By localizing your SaaS product, you can tailor it to meet the specific needs of international customers, improving market reach, user experience, product adoption, and ROI.
In this guide, we provide actionable strategies, handy tools, and localization best practices so you can make sure your SaaS product resonates with audiences worldwide.
Understanding localization for SaaS products
Localizing your SaaS product involves adapting your content, design, pricing, and other details to fit different languages, cultures, and markets.
It goes beyond simple translation. You’ll need to adjust various elements, such as date and currency formats, and accommodate languages with different scripts (like right-to-left languages) to make your product feel local to each user.
Benefits of localization
The global SaaS market is booming and is anticipated to grow to $819.23 billion by 2030. Localizing your SaaS product allows you to tap into this expanding market and create the best possible customer experiences.
Here are the key advantages of software localization:
- Increased market reach: Localizing your product makes it accessible and appealing to users in various regions worldwide, allowing you to attract a wider audience.
- Enhanced user experience: Users who interact with a product tailored to their specific needs and preferences are more likely to have a positive experience.
- Higher user satisfaction and retention: A localized product resonates more with users, increasing satisfaction and leading to a higher likelihood of continued use.
- Competitive advantage in international markets: A product that feels local stands out in crowded marketplaces, providing an edge over competitors.
Potential for higher revenue and growth: All together, these add up to increased sales and business growth.
A step-by-step guide to localizing your SaaS product
Adapting your SaaS product for global markets requires a strategic approach to localization.
But figuring out where to start and what steps to follow can feel overwhelming.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to ensure your localization efforts are a success:
- Conduct market research: start by conducting thorough market research to identify your target markets. Understanding the specific needs and behaviors of users in these markets is crucial. This involves analyzing demographic data, cultural preferences, and local trends.
Caroline Ren, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Webflow offers a cost-effective way to test a potential market before jumping in:
“Build a quick site in the target language of the market you plan to enter to see the traffic and engagement you’re getting. This helps you decide if the ROI is strong enough to invest in that market.”
- Build a localization team: Once you understand which markets are worth targeting, you can assemble a dedicated localization team with clearly defined roles.
This team should include a localization or product manager, translators, designers, developers, marketers, and local experts. Spend time catching up with stakeholders to understand their processes and what each team needs, then turn that into an action plan to make sure each team’s localization needs are met and that localization fits within their structure.
You also need to be clear on deliverables and project ownership, as well as who needs to be involved and informed.
Make sure the whole team is aligned before starting localization projects so that you don’t run into any bottlenecks along the way.
- Translate your software: Accurate translation of your software is a critical step in the localization process.
There are several ways to tackle this:
- Machine Translation (MT) for quick turnarounds
- Combining MT with human review, otherwise known a machine translation post-editing (MTPE)
- Human translation and review for culturally relevant translations
Note: when we talk about machine translation, this also incudes GenAI translation tools.
- Integrate cultural adaptation: Localization is more than just translation. You need to adapt your software to cultural norms and preferences. For instance, specific colors or symbols might have different connotations in some cultures, so localization involves modifying visual elements, date formats, and the user interface to match local conventions.
- Customize features for local markets: Lastly, customizing your software features to meet the needs of local markets is another crucial aspect of localization. This could involve adding or adjusting functionalities to suit local practices better. For example, integrating local payment methods, or customizing workflows to align with regional business practices.
Local experts and consultants can be invaluable in this process, helping you understand the most popular payment methods in different countries and determining which features are necessary or redundant in specific markets. Their insights ensure that your software meets the unique needs of each region effectively.
By following these steps, you can effectively localize your SaaS product and make it appealing to a global audience.
Next, let’s explore the best practices for localization to ensure your efforts are streamlined and successful.
Mastering localization for SaaS products: best practices and leading companies
Successful localization is critical to a seamless user experience. Following these best practices ensures your product maintains high standards and that the localization can be kept up-to-date easily.
Ensure success by following localization best practices.
Implement continuous localization
Continuous localization minimizes the risk of outdated or inconsistent translations, enhances user experience, and accelerates market entry for new features.
It involves integrating localization into your development workflow to keep pace with product updates and market changes. This approach ensures that new features and content are always available in all target languages, minimizing the lag between product releases and their localized versions.
Automate to save time and boost consistency
Automation tools like Lokalise streamline the localization process, reducing manual errors and saving time. With Lokalise, you can have your text translated automatically, as soon as it’s ready. You also benefit from automated translation suggestions and translation memory.
Confirm uses Lokalise to efficiently manage localization, enabling them to launch new languages in just eight days. By automating workflows and leveraging automatic translations as a stop-gap, they ensure rapid, consistent updates.
This approach has allowed Confirm to localize their SaaS platform into nine languages without any customer complaints, maintaining high-quality translations and seamless user experiences.
Speed up translations with AI
AI-powered translations can significantly accelerate the localization process. AI can provide accurate, context-specific translations that maintain the original meaning and tone, enhancing the overall efficiency of your localization efforts.
Give your machine translation tool your style guide and glossary to improve your translations and minimize the need for heavy changes during the quality assurance stage. For instance, Life360 used Lokalise AI to translate half a million words into five languages in just one month, achieving up to 80% savings in time and costs. AI helps provide accurate, context-specific translations, minimizing the need for heavy post-editing. As Joaquín Muñoz from Life360 noted, AI significantly reduces translation time, especially for large volumes.
Go beyond translating text
Localization goes beyond translating text. It includes adapting images, videos, user interfaces, and other multimedia elements to resonate with the target audience. Comprehensive localization ensures that all aspects of your product are culturally relevant and easily understood by users in different regions.
Cross-team collaboration is crucial to make this happen. Designers, content writers, translators, QA specialists, and developers all need to be on the same page — and collaborate in the same system — to make sure every detail is localized, from pricing and payments to cultural preferences.
Netflix excels in comprehensive localization by translating, dubbing, and subtitling its content in multiple languages, as well as adapting promotional images and customizing user interfaces to fit regional preferences. This approach not only helps Netflix provide a culturally relevant experience but also ensures a seamless viewing experience across diverse markets.
For instance, in 2021, Netflix subtitled seven million run-time minutes and dubbed five million, demonstrating their commitment to accessible content worldwide. They have also invested heavily in producing locally specific content, such as the French series “Marseille,” to better engage audiences in specific markets
By implementing these best practices and leveraging Lokalise’s powerful features, you can ensure that your SaaS product is effectively localized, providing an engaging user experience worldwide.
Now that you understand the best practices, let’s explore the tools and resources that can make your SaaS localization project a success.
Overcoming challenges in SaaS localization
Localizing your SaaS product can enable you to tap into new markets. However, this process has its challenges. When all the pieces of the puzzle aren’t in sync, localization can get chaotic.
Localization has challenges.
One of the most common challenges is maintaining consistent terminology across different languages and media.
Inconsistent terms can confuse users and disrupt the user experience. That’s where tools that support standardization come into play, like using a glossary and style guide with your machine translation.
Another challenge is the risk of cultural misunderstandings, which can lead to offensive or irrelevant content. Thorough cultural research is essential to avoid these pitfalls.
More tips for getting localization right
Collaborate with local experts: working with native speakers and local specialists can help ensure translation accuracy and cultural relevance. Lokalise’s platform facilitates this collaboration by connecting you with the right experts.
Regular quality checks: continuous testing and user feedback loops are vital for maintaining high localization standards. Implementing regular quality checks helps identify and address issues promptly.
Streamlined translation management: efficient translation process management is essential to avoid bottlenecks and errors. Lokalise’s translation management sytem integrates with your product ecosystem, automating workflows and enabling translators to focus on translating.
Tools to make your localization project a success: powerful translation management systems (TMS) are designed to streamline the localization process for your SaaS product. You can automate translations, manage tasks, and collaborate seamlessly with your team.
Here’s how a TMS like Lokalise can enhance your localization efforts:
- Translation glossary and style guide to ensure consistency across all content
- AI-powered translations for accurate and context-specific translations
- Integrations for better collaboration. Lokalise integrates with essential tools like GitHub, Figma, Slack, Adobe XD, Zendesk Guide, and Amazon S3. These integrations allow teams to work efficiently by synchronizing localization files and providing real-time updates
- Task automations ensure that the right people are notified immediately, reducing lag time and enhancing efficiency.
- Consistent localization standards: adapt localization elements like currency and date formats through the use of placeholders. These placeholders are inserted into translation files by developers and dynamically pull the correct information for each locale when the content is published. This system allows for consistent formatting across different regions without requiring manual adjustments for each locale.
Unlock global success for your SaaS product with Lokalise
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Start your free trial with Lokalise today and experience how our AI translation, workflow management tools, and integrations can streamline your localization process, enhance your global reach, and ensure your product resonates with users worldwide.
