Lokalise wanted fresh insights on their ideal customer to refine their go-to-market strategy.
Lokalise is a fast-scaling SaaS company used by global teams like Revolut, Notion, and Monday.com to manage translation and localization workflows. With momentum from a fresh funding round, they were ready to scale smarter.
Product managers were a known high-value segment, but Lokalise’s existing personas hadn’t kept pace with the way PMs actually made decisions. Buying journeys were nonlinear. More stakeholders were involved. Old assumptions no longer held up.
The Lokalise team wanted clarity:
- How do PMs find and evaluate localization software today?
- What gets in the way?
- And how could sales and marketing work together to accelerate conversion?
The Process
To build a clear picture of the product manager buyer journey, I conducted ICP interviews across four key segments:
- Current Lokalise customers
- Non-customers unfamiliar with Lokalise
- Non-customers who’d considered but didn’t buy
- Lost prospects who’d been through the sales process
I focused on surfacing insights Lokalise couldn’t get from product data alone: how product managers define their shortlist, what they ask peers, what blocks them from converting, and what makes them trust a vendor.
We also mapped out their preferred content formats, evaluation criteria, trial expectations, and the role of their broader teams in the decision.
Some Insights Uncovered
Peer validation beats Google.
Most product managers didn’t start with search. They started with Slack messages, DMs, and peer recommendations. Only once they had a shortlist did they turn to Google or vendor websites to verify.
A trial that works for the whole team is key.
PMs needed to test Lokalise with engineers, designers, and translators. Trials that required onboarding or felt like a heavy lift got skipped. Speed and simplicity were essential.
Messaging misalignment was costing them
Subtle shifts in how Lokalise positioned its core value especially around speed, setup, and collaboration significantly changed how the product was perceived. Updating this helped reduce friction and objections before sales even got involved.
The Impact
By layering these insights into their go-to-market strategy, Lokalise was able to:
- Refine their ICP with real buyer data
- Align sales and marketing more tightly around what matters most
- Reshape content and messaging to match how product managers actually buy
This wasn’t about ticking boxes or refreshing a persona deck. It was about enabling the team to prioritize high-leverage opportunities with clarity and execute with confidence.