The relationship between language professionals and SaaS innovation is complex, mirroring the intimate connections between these two industries. With a heavy reliance on technology, frequent demand for scalability, and the need for continuous improvement, these two sectors share common technological elements and emerging business trends. Because of these factors, language professionals play an essential role in the strategy, development, and delivery of SaaS products and services to global audiences.

Organizations that develop SaaS products and services rely on language professionals to help them improve the user experience, boost customer engagement, and elevate the value of their offerings. What’s often not expressed is the degree to which language services drive innovation rather than being purely the outcome of strategic decisions.

With the global SaaS market estimated to reach $10 trillion by 2030, the revenue that stands to be generated from international markets is substantial. However, reaching – and retaining – international customers depends on effective communication facilitated by language professionals such as linguists, translators, project managers, and engineers. 

Here are some essential points to consider when including language services as a part of your SaaS development strategy.

Language Professionals Help Differentiate SaaS Products and Services in Crowded Markets

Language professionals serve a valuable role in SaaS development by adapting products to new languages, cultures, or markets. Their services can include translation, which converts text or content from one language to another while preserving the original meaning and intent, and localization, which adapts content, products, or services to suit a specific target audience’s cultural, linguistic, and functional preferences.

It’s important to note that localization isn’t a short-term goal or a quick win. It requires a plan, resources, and a comprehensive language strategy. However, language services have enabled many SaaS companies to expand their global user base by providing localized software versions. This broadens the adoption of SaaS products and gathers valuable user feedback for future growth and market expansions.

SaaS and localization also share a need for speed. SaaS product development values agility, flexibility, and rapid turnarounds. The localization industry’s embrace of technologies like translation memory (TM) and machine translation (MT) helps language professionals quickly respond to agile development cycles.

More importantly, localized SaaS products are easily differentiated in the market by consumers, who are instantly more comfortable with products in a language they understand. This differentiation means localized SaaS products often outperform non-localized competitors, potentially capturing a higher share of available revenue in each market. Differentiation can also increase user loyalty and preference for your solutions over your competitors.

Localized User Support Contributes to Innovation

Engaging language professionals in SaaS localization is especially valuable when providing multilingual user support. On the front line, language professionals may work in customer support roles where they aid users in different languages. This daily exposure to real-world SaaS product use and customer feedback can spark innovation in unexpected ways. 

Multilingual user support helps to enhance software navigation, boosting adoption rates for innovative features. Language experts can craft how-to and short tutorial videos in multiple languages as new features undergo development, testing, and introduction. 

Another benefit of localizing your user support is customer retention. Because ongoing customer engagement is an integral part of any growth strategy, maximizing your customers’ perceived value from your SaaS product and ensuring they remain satisfied is essential. 

Marketing Localization Helps Inform SaaS Strategy

Innovation in the SaaS sector doesn’t happen in isolation. The education cycle for new products or services also requires the development of new content such as eBooks, white papers, and marketing collateral. When users have access to resources that explain the benefits of new or innovative features, they’re more likely to embrace them and share their experiences with others.

Language services offer a unique opportunity to leverage existing digital assets, like marketing videos. Language professionals can translate existing or refreshed digital content into multiple languages and adapt it to local cultural and linguistic nuances. This ensures that content remains relevant, resonates with diverse audiences, and opens doors to new markets.

The delivery of SaaS services through the web also presents an opportunity for companies to solicit global user feedback. Language professionals familiar with your target markets can be invaluable in interpreting that feedback and providing valuable insights for product development and refinement.

Numbers (and Letters) Count in SaaS Expansion

Engaging language professionals to adapt your SaaS products and services for new markets brings several advantages. While most SaaS developers understand the value of localization, there’s still a learning curve to grasp the details. Making your SaaS platform localization-ready involves more than translating content; it includes adjusting the user interface (UI), modifying numerical formats like dates, times, and currency, and complying with legal requirements.

Localizing your SaaS products or services can also grow your potential customer base. It’s common for users to use their native language on search engines. By localizing your SaaS product or service and incorporating language-specific keywords that resonate with your target market into your website, you can grow your user base by ranking higher in local search results. 

Language Professionals Help Lay the Foundation for Future SaaS Expansion

Finally, language professionals and their services are crucial in promoting innovation. By providing linguistic and cultural insights and expanding the audience for SaaS products or services, they help enhance a company’s offerings to cater to the broadest customer base.

Well-localized SaaS products or services give you a dynamic testing ground for experimenting with language strategies, cross-cultural marketing, and other language services. Once you achieve an efficient system in one market, you can more easily add new markets to your roadmap and continue to refine your language strategy as needed.

Engaging the services of language professionals and including localization in your development strategy can seem intimidating, but SaaS localization proves to be a worthwhile investment. Companies whose offerings depend entirely on a SaaS model have realized substantial benefits and growth through their engagement of language professionals.

How Vistatec Can Help

As reaching a global audience becomes a bigger priority for SaaS companies, selecting a localization partner with experience in the SaaS sector is more important than ever.

Vistatec specializes in helping businesses localize their software as a service (SaaS) products and services for international markets. We’ll collaborate with you on a strategy to launch globally and provide ongoing localization services to help you expand your market reach, boost user satisfaction, and enhance your global appeal.

Ready to bring your SaaS vision to life? Contact us today to discuss your SaaS project.