Whether you’d like to lower your translation costs or just want to split your expenses more effective, planning your translation budget can be daunting.

Five effective ways to plan your translation costs

Keep in mind that each company has its needs. That’s why it is advisable for you to use these following means in planning your translation costs and budget:

Determine the performance of your multilingual content last year.

Basically, this includes an analysis in regards to the efficiency of your translated documentation and your translation costs.  Does it worth it to translate your marketing materials? Did you get any sales from that foreign market you were targeting? If the results are negative, then you need to start revising your marketing efforts and try to figure out what is wrong. You’ll be able to decide if your translation costs are wisely spent.

Evaluate the amount of money you spent last year.

In case you don’t have the authority to access such information, you may request a report from your translation vendor. Don’t hesitate to ask because you are not alone. There are plenty of big companies who don’t have any idea of the amount they spend for translation.

To make your life easier, ask them to give you the standard information to help you collate as well as assess easily such as:

•    Translation project cost
•    Number of translation projects
•    Number of words
•    Language combinations
•    Leverage from Translation Memories as well as related savings
•    Delivery times

Find out if your company will be launching new services or products which need translation next year.

Ask your boss to give some estimation of whatever project they’re currently working on for next year. If that project requires to be translated into other languages you need to consider the translation costs associated with it.

Consider savings based on the information you’ve got.

Most likely, there are instances that you don’t have to translate everything into every language you’re targeting. In connection to this, you can also ask your translation provider in advance about the costs associated with the project. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to request for lower rates, just to make sure they will be available when it comes to it. Also, ask them to optimize the translation costs creatively through volume discounts, innovative tools or streamlined processes.

Go beyond translation.

Have you received a high volume of complaints from the market companies in regards with terminology? Then introducing a corporate terminology project may do the trick for you. But just take note that it requires you to allot some time especially during its early phase. However, when you allocated that financial resource within your budget, you’ll surely be happy as the translation of your future projects would cost less when you make use of CAT tools.

There you go – some ideas, which can significantly help you start your adventurous journey to translation budget planning.  Though most of these tips need time and effort, you should know that it is also important to have simplicity and focus on your side too in order to cut down costs.