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Day 3: Design your sales funnel

by Sarah Dillon

Today's SYS Challenge: set social goals #socialtranslator

Today’s SYS Challenge: design your funnel #socialtranslator

Yesterday was about understanding the buyer’s journey. Today is about understanding your sales funnel, and linking it to your social strategy.

In other words, same thing but from a different angle 🙂 But one that’s still worth pursuing, so bear with me.

So what’s a sales funnel, and why does it matter to me as a translator?

Your sales funnel charts the process you take your customers through before they buy from you.

But instead of looking at the customer experience, it focusses more on the volume of customers in each stage.

Hence a funnel, representing the natural drop-off in the number of potential customers you have moving through each stage until they emerge as buyers from the spout at the bottom.

Yes, this is just another marketing metaphor. But it’s one I think is particularly useful for translators, particularly in the context of social. Here are two reasons why:

First, the funnel shape represents the kind of content a potential buyer might find useful, depending on the stage they are at.

Broader and more general at the top of the funnel, more detailed and specific as they reach the pointy end.

You can target your social media interactions to reflect this and to help move people through the funnel.

Second, and more importantly, looking at your sales process in this way can help you diagnose and fix business issues before they occur.

This can help prevent the feast-or-famine situation freelancers so often fret about.

Here are the kind of questions you can ask yourself to do that:

  • How many leads do I have in my funnel right now?
  • What is the total potential value of each deal in my funnel?
  • How long does it take, on average, for leads to move through my funnel to a sale?
  • What can I do to bring more potential customers into the top of the funnel?
  • What am I doing to pull leads toward the bottom of the funnel?
  • Are they getting stuck at any point in the funnel? What can I do to clear the blockage, if so?
  • Am I spending my time and energy where it matters?

A sound social strategy is what keeps your potential buyers engaged as they work their way down your funnel.

It’s also how you can ensure the right content appears in front of the right people at just the right time.

An example

Matching your sales funnel to your social strategy doesn’t have to be complicated or time consuming.

For example, a couple of years ago I started using a free Gmail plugin called Streak to classify my email enquiries from inside my email account, based on their stage in my sales funnel. It was simple to set it up just how I wanted it, and it was incredibly easy to maintain as it was right there in my inbox, all the time.

Streak allows you to sort your emails into your sales funnel from within Gmail, using parameters of your choosing (see box on right, above).

Each day, I was able to just log in and see who I needed to follow up with, and to what end.

What Streak looks like in Gmail: it allows you to sort your emails directly into a sales funnel of your choosing. Based on this, I could make decisions on where to better invest my time.

Combined with the free Gmail plugin Rapportive, I was able to make sure I was connected to my prospects on any relevant social channels too. So when it came time to follow up or touch base, it was easy to select the channel that was most appropriate based on the kind of outreach I was aiming for.

This is what the Rapportive plugin looks like, also in the sidebar of Gmail. It automagically pulls detailed contact info into your email account to give more context to your interactions, including most recent Tweet, etc. (Note this is not a client – this is my partner. He couldn’t afford a hallowed spot in my sales funnel :)).

Best of all, over time, I was able to spot very strong patterns in the kind of enquiries that were likely to lead to a sale. Even after several years of freelancing at that point, there were still some surprises.

As a result, I was able to make sound decisions on where I should be spending my time and energy.

Of course, this system may not work for you, and that’s fine. But hopefully it will give you some ideas on how you might link up your own sales and social strategies.

—–

A Social Media Challenge!

Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to do one thing each day in October that will have an impact on your social presence in the longer term.

Each weekday in October, I’m going to suggest a task to work on for whatever pocket of time you can carve out that day. You can choose to follow my suggestion, adjust it to suit your circumstances, or come up with an alternative – whatever makes most sense for you. Or just dip in and out as it suits.

Follow along on Twitter, Facebook, or here on the blog. Let me know how you’re getting on by using the hashtag #socialtranslator (so I can find you!). If you find it helpful, please give me a thumbs up, a like or a share – that’s how I’ll know you’re finding it useful, and it’ll help other translators join in too.

Last updated: 5 October, 2015 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: For Translators, Marketing for language professionals

Day 1: Get Clear on Your Goals

by Sarah Dillon

 

Today's SYS Challenge: set social goals #socialtranslator

Today’s SYS Challenge: set social goals #socialtranslator

I’ve never spent masses of time on social media. When my income is based on my output, as it is for many translators, I need to be certain that time spent on anything other than wordsmithing is going to be worth it.

The best way to do that is to be clear on my goals before I ever fire up Facebook.

When you’re clear on what you want to achieve from social from a business standpoint, your online activities can be more focussed.

It seems a lot of us go about our social strategy backwards: we pick technologies or platforms first, before getting clear on what we really want to accomplish.

It’s a lot easier to decide where to invest your energies when you view everything through the lens of “Is this going to get me closer to or further away from my stated goal?”.  When the answer is yes, you do it. When it’s no, you don’t. When you have a choice of activities to select from, you pick the one that is most likely to move you furthest in the right direction.

It really can be as simple and as complicated as that.

Having clear goals for social has also helped me resist the urge to tinker, fiddle around “just because”, and ascribe meaning to what I’ve done after the fact. For example, “I can clock that last hour up to professional development because I learned how NOT to go about designing a Twitter background!”.

I love learning for learning’s sake just as much as the next person, but let’s be honest: that’s a hobby, not a business activity. (And making time for hobbies is a whole ‘nother issue!)

Examples of goals

From my reading on this topic (see further reading, below), it seems goals relating to online marketing tend to fall into one of three categories:

  1. Building your brand
  2. Driving conversions
  3. Increasing your presence

For the best results, sources agree you need to formulate your goal so it’s super specific. If your goal fits in all three of the above categories, for example, then it’s probably too broad.

My goal for social is to get in the routine of publishing content again. That’s it. This challenge is a way for me to do that.

Of course, it’s easy to get caught up in the reasons why you can’t reach your online goals. Especially as a translator, when you may be considering international audiences, business-to-business markets, or other such variables. But you still need to start somewhere, and that’s where simple and focussed comes in. For me, it’s as much about building momentum as it is about achieving the goals I set myself.

Shooting an arrow at a target is no guarantee you’ll hit the bulleye. But without a target, the only guarantee is that you’ll never hit it at all.

I know which odds I’d rather be playing.

[tweetable hashtags=”#socialtranslator”]We can all find 15 mins a day for online marketing. This is how you ensure those 15 mins make a difference.[/tweetable] (click to tweet).

So, go set yourself some goals for social!

Further reading

  • Kevin Lee at Buffer has an excellent post on goal setting as it relates to social media, inlcuding several different ways of formulating goals for business purposes. If you read only one article on this topic, make it this one.
  • Marketo has some great examples of social media goals (pdf) broken down by platform in their free social media action plan.
  • Charles Ngo has an interesting article on goal setting in general if you’d like more info on the benefits associated with that.

—–

A Social Media Challenge!

Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to do one thing each day in October that will have an impact on your social presence in the longer term.

Each weekday in OctoberI’m going to suggest a task to work on for whatever pocket of time you can carve out that day. You can choose to follow my suggestion, adjust it to suit your circumstances, or come up with an alternative – whatever makes most sense for you. Or just dip in and out as it suits.

Follow along on Twitter, Facebook, or here on the blog. Let me know how you’re getting on by using the hashtag #socialtranslator (so I can find you!). If you find it helpful, please give me a thumbs up, a like or a share – that’s how I’ll know you’re finding it useful, and it’ll help other translators join in too.

Last updated: 1 October, 2015 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: For Translators, Marketing for language professionals Tagged With: SYS2015

Translators: Sort Your Social! (A Challenge)

by Sarah Dillon

My social media marketing is due some TLC. Follow along in October as I get it sorted!

My social presence is pretty shabby at the moment. My Twitter is hit and miss, there are tumbleweeds rolling through my Facebook page, and frankly, all the mismatched graphics hurt my eyeballs.

It’s time to apply the Sarah Dillon brand of social spring clean 😉

This is a system for my online marketing that I’ve followed for about 2 years. It works for a couple of reasons.

First, because it’s important to me and my business that I have a strong online presence. All my new business comes to me this way. Second, because I hate, HATE scattering my attention across a million things at once. It feels unproductive, and it wears me out. Ain’t no-one got time for that. (And social media can VERY like that.)

In other words, I like to have my cake and eat it too.

Here’s how I do it.

I set aside some time to give my social media a re-haul. During this time, I focus 100% of my time that’s NOT revenue generating or family time on my social media.

I approach it like a puzzle: I have only X amount of time, and Y amount of resources. What can I make happen with that? What worked really well last time? How can I multiple that? What shortcuts can I figure out, using only what I have to hand right now?

I give up Netflix, going out, and a bunch of other things for the designated time until SOMETHING gets done. Then I log out and move on, and I don’t allow myself to think about it again for another 6 or so months. Boom! You’re welcome.

And that’s it. Only, of course, it’s not really… my biggest challenge is the ongoing battle against perfectionism and its evil twin overwhelm. So throughout the process, I steel myself with the reminder that done is always better than perfect. DONE is always better than perfect. Done is ALWAYS better than perfect!

So, it seems I’m due another stint on social. But this time, I thought it might be fun to invite other translators to follow along too. A kind of “social” social spring clean, if you will. (A spring you don’t have to be in the southern hemisphere to enjoy, of course!).

What do you say?

A Social Media Challenge!

Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to do one thing each day in October that will have an impact on your social presence in the longer term.

Each weekday I’m going to suggest a task to work on for whatever pocket of time you can carve out that day. You can choose to follow my suggestion, adjust it to suit your circumstances, or come up with an alternative – whatever makes most sense for you. Or just dip in and out as it suits.

Follow along on Twitter, Facebook, or here on the blog. Let me know how you’re getting on by using the hashtag #socialtranslator (so I can find you!). If you find it helpful, please give me a thumbs up, a like or a share – that’s how I’ll know you’re finding it useful, and it’ll help other translators join in too.

Remember to keep it simple, avoid overwhelm, and be crystal clear on the impact we want our actions to have in the wider scheme of things. Done is better than perfect!

Our aim is to have a social presence that is sharp, snappy, and self-sustaining by the end of the month.

Or worst case scenario, we’ll have something better than what we started with 🙂

See you on 1 October!

Last updated: 17 September, 2015 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Marketing for language professionals Tagged With: social media marketing, socialtranslator, sort your social

Being a translator should be hard

by Sarah Dillon

Hard Work...One of the best perks in my former role as a Director of eCPD, the online training provider for translators, was that I got to attend some truly fantastic talks by the most interesting, inspiring and successful people in our profession.

So I was buzzed when I heard Judy Jenner, blogger at Translation Times and co-author of The Entrepreneurial Linguist, emphasise that building and growing a business is hard, and that freelance translators and interpreters need to expect it to be that way.

Yet not many translators (and dare I say it, even fewer interpreters I meet) seem to grasp this.

[Read more…]

Last updated: 26 October, 2011 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Business of translation, Marketing for language professionals, Starting up in translation Tagged With: career development, Professional development, sustaining your career

Book Review: The Prosperous Translator

by Sarah Dillon

The Prosperous Translator: Advice from Fire Ant & Worker Bee, compiled and edited by Chris Durban, is simply jam-packed with wisdom. It answers questions on every imaginable scenario under the sun, including many you may recognise but would never dare to admit. It’s not a guide to translation, nor is it a manual on getting up and running in business. What it does offer though, is a realistic, well-balanced view of the profession and the wider industry in which we operate.

The Prosperous Translator

My well-thumbed copy of The Prosperous Translator

The book is based around problems, yet these sticky wickets are transformed into golden opportunities. Challenges are re-framed in a practical and insightful way. Advice usually comes with suggestions of concrete actions or scripts, which apply regardless of language combination, specialism or circumstance. Every path, every option, every scenario is considered with the following in mind: Is this where I want to be as a professional translator? And I kid you not, this mindset alone could change your life. (Or your bottom line, at the very least.)

I got this book late last year with the intention of reviewing it before Christmas, but it was a victim of its own awesomeness. When it came to writing up a review, I needed some serious time and liquid preparation before I could even attempt to do justice to the quantity and quality of information contained within its covers. But enough about me: you’re here for the book.

[Read more…]

Last updated: 10 March, 2011 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Business of translation, Marketing for language professionals, Translation profession and industry, Working habits Tagged With: book review, Chris Durban, The Prosperous Translator

Translators: are you still relevant?

by Sarah Dillon

I’ve come to the conclusion that unprofessional and/or unskilled translators aren’t awarded work just because they are cheap. They are awarded work because they are willing to do whatever it takes to give the client what they want.

08-05-10 Give Me Something I Can Believe In

[Read more…]

Last updated: 6 October, 2010 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Business of translation, Marketing for language professionals Tagged With: near neighbours of translation, translation relevance, translation services

Guerrilla marketing and one-page marketing plans

by Sarah Dillon

Guerrilla marketing involves taking a non-traditional approach to conventional marketing goals. Best of all, it’s a way for us small fry to successfully compete with the big players by applying a toolbox of tricks that no self-respecting freelance translator should be without.

The best thing about a guerrilla approach to marketing is that the question of whether to use [insert preferred web 2.0 tool here] is no longer relevant. Instead the question becomes what exactly do these online tools offer, and how can you apply them to meet your offline goals.

Here are two great resources to help focus the mind of the most marketing-allergic translators:

  • Guy Kawasaki makes available a free one-page template here, which he calls The World’s Shortest Marketing Plan (although when completed it comes in longer).
  • If you want to read a little bit more about guerrilla marketing, I recommend downloading this free pdf called Guide to Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants (not least because it advocates a 7-sentence marketing plan)

Enjoy.

Last updated: 27 September, 2010 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Marketing for language professionals Tagged With: guerrilla marketing, marketing for translators, marketing plans

21 Tips for Timid Bloggers

by Sarah Dillon

Student blogger Shana being shy

Blogging isn’t for everybody. But if you’ve considered blogging but are too shy to press “Publish”, here are some translator-specific tips to help you over the hump. Remember, the more translators who blog, the larger the pool of expertise we have to draw on, and the more we all learn as a result. And y’all know I’m about the learning, right? 🙂 [Read more…]

Last updated: 21 June, 2010 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Marketing for language professionals, Technology for translators Tagged With: blogging, online presence, translators online

Book review: The Entrepreneurial Linguist

by Sarah Dillon

The idea of the linguist as an entrepreneur resonates very strongly with me. In fact, exactly how entrepreneurship “fits” with freelancing is something I mulled over (not very eloquently) in the very earliest days of this blog. So it’s been exciting to see the idea finally given a name and a widely accepted definition, and even more inspiring to see two such capable professionals give it a face.

The Entrepreneurial Linguist is Judy and Dagmar Jenner’s new book on the nuts and bolts of growing a language service business. It is aimed at translation and interpreting practitioners who want to work with direct clients, a largely neglected area which I’m sure will pique the interest of many.

Translating twins Dagmar and Judy maintain the popular translation blog, Translation Times, and are regular contributors to the ITI Bulletin and ATA Chronicle. ATA members will almost certainly have heard of their well-received Entrepreneurial Linguist workshops. Judy is actively involved with the Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association, while German-speaking linguists may know Dagmar through her role with the Austrian Interpreters and Translators Association.

The following are some of the points that particularly impressed me about this book, and which in my opinion, make it stand out from other books in this genre.  [Read more…]

Last updated: 26 May, 2010 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Business of translation, Marketing for language professionals, Translation profession and industry Tagged With: book review, The Entrepreneurial Linguist, working with direct clients

5 Qs with Amy Williams, French and Italian to English translator

by Sarah Dillon

Amy Williams is a freelance translator working from French and Italian into English, and a director of Eggplant Translations. She specialises in marketing and advertising, and the arts, media and music in particular. In the early stages of my freelance career, Amy was kind enough to give me some great advice on setting up a website. Here I ask her for more tips about marketing, her areas of specialisation and why she has chosen to pursue further studies in psychology. [Read more…]

Last updated: 23 October, 2009 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Marketing for language professionals, Professional development, Real-life translators (5 Qs) Tagged With: 5 Qs, Amy WIlliams, Eggplant Translations, Marketing for language professionals, music, Open University, Oxford, Professional development, specialisation

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