In his blog, The Cycling Translator, Andrew Bell provides tips to  Australian translators and interpreters willing to increase their workflow. These tips apply to all translators wondering how to market their translation services. Here are some excerpts:

Marketing online

In the early days of my translation career I asked a colleague if he had any advice on how to improve my workflow –he replied: “Three words: marketing, marketing, marketing!” Google Open Directory is an excellent way of marketing translation agencies by country. Also, if you translate into English then it’s always worth approaching agencies in England and the USA – ideally checking first that they offer translation services within your language combinations. Consider also approaching countries that border your source language countries, I’ve successfully marketed to countries in proximity to my source language countries, e.g. Germany, The Netherlands and France, and have repeat clients in all these countries. Keep a record of who you market to, how and when you marketed and their response. Review these marketing events 3, 6 or 12-monthly. Keeping marketing records will avoid the embarrassing situation of a PM e-mailing you to say “thanks but we declined your offer last week” or “you’re already on our database” – it looks unprofessional. I keep an Excel file containing my marketing information and also use Translation Office 3000 to administrate projects, payments, clients and marketing. TO3000 costs EUR 189 at time of writing but is well worth it in my opinion.

There are a number of translator job forums on the Internet – some free – some offering various forms of membership, usually with a reasonable annual subscription. Some, like ProZ.com, offer hosting services as part of the package and are a cheap and simple way of achieving an online presence. The “Useful Resources” section of this article contains a list of the more popular job forums. For those who like a challenge or who are more IT-oriented, web authoring programmes such as Dreamweaver are reasonably priced and ready-made templates can be obtained free or at a reasonable price (somewhere between AUD 25—50) online. I bought a set of Dreamweaver templates, dismantled them with Dreamweaver, used my own JPEGs and created mirror pages in my source languages – it’s really not that difficult.

Sorry!
If you make an error, submit a project late, or stuff up in some other way – APOLOGIZE – it’s really easy and it’s what project managers need to hear. You are unlikely to lose a client because you made a mistake but if you are rude, arrogant, or fail to acknowledge errors then you almost certainly will.

Accessibility
Don’t feel that because you’re based in Australia, a client in Milan or Paris will rule you out as a client—this is simply not the case. Very few clients have rejected me as a potential service provider on the basis of geographical location—what is key is that you are friendly, approachable and accessible, not whether you are in the same time zone. I use Skype as well as email so that clients can see whether I’m on- or offline and will know my local time so they don’t phone me at midnight. Don’t make a big issue about your geographic location but do play up your service provision and accessibility. Go the extra mile – add value! I also recommend that you add Skype to your signature in Outlook and also that you download Time Zone Clock (freeware from Galleon Systems), which will enable you to monitor a number of time zones simultaneously.

Specialize
If you can specialize then you immediately become more valuable to a client. My background is nursing (www.scandinaviantranslations.org/Resume.pdf) and therefore I’ve managed to market myself successfully as a medical/pharmaceutical translator to the extent that it now constitutes the majority my work. If your field of expertise is the oil industry and a client offers you a piece on banking, then don’t be frightened to state a preference rather than flat out refusing, i.e. “Many thanks for offering me this project, however, it’s really not my field of expertise. I prefer, ideally, working with general texts or in oil industry-related material and would be more than happy to work with you on such projects…” There are also a host of e-groups and forums on Google and Yahoo for specialist fields of translation and these are an ideal source of networks and help when you have a terminology query or other problem.

Networking

Accepting that we often work in isolation, there are numerous ways of networking with colleagues. Attending CPD events, joining e-groups and registering on job portals  are an excellent way of raising your profile, answering terminology-related queries and gaining a reputation. Read more.

See: The Cycling Translator