What is Transcreation? (And Why it’s Important)

Have you ever wondered how all of the mainstream international businesses create advertising and marketing promotions that come off just as well in Korea as they do in the USA? 

In order to connect with your multilingual audience in a meaningful way, you can communicate with them through transcreation. Because using normal translation from one language to another is not always enough to convey the complete message you want to be delivered to your target audience. 

But what is transcreation? And why is it important? Let’s find out. 

What is transcreation? 

The term transcreation is a fusion of the words ‘translation’ and ‘creation’. Transcreation or ‘creative translation’ is a process where you don’t translate word for word but only focus on capturing the desired persuasive or emotive effect of the original message and conveying it into the adapted translation. 

People who transcreate the content are called ‘transcreators’. The assets delivered by transcreators should have the same emotions, objectives, and “soul” as the master copy. It has to have the same writing tone, style, and meaning while addressing audiences their in respective languages.

International mass communication has been very lucrative through transcreation. Many organizations around the world are endeavoring to target each country individually using transcreation. The purpose of transcreation is multilingual content with the same emotional impact as the source content.

Nowadays, transcreation has progressed extensively. It’s now a fundamental part of capturing consumers’ attention in international markets. Many large companies, such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Amazon have transcreated their websites to capture the audience from all around the world. 

But why have these businesses transcreated their website? Let’s learn more about the importance of transcreation.

Why is transcreation important?

There are 4 key reasons why transcreation is important for your business. Let’s see what they are.  

Engaging Content

Content that is transcreated resonates more with your target audience since it is translated and re-created with the target audience in mind and in many cases is quite different from the source text yet engaging. Plus, it is always practical to produce truly unique content for every page on your business or personal site and transcreation allows you to do this effortlessly.

Reduces bounce rate and increases repeat visits

If users arrive on your site from search engines only to return to search a few seconds later, this sends a signal to the search engine that your content isn’t useful. It gives them indications that your content is irrelevant or of low quality, which might push search engines to downgrade your site in their results pages. 

On the other hand, repeat visits to your site not only send quality signals to search engines but directly impact your positions in the search results.

Hence, reducing bounce rates and increasing repeat visits is key to informing search engines of the quality of your content. The more repeat visits to your site from these users, the higher your site appears in future related searches.

By personalizing your content to your target audience, your business will resonate more with them. This leads to reduced bounce rates, longer viewing times, and repeat visits.  

More social sharing

Transcreated content is adapted to suit the preferences and behavior of users in the target market and is much more likely to be shared. That’s why ‘social sharing affecting SEO’ (Search Engine Optimization) has been a matter of discussion in the industry lately.  

That’s because social sharing indirectly helps your SEO by increasing the probability of your content being found, liked, shared again, or linked to from other sites on the internet. Which otherwise would be difficult if the content is not transcreated and the purpose of your site is not presented in a correct way to the target audience. 

Increased trust and authority

Poor translations can have negative effects on visitors’ trust and your site’s authority. But even accurate translations often fail to capture the desired persuasive or emotive spirit of the original text. For content to successfully travel across in order to build trust and authority, it must be transcreated.

Transcreation, which includes the adaptation of not only copying but images, logos, symbols, and colors, is used to increase engagement and conversion rates in local markets.

When you work with a dedicated transcreation team, businesses can rapidly build, test, and optimize their digital offering in the target market. Therefore, improving on all the metrics previously mentioned delivering a successful SEO and conversion rate optimization strategy in overseas markets.

If you’re a brand looking to send your message to the world, reaching nations without losing its soul in the international markets, Day Translations is ready to help you get noticed abroad.  Our team of experts can assist with transcreation to ensure you have the most impactful and meaningful content that’s perfectly adapted to suit your new target market.