Freelance Translators:How to Easily Beat the "Feast and Famine" Syndrome

（Edited by freelance Chinese translator li – English to Chinese or Chinese to English translation services）

It is a well known fact that translators in general and more particularly freelance translators are the most reluctant marketers of all professional service providers.
Freelancers often don't realize they are running a business and as such they must embark on permanent, never-ending marketing activities, like any other business owner.

They must market more proactively.
For many of them, marketing your translation/interpreting services simply stops at posting your profile on Translation Portals, Directories and/or sending your resume/CV to Translation Agencies.

Well, that's a terrible mistake and, as the saying goes, that means leaving literally tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (or however much that will be in your local currency...) on the table.

There is indeed an infinite number of ways to market translation/interpreting services, just like any other business: advertising, publicity, referrals, networking, email marketing, newsletter, website, blog, forums, and many others...

One such way that can be extremely efficient while costing almost nothing is writing a Press Release (or News Release or again Media Release) and getting it published or distributed for publishing.It’s not as difficult as you might think!

1. Writing your press release
Bill Stoller gives an impeccable definition of the press release: It is "a pseudo-news story, written in third person, that seeks to demonstrate to an editor or reporter the newsworthiness of a particular person, event, service or product."

Think like a journalist.
Use the "inverted pyramid" format, with less important information further down in the release and keep your press release within 500 words.

The 5 parts of a press release are:
. Headline: Grab attention and force people to read (The most important part). Subhead: Briefly expand the Headline
. Lead Paragraph: The major facts of the story. Include who, what, when, where and how (The second most important part)
. Remaining paragraphs: Briefly give more details about the story.
. End: Include a little information about the business owner and his business. Only info, no hype!

Spend at least half your time on the headline and the lead. To get news coverage, you must "hook" the reporter with the headline and the lead.

2. Getting it published or distributed for publishing.
a) Online PR services
Using online press release services is one of the most powerful ways to almost instantly drive hundreds or even thousands of potential targeted clients to your new service, web site, blog or phone number...

Some of these are free but even those can be quite good and get you thousands of potential clients. You can always start with those since you have nothing to lose and possibly a lot to gain!

b) Send it to PR distributors.
They send it to the media for you, generally not for free :-)

c) Contact the media directly: all you have to do is learn how to write a convincing pitch letter.
A pitch letter is a short letter you write to the journalist (editor) to persuade him to read the attached press release.

For online PR services, PR distributors and the media used by your target audience, you can all find them through search engines.

It is a fact that many people have built 6- or even 7-figure businesses with press release as their only marketing technique.

The essential point here is you must put in some work, first to acquire the necessary knowledge and tools, then, to ACT on all that.

It is indeed possible for freelancers to single-handedly and easily pull themselves out of the “feast and famine” stage, and then if they so wish swiftly upgrade from prosperous freelancer to full blown entrepreneur.But first, they must take marketing seriously, so seriously that they get to a stage where they realize they are a marketing company selling translation services, rather than a translation company that needs to market a service.