November 18, 2016

ProZ.com Business membership as a promotional tool ^Reply

by Enrique Cavalitto, PMP • knowledge, ProZ.com, translation business • Tags: Business members, Business membership, corporate corner, Corporate members, Corporate membership, LWA, Promotion, translation companies

ProZ.com Business membership includes the benefits associated with Professional membership, such as unlimited Blue Board access, plus a set of tools and opportunities available exclusively to Business (formerly Corporate) members.

As is the case with the Professional membership, the Business membership keeps evolving to provide more value to the translation companies that chose this path of growth.

Many of these tools and opportunities provide operational advantages, such as the translation center currently used by several members to deliver millions of words to their customers, the employee profiles and improved risk management tools.

Other advantages have to do with premium service, such as the immediate posting of jobs, Blue Board arbitration and priority response to support requests, including phone support.

This note will deal with a separate set of tools and opportunities aimed towards providing promotional opportunities, based on the principle that all promotional tools for outsourcing companies will be focused on ProZ.com Business members.

A first tool is the privileged positioning given to Business members in the Translation agency and company directory, the industry’s busiest directory for finding language service providers (over 400 daily connections between language services buyers and providers).

Also, only Corporate members may apply for inclusion in the ProZ.com Certified PRO Network, giving them increased credibility, visibility and promotion

Among the tools already released, a new promotional box (displayed below) is now presented in the Blue Board records of Business members, as well as in the jobs posted by them.

bb_corp_header

As another example, currently being developed, is a code for a portable badge will be provided to Business members in order to let them display on other pages, such the company’s corporate web page, the average Likelihood of Working Again with them entered by its service providers. This is similar to the badge provided to Translators Without Borders volunteers.

The above are just a few instances of many changes to come, where the logo of Business members will be presented every time the companies are displayed on ProZ.com, and relevant ranking tables will be made exclusive for Business members.

An investment in ProZ.com Business membership provides value today and well into the future. Let’s all grow together!

August 5, 2016

What are translators working on? New ProZ.com feature ^Reply

by Lu Leszinsky • ProZ.com • Tags: freelance, freelance translator, freelancer, freelancers, interpreter, marketing, membership, news, Promotion, ProZ.com, translation, translation business, translator, translators

ProZ.com has just released a new “What I am working on” feature designed to enable translators to share with colleagues descriptions of the projects they are currently working on. More…

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June 25, 2014

Getting the most out of industry events: Part seven ¹

by Lu Leszinsky • events, ProZ.com • Tags: business, clients, events, freelance, freelance translator, freelancer, fun, interpreter, jobs, marketing, Promotion, ProZ.com, translation, translation business, translator

This is the seventh post in a series of weekly blog posts with tips to get the most out of translation industry events (click here to see a full list of previous posts). As explained in the first part, tips are grouped into “before the event”, “during the event” and “after the event” for easy reference. Please feel free to post below and share your tip(s)!

During the event

Tip 7: target potential clients and collaborators

While most language professionals attend industry events to learn and have fun, many also understand that investing in attending a conference or a seminar represents a great opportunity to meet potential clients and collaborators, and so increase their client and colleague database. At industry events, there will be other freelance translators and interpreters, but there will also be company representatives, sponsors and professionals who work for companies that may be hiring. So, if you are looking to meet new clients, these are the attendees you need to target. But how can we approach other attendees and find out whether they are freelance translators who, like us, are just there to learn and have fun (and probably meet clients too) or potential clients? Let’s see…

Start by approaching attendees one by one, or in groups, and open conversation. Questions such as “what services do you offer?” or “do you work for end clients or mostly agencies?” may already give you an idea of whether the other attendee is a freelancer like you or a professional working for someone else (a potential client).

Let the other person know the services you offer, the language pairs in which you work and your fields of expertise. Even if the other person is not a company representative, it may be a freelancer who can invite you to collaborate in future projects (or even send you projects they cannot handle). If the other person represents a company, information on services, languages and expertise is also relevant. In both cases, if the other person gets interested in what you have to offer (i.e. they ask questions, they follow-up on what you say, etc.), make sure you don’t leave the conversation without giving them your card.

In the case of sponsors, approach their sponsorship stand and familiarize yourself with their services. Some language service companies prepare application forms for conferences, others just invite you to leave them your contact details.

Finally, it is good practice to do some homework before the event to learn who is attending and prepare a list of potential clients and collaborators in advance. You may even contact them before the event and make arrangements to meet in person. See tips on how to plan your event here.

In the end, what matters is that you make the most out of your conference fee investment. Industry events tend to attract a good number of people and it is possible that you get a job offer from the last person you thought you would. Just make sure you are ready for the opportunity. Keep a small pile of business cards in your pocket, smile and you are all set!

Have you ever met a client or a collaborator in an industry event?

Share below.

Stay tuned! The next part in this series will explain the importance of sharing your feedback once the event is over.

June 3, 2014

Getting the most out of industry events: Part four ⁵

by Lu Leszinsky • events, ProZ.com • Tags: business, Conference, events, freelance, freelance translator, freelancer, freelancers, fun, interpreter, marketing, Marketing goals, Marketing plan, new clients, Promotion, ProZ.com, social media, translation, translation business, translator, translators

This is the fourth post in a series of weekly blog posts with tips to get the most out of translation industry events (see Part one, Part two and Part three). As explained in the first part, tips will be grouped into “before the event”, “during the event” and “after the event” for easy reference. Please feel free to post below and share your tip(s)!

Before the event

Tip 4: design a marketing plan

In general, attending conferences and other industry events costs not only time, but also money. Taking a couple of days off, sometimes travelling and staying at hotels, attending networking dinners, all these represent an expense. However, as your own business owner, it’s up to you to turn these expenses into an investment. How? By designing a marketing plan to be implemented before, during and after the event, and that allows you to see a return of your investment through new clients and collaborators.

Personalized business cookies baked by Gabriel Cabrera and shared with attendees to the ProZ.com 2013 regional event in Madrid, Spain.

The first step in drafting a marketing plan to be implemented when attending an industry event may consist of defining three basic points:

What you want to accomplish: define your marketing goals. Do you want to make yourself / your company known? Do you want to build better relationships with colleagues? Do you want to meet new clients / collaborators? Do you want to share information, content or opinions with others in the industry? Do you want to explore new service types / approaches? Do you want to raise funds to support a further investment?

What tools you will use: make a list of the marketing tools you will use to reach your goals. Social media tools, CV / resume, business cards, demos, other marketing items.

How you will use those tools: decide how you will use each marketing tool. Will you give a business card to every attendee or just to those who may be potential clients / collaborators? Will you give a demo presentation of your services to potential clients only or to everyone? Will you use social media to target potential clients, potential clients and colleagues in general, or potential clients and potential collaborators? Will you give a copy of your CV to sponsors? Defining the use of your marketing tools will require defining your target audience and this will depend on what you want to accomplish.

Other important points may relate to timing (when you will use marketing tools or when you’d like to accomplish your marketing goals).

Once you have defined marketing goals, tools and their use, it’s time to implement your plan. Keep in mind that there are plenty of marketing strategies you can apply even weeks before an event (most of these using online resources). Start announcing your attendance to the event, show potential attendees how you are preparing yourself, get in touch with attendees you will want to meet in person and make arrangements. Almost everything counts when it comes to promoting yourself while learning, networking and having fun!