Transcription Services: 3 key ways to get clients

On occasion I am asked for my advice on how to get clients by people starting a transcription services business and transcribers that need to boost their client base. I can only speak from my own experience of setting up and running King Audio Transcription & Typing Services, which I started in 2003.  

In the early days of King Audio Transcription & Typing Services, I found that no amount of direct marketing was fruitful in finding new clients and quite frankly, I have to admit, it was spammy. Nobody likes a spammer!

Why was this marketing approach unsuccessful? (Apart from the obvious). 

I wasn't getting my transcription services business in front of an audience who were specifically looking for that type of service at that specific moment in time - the target audience. 

Therefore, based on my experience my advice to someone who has just started in transcription services would be:  

1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Learn about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). A good start would be learning how to optimise your website for search engines. Victoria Edwards wrote an article in 2013, which gives good overall advice: SEO Basics: 8 Essentials When Optimizing Your Site. 

Search engines can get your transcription services business in front of an audience who have specifically searched for this type of service when they need it. 

This is where the search engines hold the key to success.

Since 2003 millions of transcription services businesses have joined the World Wide Web, which is why it is so important to strive to feature on the first page of search engine results. 
Ask yourself, when you are searching for something online, how many pages of search results will you click through? Maybe the first three pages... less?

This is why learning SEO is so important, although I will warn you; SEO is not the easiest of subjects and is a long game. It may take up to a couple of years to get results.

Good sources of information about SEO can be found on forums and in articles on the net. Ensure any articles you choose to read are up to date as the search engines change their algorithms regularly and SEO has to be tweaked to accommodate these changes. The UKBusinessForum  has lots of useful information about SEO and other topical subjects. 

If you are not inclined to do your own SEO for your transcription services business, you may decide to hire a professional. However, I would still advise learning the basics so you have an understanding of the subject.

2. Pay per Click (PPC) Campaign

In the meantime you could try a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign. Although again, this is something you will need to research to get your campaign right so you don't waste money. Google Adwords offer free help in setting up a campaign.

3. Social media

Social media is another way of reaching out and becoming known as a transcription services provider. Twitter and Facebook are great for this. If you want to follow me the links are over on the right. A LinkedIn account can also be very useful; ask your clients to recommend you for your transcription services. 

For more information about starting a business in the UK you may find the .gov page helpful: https://www.gov.uk/starting-up-a-business/start-with-an-idea.

I hope this information is useful. I know it's a lot to take onboard, but don't be put off. If you provide a great service to your clients and are determined to succeed you will. 

Alternatively, if you are looking for a transcription services provider visit the main King Audio Transcription & Typing Services website to get a quote.

Interview recordings: iPhone / smartphone - potential problems

Many people who are studying for a Masters or PhD degree at some point need to conduct interviews as part of their research thesis or dissertation. This can be a daunting prospect, especially when thinking about what equipment to use to record the interviews to send to your interview transcription service provider.

However, you may not need to buy expensive recording equipment as many smartphones on the market ship with a recording app pre-installed that have the capacity to record for several hours. There are also many apps available to download that can do this that can produce good quality interview recordings. 

It is really important to check out the app by making a test recording in the first instance to ensure: 

1. You know how to use the app correctly.
2. The sound quality of the recording is clear and audible. 
3. You can get the recording from your smartphone when your interview is complete to enable you to send it to your interview transcription service provider.

A couple of my clients recently experienced difficulty with the iPhone. After recording their interviews they were unable to sync the recording with iTunes to prepare to send the interview recordings for transcription via the Internet.

I have researched this problem. I made a 20 minute test sound file using Voice Memo with the iPhone. I connected the iPhone to my PC via USB lead and synced with iTunes. I found my recording in the Music folder under Voice Memos. So success, although it was only a 20 minute recording and problems seem to occur when the recording is fairly lengthy, i.e. 90 minutes or more in the case of my clients. 

Further research led me to this thread on discussions.apple.com, where people talk about some of the problems they have experienced when trying to sync longer recordings (not necessarily interview recordings) from their iPhones. It was suggested to download iExplorer, which enabled some people to locate and download their recordings.

As yet I have not heard of any of my clients experiencing this type of difficulty with Android smartphones, but that is not to say that problems do not exist. 

Again, I think the important thing is to check your equipment before carrying out long interviews for transcription. Create a test sound file of approximately the same length that your interviews are likely to be and experiment with downloading the test recording from your device to ensure that you are able to send the interview recording via the Internet. 

If you would like more information about recording interviews for transcription or you would like a quotation for professional interview transcription, visit the interview transcription page at the King Audio Transcription & Typing Services website. 

How to format copy time function in ExpressScribe transcription

When using the copy time Hot Key function in ExpressScribe it is easy to format how the time appears in your transcript in the following way. 

In the ExpressScribe interface click Options > display

As you can 
see in the image, under the Time Format section there are Prefix and Suffix boxes, where you can add brackets (open bracket in prefix and closing bracket in suffix). I have added a square opening bracket in the prefix box and a closing square bracket in the suffix box. Therefore, when I copy and paste the time into my transcript it will appear like this [0:08:58.7]. This time is obviously just an example to show you how the format appears. Of course, you could use any format that suits you, for example: ((?0:08:58.7)). In this example one would place ((? in the prefix box and )) in the suffix box. 

This is a really handy tip if you are a transcribing interviews for example. It makes it easy to insert time stamps into transcripts or to mark the time of an inaudible word in a transcript. 

We hope this has been useful and saves you lots of time in your transcriptions in the future. 

Alternatively, if you would like to outsource your transcription, King Audio Transcription & Typing Services in the UK would be happy to give you a quick quote. Please visit our main website at www.kingaudio.co.uk and use the contact page to contact us. 

Focus Group Transcription: Guide for having focus groups transcribed

There are some aspects to consider when deciding how much detail you will need to include in your focus group transcripts to meet the needs of your project.

For example, if the focus group participants need to be identified in the transcript by their name, initials or participant 1 (P1), participant 2 (P2) etc this is a more expensive option for focus group transcription as it is a more time-consuming process for the transcriptionist.

A good analogy for why this is more time-consuming is imagine you are with a group of people you have never met before and you are blindfolded (apologies for my terrible doodle). Now try to identify each person by their voice. This is what it will be like for your transcriber listening to the focus group recording, although the transcriber will have the benefit of being able to rewind and listen again and again.

For this type of focus group transcription an experienced transcriber will need to keep a detailed record of each participant and the characteristics of their voice to refer to throughout the transcription and will, more often than not, have to flick backwards and forwards through the recording to pinpoint and double check voices.

One of our recent clients found a way around this by interjecting with the individual’s name each time a new participant spoke, which made the focus group transcription less complex and therefore a cheaper process.

Alternatively you might consider that it is not necessary to identify the participants but to give each new speaker a new paragraph in the transcript. Again, this is a cheaper option.

It goes without saying that a good, clear and audible recording is necessary for focus group transcription.

For more information and to get a price for focus group transcription visit the King Audio Transcription & Typing Services Focus Group Transcription page.

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