Is the audience of your product or service expanding? Is your project going overseas? Then you would probably need a professional to adapt your marketing strategy to your new potential clients. But would it be enough to order only a translation work?
Whatever the approach to the new market you`re conquering, you will need to establish a sound connection with the new audience. A basic translation of your advertising materials might not do the work. You will need a different specialist – a transcreator.
What is transcreation, is it different from translation and what are the transcreation challenges that specialists meet? You will find the answers to those questions below.
What is transcreation?
If translation is the faithful representation of a text from one language to another, and copywriting is coming up with creative content, then transcreation is the practical, yet imaginative mix of both.
Transcreation is the process of translating a text, mainly taking into account how it is going to be perceived by the reader. As with basic translation, transcreation takes into account the specific use of grammar, punctuation and idioms. What makes it different, however, is the special effort put in the text, so it manages to establish a deeper mental and emotional contact with the reader.
Can a translator be a transcreator?
Not necessarily.
Transcreators usually have a special set of copywriting and content creating skills, which is exactly what enables them to create interesting, lively texts that speak to the audience. A transcreator`s task is not to simply translate and localize a text – they need to prepare a couple of variants of their work, do a background check on the task they are given, take into account any cultural features that might affect their work as well as the style of the company they are working for. Sounds tough but it is actually great fun!
Challenges in rate calculation
Transcreation might be your best shot at grabbing the attention of the new market you`re expanding to. As explained above – the transcreation challenges lie in the fact that this is neither translation, nor copywriting. It is the process of generating a completely new material specially tailored for your target audience, using a source material in a different language.
Since there are so many steps and aspects of the process, naturally, the service costs more. You have to bear in mind that the work on a single slogan might take around an hour. As this is, for the most part, a creative process it is sometimes very hard to decide on the method of billing.
Some transcreators prefer to work hourly. Remember that transcreation is an active process with a lot of back-and-forth correspondence. Naturally, all of the time spent on researching and brainstorming is included in the total.
Others name a price for the whole project once the details have been discussed. In most cases the price depends on the experience of the transcreator.
There are rare cases where the transcreation rate is calculated and billed per word. Vogue magazine is such an example. Their rates are quite appealing, however – 4$ per word.
The transcreation rate might be affected by a lot of things. Is the transcreator a person who is well acquainted with your corporate style? How much information would you provide about the project? Do you have a clear portrait of your target audience? A professional transcreator takes all of this into account when naming the price.
In conclusion
If you have expected us to give you exact prices, I think you might be disappointed when you reach the end of the article and there are none. We have aimed to showcase the challenges behind the service. Why it is so difficult to name a price and how there is no right or wrong formula to do it. Think about it like art! And art has no straightforward price, right?