Ramp Up to Tech Marketing Part 2: A Sound Plan and Licensing Strategy

Note: This post is part of a series on how to cultivate your IP. View the start of the Cultivate Your IP series here.

Ramping up to successful and cost-effective technology transfer marketing depends not only on a range of proactive research activities (Part 1) but also on thinking through the licensing strategy and a sound marketing plan to help you achieve your goals, which we focus on today.

The Technology Licensing Strategy

A licensing strategy need not be complex or even necessarily written down (although more mature offices may track it as a field in their IP management database). Nevertheless, it is worth taking the time to explicitly think about (1) what your goals are for the technology and (2) what type of licenses and licensees you should seek to meet those goals. Otherwise it’s like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.

So for instance:

• Are you seeking an exclusive licensee? If so, what type of company is best suited to commercialize the technology across all potential markets and protect against infringement?
• Does it make sense to try to license the technology exclusively but in several different fields of use?
• Is the technology something that should be licensed broadly and non-exclusively to a number of smaller players?
• If this is a startup opportunity, should resources be spent de-risking it and seeking a competent management team?

Thinking through these and other questions allows you to focus your licensing efforts most productively.

Three Types of Tech Transfer Marketing

Now, how to reach out to those potential licensees? Thinking broadly about the marketing plan, there are three types of campaigns:

For more about the AMMO, watch our free webcast on “Crafting Your Technology Marketing Message”

• Passive: Often appropriate for technologies that have a lower commercial potential, a passive campaign invests very few resources and typically involves posting a simple market-based description of the technology on the Web in a way that can be leveraged as broadly and easily as possible.
• Targeted: When a technology has compelling potential but the number of prospects is limited, a targeted campaign uses slightly more complex marketing collateral than the passive campaign while likely reaching out to a small number of potential licensees.
• Active: When a technology has strong potential and broad appeal across large or even multiple industries, the active campaign requires more resources, a variety of marketing tools, and can often last several months or longer.

The same principles and processes apply in each case. The difference is how much time and resources you put toward achieving a particular Outcome and the Mechanisms you use to get your Message to your target Audience. We’ll be blogging more about the AMMO and marketing collateral in the future.

Fuentek Helps You Ramp Up to Tech Marketing

An effective technology marketing effort requires careful planning to balance the resources and level of effort put into it against the expected return. To help technology transfer offices, Fuentek offers our Readiness Assessment and Marketing Planning (RAMP) service. Fuentek’s RAMP service includes the research and planning needed for effective, action-oriented marketing:

• A list of companies and points of contact to target
• Direct market feedback with detailed insights into the market and how the technology might fit
• Warm leads who express validated interest in the technology, accelerating continued marketing efforts with those prospects
• A market-ready technology description that becomes the foundation for marketing collateral
• A list of next steps, providing a roadmap for moving forward with marketing

For more information about how Fuentek’s RAMP service can add value and support your technology marketing efforts, contact us today.