2.8 Technology Marketing (Part 2)

We already touched on the basics of technology marketing in Topic 4: Business Development and Marketing/Licensing (Part 1). Here, we take a closer look.

Guidebook author Richard Cahoon once said:

“Tech transfer without tech marketing is like clapping with one hand.”

It just doesn’t work. Technologies don’t sell themselves. With a few exceptions, most institutions must work hard to generate interest in their inventions. 

Tech marketing breaks down into two broad strategies: passive and active, which will each be discussed in depth below.

2.8.1 Tech Brief Examples

Both marketing campaigns will require a tech brief. This is a non-confidential document that the TTP can list in databases, give out at trade shows, etc. and use as a non-confidential introduction to the technology in targeted marketing campaigns.

2.8.2 Passive Marketing

Passive marketing involves posting the technology with the aim that interested parties find it. Passive marketing tactics include:

• Listing the technology in databases
• Publishing the technology in:
  • Trade press
  • Scientific literature
• Presenting the technology at talks or conferences

2.8.2.1 Databases

2.8.2.2 The Press

Journalists need stories and will read press releases that point them in the direction of an interesting scientific, technology or industry trend. TTPs can leverage this interest by issuing a press release that coincides with the technology’s appearance in a scientific publication or a talk.

2.8.3 Active Marketing

2.8.3.1 Preparing for Active Marketing

Web searches make it easy for TTPs to find companies active in the market segment for their technology. The protocol for a First Look Technology Assessment looked at in Topic 1: Technology Evaluation (Part 2) includes identification of potential licensees.

This initial search should be updated at this time using all available tools:

• Additional, more focused web searches;
• Talking to faculty;
• Identifying owners of overlapping patents.

2.8.3.2 Expanding Across the Value Chain

We discussed earlier the importance of analyzing the supply / value chain for the technology.

Even if the TTP knows where their tech fits within the supply chain, talking to both the upstream and the downstream steps in the supply chain can provide the TTP with valuable insights on whom to contact, in what order and what the important unmet needs are.

2.8.3.3 Finding Contacts at Prospective Companies

As discussed in the presentation on working with industry to assess technologies, you’re going to want to find someone within your target company in:

• Business Development;
• Research & Development (R&D); or
• Open Innovation

These departments are typically tasked with determining future projects and ventures for the company.

Finding an appropriate contact at prospective licensees is relatively simple thanks to LinkedIn, which allows the TTP to identify contacts at target companies as long as they have contacts in common or at one or two degrees removed. All TTPs should have a LinkedIn account in English, as the majority of Tech Transfer business is still conducted in this language today.

TTPs should leverage any mutual LinkedIn contacts to get introduced to potential commercial partners. These introductions may work for a contact-of-a-contact, but typically do not prove fruitful if the connections are any farther removed.

2.8.3.4 Dialoguing with Potential Licensees

When dialoguing with a contact at the prospective company, the TTP should always:

• Stress what the technology can do for their business and,
• ensure that the tech brief makes this clear. 

TTPs may often have multiple tech briefs, each targeted to a specific company, perhaps even to a specific product in a company’s product line.

TTPs will want to have a direct phone or Zoom call, preceded by an email exchange to establish their interest. Zoom has a feature that sends invites directly to the prospective contact’s calendar while also ensuring that time zone differences are properly accounted for.