Market your Patent to End-Users

Like any marketing effort, in order to market your product to an end user, you will need to create a marketing plan. This will establish HOW you are going to achieve your marketing goals. Patent Marketing to End Users Help will help you to decide what your marketing goals are for the end user, create a marketing plan, and give you tips on the best ways to go about implementing your plan.

The best way to start is to brainstorm. Try using these questions to help you:

WHO: Who are you trying to reach through your marketing efforts?

• Be specific. Create an imaginary group of people that you see using your product.
• What do they like to do? What do they like to eat? How old are they? Where do they live? What do they drive? Are they married or single? Do they have children? How much “spending” money do they have every month? Where are they shopping?
• Then think about how the answers to these questions effect the way that they buy your product, and more importantly, how you will reach them.

WHAT: What do you want the target audience end user to think and feel when they are presented with your marketing?

• Should they feel scared? Safe? Inadequate? Fat/ Skinny? Young/Old?
• The end user should associate good feelings with your product.

WHEN: When is the best time for your target audience end user to be reached by your marketing efforts?

• This is important because you do not want to contact them when they are least attentive. For instance, if your target audience is working mothers, ages 32-48, you certainly would not want to attempt to market to them between 7:00am and 9:00am. Chances are they would be getting their children and themselves ready for school and work.
• If your target audience lives in a colder climate, marketing during winter months would most likely be less effective than warmer months because less people get out during the winter.

WHERE: Where do you see your product being marketed?

• It’s okay to dream but also be realistic with yourself. Five commercials every day probably will not work into your budget.
• Where will you most effectively reach your target audience end user? If they do not have a TV, then commercials would be out. If they do not have a home phone available for sales calls, calling would be out.
• Think about where your target audience end user is going to most likely notice your marketing efforts.

WHY: Why should they notice or pay attention to your marketing?

• Does it seem credible? Does it create curiosity? WHY SHOULD THEY CARE?
• The effort needs to be attention grabbing in order to effective.

HOW: How will you reach them?

• There are several different ways to market to the end user. You need to decide not only which one is best for your target audience, but which can you afford and get the most response from?
• Offline marketing is the effort you make without the involvement of the internet.

o   Direct marketing- This is marketing directly to the end user, typically done with a catalog or mailing.

o   Advertising- Newspapers, TV, radio, etc.

o   Third party media outlets- This involves getting attention for your product through a story of some sort written by a publication.

• Online marketing is all of the things that you can do to promote your product on the internet.

o   The possibilities really are endless.

o   Online advertising- Advertising with a banner on sites that have the audience you are looking to target.

o   Video advertising, blogging, emailing, web pages… etc.

• Word of mouth marketing is by far the most effective way to market your product; however it is also the hardest way to measure your results. When relying on this form of marketing, make sure that you are asking the customer how they found out about their product.

Creating your marketing plan will be easy once you have those answers sitting in front of you. Here is an outline of how to best put your answers together:

1.    Target Audience- This is where you will put your “WHO” into a narrative paragraph or two. The more information, the better.

2.    The Challenge- Explain what will be the difficulties you may have when marketing to your target audience. This will be beneficial to help you decide how to best implement your plan.

3.    Goals- What do you expect to achieve when marketing? Think of three goals that are easy to measure. For instance, Goal #1: To reach 15 people through online marketing.

4.    Marketing Strategy- This is where you explain the “WHO”, “WHAT”, “WHEN”, “WHERE”, “WHY” and “HOW” and how they are all working together. It is important to explain how they affect one another. You are allowed to have more than one strategy. In fact, I would recommend it. Chances are that one way may not turn out the way you had originally hoped, so then you can rely on your backup.

Choose the strategy that will work best for you. You want it to generate the most interest, while costing you the least amount of time and money.

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