As the global business landscape continues to evolve, the need for effective translation and localization strategies becomes more crucial than ever. Smartling has launched the Back to Basics webinar series to equip professionals responsible for global growth with fundamental localization strategies that will set them up for success through 2025.
Below, we’ve rounded up key takeaways from each session in the series that can help you refine your approach to more efficient, cost-effective, and high-quality localization this year.
Session 1: How Should I Translate This? Mastering Your Translation Mix
In the inaugural session of the Back to Basics series, Smartling’s Senior Director of AI, Alex Yanishevsky, and Director of Customer Success, Ryan Soos, explained how you can determine the right translation mix for your projects. By tailoring your approach based on factors such as content type, you can improve the efficiency and quality of your translations. Below are key strategies from this session to help you refine your translation mix in 2025.
1. Adapt your translation mix to the type of content
Tailoring your translation approach based on the type of content you’re translating, whether it’s technical documentation, marketing materials, or user-generated content, is key to selecting the appropriate translation method. Understanding the nature of the content helps you optimize your translation strategy.
Alex and Ryan have provided the visual below that designates the various translation methods best suited for each type of content.
2. Embrace Human-AI Collaboration
Rather than viewing AI and human translation as mutually exclusive, Ryan and Alex recommend combining the two for a more efficient workflow. The “human-in-the-loop” approach enables the speed cyprus whatsapp number data 5 million of AI while maintaining the accuracy and nuance provided by human translators. This strategy is especially important for handling high-volume content without sacrificing quality.
3. Leverage linguistic assets for consistency
Language resources such as translation memories, glossaries, and style guides ensure consistency between translations. Maintaining after its establishment it held online and regularly updating these assets not only saves time and money, but also strengthens your brand voice across multiple languages.
4. Set clear and measurable goals
Setting quantifiable goals for your translation processes is crucial. From turnaround times to cost efficiency and quality scores, tracking these metrics helps you assess the effectiveness of your translation strategies and identify areas for improvement.
Watch the full session with Ryan shops 9177 and Alex to learn. More about how you can master your translation mix for the most effective localization strategy.
Session 2: Excellence Plan: Developing a Translation Quality Assessment Program
The second session, featuring Smartling experts Valérie Dehant, Senior Director of Language Services, Kyle Robb, Product Manager, and Marina Sánchez Torrón, Language Engineer. Focused on the critical role of Language Quality Assurance (LQA) programs in maintaining high-quality translations. A well-structured LQA program ensures that translations meet both language quality standards and business objectives. Here are the strategies from this session to help you build and fine-tune your LQA program.
5. Create a robust language quality assurance (LQA) program
Creating an LQA program with appropriate assessment frameworks, sampling strategies, and metrics is essential to ensuring that translations meet linguistic and business objectives.
6. Monitor long-term trends in LQA scores
LQA is not about looking for immediate, isolated improvements. Focus on long-term trends to identify patterns and guide continuous improvement. Tracking LQA results over time helps you fine-tune processes and achieve consistently high-quality translations.
7. Understand customer preferences for LQA
Customizing your LQA strategies to align with customer preferences ensures that translations resonate with your target audience, driving engagement and satisfaction. Understanding these preferences is crucial to delivering localized content that meets and exceeds expectations.
8. Track customer satisfaction along with LQA metrics
While metrics like BLEU and TER are important, monitoring customer satisfaction is equally essential. High-quality translations should not only meet business metrics, but also foster positive customer experiences, increasing overall brand loyalty.
Watch the full expert panel discussion here .
Session 3: Centralize or decentralize? The great translation debate
In the third session, Olga Beregovaya, VP of AI, and Jennifer Wong, Director of AI Product Strategy, delved into the debate between centralized and decentralized translation models, offering valuable insights on how to balance the two for maximum effectiveness. A hybrid approach, which combines centralized control with decentralized flexibility, can empower teams while maintaining consistency. Below, we’ve outlined key takeaways from this session to.