CLEAR WORDS
TRANSLATIONS

All News

July 23, 2020 |

4 Tips to Organize a Successful Webinar in Multiple Languages 

A webinar in multiple languages is an excellent tool if you need to stay in touch with international audiences. As a powerful educational and marketing tool, a webinar also helps you increase brand awareness and generate engagement. 

Webinars are one of the most effective ways of sharing information, such as updates or insights. You can use them to communicate with employees, business partners, existing clients, and even potential buyers. And, with help from translators and interpreters, you can make any webinar accessible to a global audience. 

It’s an investment that pays off in the long run. A single webinar can bring in as many as 1000 leads. Webinars also increase brand loyalty and can even generate immediate sales. 

Here are four tips you can use to organize a successful webinar in multiple languages and generate high levels of engagement from international audiences. 

1) Define the Scope of Your Project

Planning is essential when creating a webinar in multiple languages. That’s because creating webinars implies working with a team of specialists from various areas, including content creation and programming. If you want to present the final product in more languages, linguists will join the team. 

It’s a project that requires resources, so make sure you don’t spend more than you can afford. Set clear goals and identify the costs of creating and translating the webinar right from the start. This way, you won’t have to handle delays or unexpected expenses along the way. 

When you plan the webinar, you should know:

  • Its purpose: to increase awareness, get new leads, or generate sales. 
  • The target audience and how many people can attend.
  • How many languages you want to/can support. 
  • How many speakers you will involve in the project and how long the event will be. 
  • What webinar software and platform you’ll use to connect with your public. 
  • Whether you want a social media feed for real-time engagement (and how you plan to handle multilingual conversations).
  • The technology that helps you deliver information in multiple languages.  
  • What supporting content you need to create and how to share it during the webinar. 
  • The opportunities and the costs of repurposing the content as a recorded event. 
  • The estimated costs for promoting the webinar in multiple languages. 

If you don’t plan expenses right from the start and overspend in the initial phase, you might feel tempted to cut down on language service costs. In this case, you risk delivering a poor customer experience and losing potential clients instead of generating revenue. 

2) Plan the Content with Translation in Mind

The success of a webinar in multiple languages depends on the quality of the content that you provide. If people who attend your online event get value from it, they’re more likely to do what you ask them to; whether it’s to test your service, subscribe to your email list, or even buy from you. 

First, make sure that the speakers understand that everything they say needs to be translated. This means that (1) they need to give interpreters time to communicate the message further, and (2) they should try to adapt their speech to an international audience. 

Speakers should eliminate slang and any references that are difficult to understand by a multilingual public, from different parts of the world. To avoid misunderstandings, make sure that speakers know as much as possible about the audience: nationality, languages that they’re comfortable using, educational background, and any other helpful details. 

Another thing to consider is the supporting materials and slides necessary to facilitate understanding of the topic. Make sure you write content that is easy to translate in all target languages. All versions of your content must send the same message. You don’t want the speaker and the slides to say different things, as it may send the wrong message to your audience. 

3) Hire Translators and Interpreters for a Webinar in Multiple Languages

For a successful webinar in multiple languages, you need to work with both translators and simultaneous interpreters. Translators will help you create content in various languages for support material (slides) and live social media coverage, as well as for promoting your webinar (via emails, press placements, or social media messages, for example).

Google Translate or any other software alone can’t translate your slides or other materials. You need to work with human translators to make sure that every person who attends your webinar receives the same top-quality content, regardless of the language they speak. 

During the event, you’ll collaborate with simultaneous interpreters, who will deliver the translated message to the target audience in the right languages. You’ll need to choose a platform that enables interpreters to connect to the webinar. Then, attendees will have the possibility of selecting the language they prefer, and the platform will automatically connect them to the dedicated interpreter. 

Depending on the length of the event and the number of speakers, you should consider having several interpreters available for each language. That’s because simultaneous interpreting is hard work! Linguists must memorize the words they hear and translate them while the source continues to speak (the speakers should keep this in mind during the webinar).  

Generally, interpreters need a break after every 20-30 minutes of translation. If they remain active for more than 30 minutes at a time, interpreters can get tired and might not keep up with the source message.

4) Give Linguists Background Information

Context is crucial for both translators and interpreters when translating a webinar in multiple languages. The more they know about the project, the easier it is to deliver high-quality content in all languages. 

For interpreters, in particular, background information can make the difference between a successful event and failure. You can provide support by sending all interpreters a copy of the speeches, or at least an outline of what speakers are planning to say during the event. 

Background information is also helpful for streamlining communication during Q&A sessions if you plan to organize one for your international audience. 

Organizing a webinar in multiple languages implies putting together content creators, linguists, and technology to make sure everyone can participate actively in the event. It requires planning and collaboration between experts from different parts of the world, and the safest way to succeed is by working with professional language service providers.