We’ve found this isn’t usually a well-loved task among software engineers, which is where our linguistic experts come in. We’re able to take complex concepts and ‘translate’ them into easy-to-understand language for target readers, contributing to greater ease of use and higher user acceptance (before any multilingual translation then comes into play).

Beyond marketing translation

As a team, we have decades of experience as marketing translators, and we are increasingly applying this industry-specific knowledge to other, related areas. This is in line with developments across the language services industry, where specialist marketing translators and agencies are using their industry insights and expertise to offer wider marketing-related services, including the following:

• Multilingual copywriting
• Multilingual SEO research and translation
• Digital marketing and campaign performance management
• Content testing and analysis
• International brand management
• Social media management
• Cultural consulting
• Website localisation and
• Creative strategy.

At ecls translations, we have begun working in several of these areas, including a recent creative strategy and international brand management project that involved using our cultural expertise to evaluate several slogans that our client was considering as part of their expansion to new country-specific markets. Such services are increasingly crucial in a world where getting it wrong can go viral – and not in a good way – costing companies a great deal in terms of both money and reputation. Getting it right, however, with a nuanced understanding of the culture and values of the target market, means setting yourself up for success when breaking into new territories, boosting international sales and winning new clients around the world.

New technologies breed new expertise

One of the biggest factors transforming the face of both the language services and marketing industries and beyond is the stratospheric rise of AI. This has created demand for new skills and services upstream and downstream of the AI output. For example, our team has worked on preparing training data sets for machine learning. This step is crucial to ensuring that AI models are fed with high-quality, accurate input data and thereby optimising their output from the start.

At the other end of the process, human post-editing of generative AI copy is also essential, and counters the risk of AI “hallucinations” – false, inaccurate or illogical results. For the past three years, we have been involved in the post-editing of keywords and Adwords for the world’s largest multi-national technology company, helping their end clients boost global sales. A more recent service we offer involves working as “raters”, which involves assessing AI-generated sentences against one another, highlighting errors and assigning a quality score to help train the system and ultimately improve output.

The outlook

Times are changing, and we’re changing with them. We’ve already been able to help countless clients rise to the challenge of internationalisation with our multifaceted localisation services, while new technologies allow us to streamline our processes and offer an even smoother, faster service for our customers as well as to cater for all types of deadline and budget.

We’re also excited to have joined the Magic Beans Tech Club in August 2024, which brings together representatives from Language Service Providers around the world with the aim of knowledge exchange, sharing best practice and working to stay at the cutting edge of technology to better serve our customers now and in the years to come.

Have you ever launched a marketing campaign in another part of the world only to find it fall flat or not have the desired impact? Chances are your product or service wasn’t localised for the target audience.

Localisation involves adapting content for the cultural and linguistic expectations of a specific target market and, when done right, it balances international brand consistency with local nuance and authenticity to build trust and help target audiences see themselves reflected in your offering. It goes without saying that the impact of this can be huge for your reputation, building relationships and the ultimate global success of your brand.

Read on for more about what localisation is, why it’s important and how we might be able to help thanks to our years of experience – from localising film and TV series titles and software strings, to cultural consultation and global e-commerce projects.

So what exactly is localisation?

Localisation can be broadly defined as “the process of making a product or service more suitable for a particular country, area, etc.” (Cambridge English Dictionary). In other words, localisation is a global marketing strategy that involves adapting content – anything from software to pharmaceutical labelling – for the cultural and linguistic expectations, standards and preferences of a specific target market. In the context of the language industry, localisation therefore often includes translation or adaptation to a different language variant (for example US English rather than UK English) but also goes beyond this to include anything that will help a text, product or service resonate with a target audience and fulfil local requirements.

What does localisation involve?

As well as linguistic aspects such as tone of voice, formality, idioms, slang, jargon, brand names, cultural references, slogans and tag lines, localisation also covers other modes of communication, such as:

• Symbols
• Colours and imagery
• Music or other sounds
• Typesetting and formatting issues
• Social norms and etiquette
• Currency
• Measurements
• Date and time formats
• Number formats
• Legal requirements, and more.

The aim of localisation is to create content that appears as if it was originally a product of the target culture, removing any potential friction that might arise from mismatches between the target audience’s needs, expectations and preferences and the features of the text, product or service.

Why is localisation important?

When expanding into a new market, localisation can help your brand establish a positive reputation and build relationships with potential customers. Equally, if your brand already operates internationally, tailoring your strategy for each locale ensures you get it right with all your market segments, where an overly broad-brush approach would risk alienating some markets, harming your reputation, or even incurring financial or legal penalties if local laws and regulations are not adhered to.

Successful localisation balances international brand consistency with local nuance and authenticity to build trust and help target audiences see themselves reflected in your offering, ultimately leading to a higher conversion rate. As the Harvard Business Review reports, in a survey of 2430 web consumers, 72.4% said they would be more likely to buy a product with information in their own language, while 56.2% said that the ability to obtain information in their own language is more important to them than price. In addition, the “Can’t Read, Won’t Buy – B2C” report on a survey of 8000 consumers across 29 countries reveals that 40% would not purchase a product or service that is not available in their language. As these statistics show, translation and localisation are key to removing linguistic and cultural barriers that stop potential customers from engaging with your brand.

How ecls can help

Our team has many years of experience in supporting businesses with their international marketing efforts. Some examples of the services we offer include:

Localising film titles and TV series titles – our regular clients include a major streaming platform who we support by localising the titles of films and TV series for English-speaking audiences (see the full case study here: https://eclstranslations.co.uk/transcreation-case-study-helping-attract-viewers-in-their-millions/).

Software strings for various English-speaking markets – another ongoing client in the HR sector relies on us to localise their software strings to ensure that they are suitable for the UK and Australian markets.

Cultural consultation – we recently completed a cultural consultation project to help our client, a UK-based creative marketing agency, determine whether their ideas for new slogans as part of a global marketing campaign would be well received in specific target markets, including Mexico, Dubai, Singapore and Germany. Our localisation specialists are available to carry out in-depth analysis and research to determine any possible connotations of slogans in target markets, identify how easily they are likely to be understood, and explain the anticipated impact, assessing whether they would be better received in the target locales if they were translated into the target language.

Global e-commerce – another recent project saw us localising around 150,000 words of German catalogue entries for a global e-commerce platform for US English just in time for Christmas. As well as translating the text, we localised prices, units of measurement and any other culture-specific information to ensure that the shopping experience would be as smooth as possible for the target market.

If you are wondering whether a localisation strategy might be a good fit for your business, our experienced team is here to help. We offer a range of localisation services backed up by linguistic and cultural expertise and can advise on the best approach depending on your requirements, objectives and budget. Get in touch with us – our team would be delighted to help.