Are you working from Seoul for a Silicon Valley-headquartered company and tasked with building a global brand spanning markets like Singapore, South Africa, Sweden and more on a limited budget? This usually requires a large staff spread around the world, a sizeable investment, significant strategic planning and nods from the board. After all this, it can take years for the brand to become known, let alone loved. Smaller companies have competition and have to win over local customers.

Yet today, some startups have a flourishing brand presence in several countries. Their products get the love, and their product, marketing, sales and support teams are fully aligned around spreading the message. Whether they’re in Series A or Series C, many have been successful. I believe that organizational agility and great brand marketing lie at the heart of their success.

For instance, my company, a Silicon Valley-headquartered cloud mobile gaming startup, has seen over 1 billion users in over 100 countries. Each market is unique, with different customer preferences and varying levels of adoption, as well as disparate cultures and languages. What is common to all is the brand’s appeal to passionate gamers.

How do startups establish global brands in a short period of time? Here are five strategies that I have seen work wonders.

1. Build A Content Strategy

Your content strategy can be as vanilla or as glamorous as you want; just remember that it is the bedrock of awareness about your brand. Content optimization is typically used for demand generation, so it may seem counterintuitive to use it for brand building. But the footprint that the content leaves behind can be invaluable.

Invest in optimizing content for search, whether you do so for Google or local engines like Naver for Korea. You may only need to invest in one person to oversee the optimization strategy and work with freelance content creators. Do not forget video content; remember that as of May 2019, YouTube had 2 billion logged-in monthly viewers (paywall). If you are in the app business, you should also optimize for app stores and enable browser extensions. Even if you are on a tight budget, it is a good idea to allocate some of it for paid marketing in your key markets. Remember, content takes many forms. Text, photos and videos are now universal, but so are memes, gifs, podcasts and maps. Use the entire spread of formats and channels available to you.

2. Use Local Employees As Brand Ambassadors

I’ve seen many people tout the effectiveness of using employees as brand ambassadors. This can work beautifully at startups, especially if the startup employees are passionate about the company.

Local representation, even if it is one person working from a home office, is helpful for building a global brand. They breathe the local culture and understand the audience. They can be your brand’s spokesperson for local partnerships and media interactions. Centralize brand strategy and empower local teams with marketing and PR kits to ensure coherent brand communication. When you’re building a global brand, ensure compliance with logo, formatting and color palette guidelines.

3. Work With Influencers And Engage With Relevant Communities

Think Rolex and you may think of Roger Federer. Think of Pepsi and you may think about Sachin Tendulkar. Brands have traditionally worked with celebrities to influence brand perception and purchases. Now influencer marketing, the creator economy and fandoms around brands have democratized content. Instagram content creators, Twitch streamers and Discord admins are taking charge.

For brands, this presents an opportunity to work with influencers, users and fans to build communities around their products. Communities are close-knit micro-groups that gather around a shared interest like weight training or gaming. Working with micro-influencers and engaging with communities in your industry are great ways to get your brand to penetrate deeply with consumers. An influencer-network-based brand strategy can transcend head offices and turn brand communication into a close connection with the local audience. 

4. Share Every Bit Of News, Big Or Small

Have a robust PR strategy. Media outlets, analysts, business school case studies, podcasts and webinars are great ways to get the word out. Being featured in the press can lend credibility to a brand that lasts a long time, especially if the article is optimized for SEO. Share every bit of news; large announcements can get you headlines, interviews, bylined articles and speaking engagements, while you can spread smaller ones using wire services to get the full breadth of exposure.

While the media can help drive conversations, analyst coverage can also shape the industry’s point of view. Work with analysts by sharing larger industry trends and explaining how your brand fits into them. Do remember to integrate your media strategy with your co-marketing and social strategies; localize and liberally re-share media articles on local channels like WeChat in China and Naver in Korea.

5. Use The Founder’s Personal Brand

Often, startups build their brands using the founder’s personal brand. The founder personifies the values and vision of the company and shares the message with all stakeholders, including investors, users, customers and partners. Founders can use several channels to build their brands. Social media is probably the first to come to mind, but to be successful, they should be consistent — and many founders are too busy building their companies to be able to take the time to build a social media presence. Many may even be shy. There are other channels, such as bylined articles, speaking engagements and roundtable discussions. The strategy should have a global reach, so identify opportunities in all of the company’s key markets.

But this can be a double-edged sword, especially given the political polarization around many issues, and it’s important for the founder to think carefully about the persona they want to build.

In conclusion, you can indeed build a global brand from anywhere in the world without burning a hole in your pocket. The key is to understand the diversity of your market, connect with local audiences using influencers and employees, and ensure coherent brand communication.

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