How to Avoid Marketing Translation Mistakes and Blunders

If you are marketing internationally it is important to avoid marketing translation mistakes. All to often a company spends many resources on creating a perfect product and perfect marketing materials only to carelessly translate marketing materials into a different language with mistakes and blunders galore.

Read the steps below to find out how to avoid common marketing translation mistakes and translation blunders.

Instructions

1. Don't ever rely on automatic translations like Google Translate. Google Translate and other automatic translation software are a good start when you don't know the foreign language at all, but you should use a professional translation service for professional marketing and advertising materials.

2. Get someone on a mother tongue level to translate -
   You want someone with a mother tongue in the foreign language to translate your marketing materials. Someone who is not on a mother tongue level can make small mistakes. Small translation mistakes can be acceptable in casual talk, but are considered huge blunders in marketing materials.

3. Make sure the person translating is an expert both in language and the country's culture.
   Not only should the translation service translating your materials be fluent in the desired language, they should also be familiar with the customs and culture of the country. Common phrases and sayings that sound good in English could be completely meaningless or have negative connotations elsewhere.

   (no negative connotations)

4. Don't just translate literally, especially with a slogan. -
   Tell the translating service the idea you are trying to portray and make sure he gets the idea across. You don't just want literal word for word translation. You want to set the marketing tone and mood in the marketing materials too.

5. Be especially careful with company names and branding materials -
   Be especially careful when translating company names, product names & marketing slogans. Make sure they don't have negative connotations or double meanings in other languages. Minor translation mistakes or translation blunders in your primary branding can kill your sales in that country.

6. Don't assume all countries that speak the same language are the same. Each country has its own culture and style. Consider writing marketing materials differently for each country you are selling to if the products you are selling could be viewed differently by different cultures.

7. Do a small test before going live to make sure you didn't make any marketing translation blunders.

Tips & Warnings

• This article is based on marketing knowledge and research from various sources.