Marketing

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This month’s free marketing resource is a list of professional associations that you can use for direct client marketing research! If you’re on our mailing list, you received this file in today’s newsletter. If you’re not yet on our mailing list, join at the link above, and the link to the file will be in your subscription confirmation e-mail!

To get our weekly posts directly in your inbox, sign up for the Training for Translators mailing list!

This month’s free marketing resource for Training for Translators subscribers is a set of direct client e-mail marketing scripts. If you’re on our mailing list, you received these scripts in yesterday’s newsletter. If you’re not on our mailing list, sign up at the link above, and the file link will be in your confirmation e-mail!

This is a PDF file that you can copy, customize, and improve for your own purposes; just something to help you out when you don’t know what to say to a potential direct client! Shoot us an e-mail at classes@trainingfortranslators.com if you decide to try them out.

Greetings, readers! I hope that those in the US had a great Labor Day weekend, and here we are in the new “school year”! Just a reminder that we have two great master classes on tap for you this month; Aiming for six figures as a freelancer, taught by me on September 13, and Editing and proofreading for into-English translators, taught by Karen Tkaczyk on September 29 (note new date).

This week, let’s talk about how I market to agencies. As I’ve mentioned many times before, I really enjoy working with agencies, because I like the fact that they handle all of the non-language aspects of the work, including finding the clients. I work with very few translation agencies because not many of them will pay my minimum rates, but the vast majority of my conference interpreting work comes from agencies. I recently did a marketing push, aimed at conference interpreting agencies, and here are some tips I wanted to share with you.

• Most, importantly, never count on getting work from an agency after simply filling out their online application or e-mailing them your CV. I’m not sure where those online applications go, and all of us fantasize that we’re going to click Submit, and five minutes later we’ll get an e-mail, “We have a project that’s perfect for you, are you available??” In my experience, it doesn’t really work that way.
• Plan on contacting an agency at least two to four times before expecting to get work from them. Here’s how I do that:

1. Fill out the agency’s online application or e-mail them your CV. If you e-mail them, use a very clear, non-spammy subject line. I use “Inquiry from English<>French legal and conference interpreter.” If you use their online application, make sure you have a really strong one or two-page resume in PDF format, and use a descriptive file name. I use “Corinne_McKay_French_2023,” updating the year to show that the CV itself is up to date.
2. Follow the agency and connect with any employees you can find on LinkedIn, especially if their vendor manager or translator/interpreter recruiter is on there. Start out by typing the agency’s name into the LinkedIn search box. When the search results pop up, click Companies, and follow the agency itself. Then click People, and you’ll see anyone who has the agency’s name in their profile. You want to connect with employees, not freelancers, and definitely anyone in a recruitment role, or project managers. Click Connect. If you’re doing a lot of this kind of outreach, it may be worth doing the LinkedIn Premium free trial, because LinkedIn is always making it harder to connect with people you don’t know, presumably to push people toward Premium. With your connection request, you can add a 300-character note. I say something like, “Hello [name], I hope you’re doing well! I’m an English<>French conference and legal interpreter based in Colorado, and I recently applied via your website [sent you my CV, etc.]. I’d love to connect!”
3. Log all of the above in a spreadsheet or keep a record of it somehow. I don’t use any sort of elaborate customer relations management system, but of course that’s an option if you want to. I use a simple Excel sheet with the agency’s name, the date I contacted them, how I contacted them, a simple yes/no column for whether they responded, and then any comments (“Said to check back in six months,”) etc. I also color-code the rows: green means that the agency responded positively and I need to make sure to keep nudging them until I get a response, and red means I don’t need to contact them again. For example the other day I contacted an agency that now only does sign language interpreting, so I coded them red.
4. Wait a week or two, and start nudging. Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Many freelancers struggle to get work from agencies because they give up after one contact. Don’t do that. You know that agencies need you, and you know that agency employees are really, really busy, so keep after them until you get a yes or a no. Particularly keep after agencies that have expressed an interest, sent you their onboarding forms, tested you, added you to their database, etc. and then never sent you any work. These are prime candidates for a nudge e-mail: “Looking over my records, I see that you let me know on July 12 that I passed your tests, and I’d love to start working together! Do you happen to have anything in the pipeline that might be a good fit?”
5. Keep nudging, by any and all means you can find. Message the employees you connected with on LinkedIn (“Completed your onboarding forms, would love to start working together”); E-mail them (“Haven’t heard from you since you acknowledged receipt of my CV on June 10, would love to start working together!”), send them a handwritten note in the mail (I have some custom-designed cards with my logo for this purpose), ask if they’re attending an upcoming conference that you’re going to be attending, really any way that you can think of.

Here’s the truth: agencies need you. They cannot do business without translators and interpreters. With direct clients, there’s always that fear of hounding someone who doesn’t want or need your services. But with agencies, keep after them until they either tell you they don’t need you, or they send you some work. Most agencies will not be shy about telling you that they don’t need your language or that you don’t meet their experience requirements. Unless or until they do that, keep nudging!

This strategy works well for me, and I hope it can encourage you to add a few steps to your agency marketing process as well.

Nudging: Boring and effective!

In getting ready for an upcoming marketing challenge group that I’m leading, I’ve been thinking a lot about nudging dormant clients. I still maintain that nudging dormant clients–getting back in touch with clients you haven’t heard from in a while–is:

• The world’s most boring marketing method
• And…
• The world’s most effective marketing method

How nudging dormant clients works

Here’s an example: I was referred by a colleague to a conference interpreting agency that then contacted me twice, but (ugh!) I was not available for either assignment. A couple of weeks later, I sent them a short e-mail thanking them again for those offers, and giving a specific time window when I was completely available, like, “As of now, I’m completely available during the week of March 6, if you have anything in the pipeline for those dates.” They responded right away and offered me two more assignments, both of which I was able to accept, and they’re now a regular client.

Deciding who to nudge

Clients ripe for nudging include:

1. Agencies that onboarded you and then never sent any work (“Just wondering if you need anything else from me to complete the process? If not, I’d love to get going on an assignment”)
2. Clients who seemed pleased with your work and then went silent (“Looking over my records, I see we haven’t worked together since X project and I would love to work with you again if the need arises”)
3. Clients whose work you had to turn down, but now you have some availability (“Thank you so much for the work offers that you sent me last month; I have some availability coming up next week if you have anything in the pipeline”)
4. Clients where your primary contact has moved on (“I’ve worked with X project manager for the past few years, I know they’ve moved on and I’m wondering who my new contact should be?”)

Why don’t we nudge?

Many people avoid nudging because:

• They think it sounds desperate
• They think clients will contact them (“They know where to find me if they need me”)
• They struggle with what to say (“Work has been slow; got anything for me???)

The reality is that client-side employees are busy just like the rest of us; they’re sending work to the first person who comes to mind. Be that person! By using the examples and scripts above, I hope that you might be willing to give nudging a try! If you do, let me know how it goes!

It’s a great time of the year to do some marketing, when clients have returned from their summer break but before things get really crazy around the winter holidays. Here’s an important question to ask yourself before you start marketing: are you more interested in building relationships, or in just pitching your services?

Here’s what that looks like in practice:
-If you’re trying to build relationships with potential clients, you want to find multiple ways to connect with them, without necessarily offering your services. Maybe you follow them on LinkedIn and/or Twitter, you Like and/or comment on their posts, you put a Google Alert on their name so that you know what’s going on with them. Maybe you try to meet them at a conference, or attend an event that they might be attending. Your purpose is mostly to get on their radar screen and create a connection with them, rather than directly offering your translation or interpreting services.

-It’s also totally fine to just pitch your services. The most basic example of this would be to send an e-mail to a client who seems to need your services. “Hello Melissa, I hope you’re doing well. I recently came across your website while researching immigration law firms in the Boston area. I am an English to Spanish translator specializing in legal and official document translations. Would you be the correct person to speak with about offering my freelance services?”

Either of these methods can be effective; the problem arises when you’re not really sure which strategy you’re pursuing. You’re following clients on social media, but you’re never really interacting with them. Or you’re connecting with potential clients on LinkedIn, but you’re never directly asking if they need your services. The key is to pick one strategy and really pursue it.