10 steps we took to market globally from Southeast Asia as a bootstrapped business

1. Marketing to a
Global Audience
Warren Leow
Vice President
warren.leow@123rf.com

2. We are one of the largest creative ecosystems

3. We sell photos, illustrations, footage, audio

4. We sell fonts and graphic assets

5. We invest into design-based SaaS and
PaaS

6. 44locations worldwide
19 languages, 24/7 support globally

7. 86+
million
creative assets
and growing
80,000
content
submitted daily
content
contributors
288,000+
- from - 100%
bootstrapped
350
employees
Our group in numbers

8. 15 years of serving global corporates

9. 1. Set and define your branding
2. Adapt to new marketing trends and tools
3. Grow a team with the right expertise
4. Generate PR consistently
5. Create local branding and credibility
6. Invest into content marketing
7. Focus on community to create advocates
8. Leverage partnerships and cross
marketing
9. Keep learning about new markets and
nuances
10.Benchmark against competition
10 steps to market globally

10. 1. Set and define your branding
1. Nobody knew we were based
in Southeast Asia
2. ‘We don’t buy from terrorists’;
‘We don’t buy from Asians’
3. 24/7 customer support
4. Setuped US virtual address
with US entity for trust factor
5. Founders were low profiled
We branded ourselves extremely carefully
as a US-centric company

11. 2. Adapt to new marketing trends and tools
Past Present
Advertise on 1 or 2 channels
Link-building
Omnichannel marketing
Presence, Authority, Social proof
Desktop Desktop + Mobile
Fully responsive, Mobile first indexing
Product driven
Content + Price only
Customer experience driven
TrustPilot, Net Promoter Score, Customer Care
Data is limited
Basic analysis + Excel
Large data sets
DoubleClick, GA 360, BigQuery
Generalisation
One size fits all
Personalisation
Search & Results, Insider, GetResponse, Intercom
Manual optimisation
Hypothesis
Programmatic and automation
Segmentation, Bid optimisation, A.I.
Data Driven Attribution Unified View  Optimisation Loop

12. 3. Grow a team with the right expertise
Sales and
customer support
Cultural diversity
= new ideas
Geographical research
and coverage
Community
engagement
20+ nationalities
Experience built up over years
Low
turnover
International
exposure
Continuous
learning
Internal +
External hires

13. Occasional PR Targeted PR Mass Market PR
4. Generate PR consistently to sustain momentum

14. Top-up cards in Japan Relationships with
20+ global accelerators
400+ global startups supported
= lead generation + ambassadors
5. Create local branding and credibility

15. 6. Invest into content marketing

16. 7. Focus on community to create advocates

17. Geographic
coverage
Community
coverage
Value chain
coverage
Competencies
coverage
8. Partner where relevant. Don’t go in alone

18. New markets New possibilities New platforms
9. Keep learning about new markets and nuances

19. 10. Benchmark against competition

20. 1. Set and define your branding
2. Adapt to new marketing trends and tools
3. Grow a team with the right expertise
4. Generate PR consistently
5. Create local branding and credibility
6. Invest into content marketing
7. Focus on community to create advocates
8. Leverage partnerships and cross marketing
9. Keep learning about new markets and
nuances
10.Benchmark against competition
10 steps to market globally