Mailings and direct clients Thread poster: Williamson
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Williamson 
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:47
Flemish to English
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Suppose you had a list of addresses of companies at your disposal, how would you address them. Create a mailing and sent these letters to the person, responsible for translation work (marketing mgr,...) or look up their website and sent an email. With a mailing, you risk that your letter, marked "personal" is thrown away with the other publicity papers and with email, you risk that your email is regarded as spam. So, what would you do?
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Call the company in question first and ask to speak with the person in charge of translations/marketing (whatever it is you want to pitch). This way you establish a "personal" contact and a follow-up letter in which you refer to and recap your conversation 2-5 days later is more likely to have effect. Plus, you save money since a phone call will give you a pretty clear indication of whether the company is even interested.
It's what I'd do, at least.
Good luck!
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Mulyadi Subali
Indonesia
Local time: 08:47
Member
English to Indonesian
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i usually email 'good' and 'great' translation agencies during my spare time. most of the time i got reply from them. although they don't immediately send me jobs, but most of them, i think, list me in their database, and contact me when they do have jobs for me.
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Williamson
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:47
Flemish to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Average profit margin | Aug 24, 2007 |
The avarage profit margin of agencies on your work is about 20%. Finding direct customers means being able to ask higher rates.
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 03:47
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| Create a brochure | Aug 24, 2007 |
Williamson wrote:
Suppose you had a list of addresses of companies at your disposal, how would you address them. Create a mailing and sent these letters to the person, responsible for translation work...?
Create a nice brochure about your services, and also create business cards. Send the brochure and two business cards to these people, unsolicited. You may also include a covering letter, to give it that personal touch.
Repeat every four to six months.
This works best if you can address the post to a specific person that you know may be interested in translation services... so calling in advance is not a bad idea, if you can afford it and if you have a thickish skin.
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| Where to get agency listings for e-mailing? | Aug 28, 2007 |
Hello,
I wish to send my application to several translation agencies using e-mail, but I would like to do it in one step using Yahoo Mail instead of having to look for every company e-mail address (which would take a long long time). Proz offers group mail but not for self-promotion. Is it possible to get a file or listing which contains formatted e-mail addresses of translation agencies (in my language pair), even if it means I have to pay for it? I don't want to send my applicatio... See more Hello,
I wish to send my application to several translation agencies using e-mail, but I would like to do it in one step using Yahoo Mail instead of having to look for every company e-mail address (which would take a long long time). Proz offers group mail but not for self-promotion. Is it possible to get a file or listing which contains formatted e-mail addresses of translation agencies (in my language pair), even if it means I have to pay for it? I don't want to send my application to thousands of agencies, but maybe to 50 or less and see what happens.
I can't afford to call all companies by phone or sending letters or brochures to so many agencies right now so e-mail is my best option.
Can I get busted if an agency finds out that I do mailing (not mass mailing or spamming)? I guess many translators do it on a regular basis. I guess there must be a functionality in the mail program (CC:?)? ▲ Collapse
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Ellen Xu
United States
Local time: 21:47
English to Chinese
| Email to companies looking for translators | Aug 29, 2007 |
Some companies will post on Proz.com or other translation platform, saying they are looking for professional translators to expand their database. I think it is better to send your CVs to such agencies. According to my experience, in most cases, you will get a reply followed by a test. And that's how I get my clients.
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Williamson
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:47
Flemish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Direct clients | Aug 30, 2007 |
The topic is not how to get agency-clients, but DIRECT clients, who pay higher rates.
[Edited at 2007-08-30 15:25]
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