Use case
Subtitles for small businesses
The expensive part of reaching a new market with video is usually the video. If you already have a demo, a walkthrough, or an ad that works, subtitles let you test a market before committing to producing anything for it.
Where subtitles beat reshooting
- Testing a market. Subtitling a video you already have costs a fraction of producing a local one, which makes it a test rather than a commitment.
- Product demos. The screen is doing most of the explaining; the narration just needs to be followable.
- Ads and social. Muted autoplay means the words have to be on screen regardless of language.
- Support and onboarding video. Customers who cannot follow the walkthrough become support tickets, and that cost is easy to miss.
Get the product vocabulary right first
Your product name, feature names, and pricing are the words that matter most in a commercial video, and they are exactly the words automatic transcription has least context for. Each language is a separate job that transcribes the audio again, so those words need checking on every version you publish rather than once. Getting a price or a product name wrong in a subtitle is a different class of problem from getting an ordinary word wrong.
Decisions worth making deliberately
| Formal or informal address | Most languages force this choice, and it sets the tone of everything. Business video usually takes the formal form. See translating subtitles well. |
|---|---|
| Translate product names or not | Usually not, but decide once and be consistent. Alternating between a translated and untranslated product name looks careless. |
| Which market variant | Brazilian and European Portuguese differ, as do Latin American and European Spanish. A local audience notices immediately. |
| Burned in or a subtitle file | Burned in for social and for anywhere you do not control the player. A file where the platform reads one. |
What one job produces
- An MP4 with the translated subtitles burned in, ready to publish.
- A translated SRT for platforms that accept subtitle files.
- The original-language SRT and TXT, which is your master copy and your source for the next language.
- A transcript you can reuse as landing page copy, a help article, or ad text.
Test a market with a video you already have. 50 free credits, no card.
Continue with Google50 free credits. No credit card needed.Frequently asked questions
Which language should I try first?
Wherever you already see traffic or interest you cannot currently serve. Subtitling is cheap enough to treat as a test, so pick one market and measure rather than doing all of them at once.
Will the product name be translated?
Product names are normally left as they are. Check them in the editor on the Pro and Studio plans. Each language is a separate job, so make the same call on each one rather than expecting it to carry across.
Can I use this for ads?
Yes. Ads in social feeds autoplay without sound, so on-screen text is what carries the message regardless of whether you are also translating.
Do I need a separate video per language?
For burned-in subtitles, yes, one output per language. The SRT files can be attached to a single video wherever the platform supports multiple subtitle tracks.