Marketing: Who are my clients and where are they?
When we talk about marketing, people normally think about a website, business cards, social networks, etc. Yes, that’s great, but without a strategy, there’s no point to have all this.
I’ve seen so many freelance translators and interpreters working really hard to get their websites ready. And then, after launching them… Nothing was happening. No clients, no visitors, nothing. They paid so much attention to a single aspect of their marketing and they ended up forgetting the strategy behind it.
In a nutshell, marketing is the art of knowing your clients, knowing where they are and what they are looking for, and making them interested in your business.
Your objective must be to attract all these people to your business and make them perform an action before selling your products. As you can see, this is also related to your USP. Without a USP, you won’t be able to identify what clients you want to target.
- What are the biggest concerns of your potential clients?
- How your services are going to solve their problems?
- How are you going to present your offer to your clients?
- Where are your clients and what platforms are you going to use to target your potential clients?
I’ve seen so many people saying that you should be visible everywhere online, because you never know where a client is going to come from. I disagree. You should be where you potential clients are.
For example, for a photographer, it would make more sense to join a platform that enhance visual content such as Instagram, Pinterest or Behance; whereas, Behance may not be the ideal platform for a translators and interpreters, as we don’t really have a visual portfolio to showcase. Analyse where you want to be and make sure that you make the most of your efforts online.
Sales: How a freelance translator and interpreter negotiates and closes a sale.
Another common mistake that I’ve seen so many times before is that translators and interpreters focus too much on the marketing side of their businesses, attracting a lot of potential clients to their websites, but then they don’t close any sales. There’s no point to attract so many people if you don’t have any strategy to convert this potential clients into actual clients.
These are the 4 essential elements that will make your clients buy once and for all:
- Pricing: Remember that your clients must be willing to pay the prices that you’re offering. Pricing your services too expensive may scare your clients, and pricing your services too cheap will end up not bringing enough revenue to your business. Do you know how much money do you need to earn monthly and annually to have a profitable business?
- The solution/offer: What you’re offering must be the solution that your potential clients are looking for. There’s no point to sell meat to a vegetarian person. If you’re offering something at an affordable price but your clients don’t need it, they’re simply not going to invest in it.
- Negotiation: You need to found the common ground between your business and your potential clients to define terms that are beneficial for the two of you. Negotiating doesn’t mean to lower your rates. It means to reach an agreement with your clients. Freelance translators and freelancer without negotiation skills will end up lowering their rates, as it is probably the only strategy that they know to make their potential clients accept a quote. That’s why it is so important to know a few basic negotiation skills.
- Persuasiveness: My business changed when I started to specialise in copywriting. Copywriting is the art of persuade people to do what you want (to buy, in this case). If you use the right words when talking to your clients, you’ll make your offer more appealing and you’ll be more likely to land a project.
To be continued. Watch this space for next weeks feature (Part 4).
A feature blog brought to you by David Miralles Perez.
“My name is David Miralles and I am aware of how languages can influence professional environments. Honing communication between two cultures has become crucial in today’s globalised world. And that is what I do by means of my translation and interpreting services. Small and medium enterprises and entrepreneurs can now spread their messages through cultural and linguistic barriers and make a big impact on an international scale.”