Intellectual Property Law for Corporations
Intellectual property can be an easily overlooked area of business, but when you’re in the business of bringing your ideas to life through your inventions, you can’t ignore your intellectual property. Intellectual property is the legal right to a number of things, including ideas, creations, and inventions, but it can also include symbols, names, images, models, and designs. This means your corporation could be creating intellectual property without even realizing it.
There are a number of misconceptions when it comes to intellectual property, including its definition and the wide range of items included in the definition, how and what you need to protect, and why you should protect it. There are a number of benefits available to corporations when it comes to identifying and protecting intellectual property.
Profit from Your Creations
Once you establish the right to your creations, you can sell them without worrying about someone else taking your idea and profiting from it. Legally protecting your product or service prevents competitors from copying or even closely imitating it. There are different types of intellectual property depending on what you are protecting. These include copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, industrial designs, and integrated circuit topographies.
Stand Out from Your Competitors
Intellectual property can help you stand out from your competitors by protecting assets like your distinct corporate identity, image, and reputation. All these things make up your brand – and it’s how your customers identify you. If competitors started copying aspects of your identity, customers would no longer be able to distinguish between you and your competitors on identity alone. A unique brand or image builds trust with your competitors and helps you earn their business.
Protect Yourself in Export Markets
If you will be exporting products, you’ll want to consider registering your intellectual property in foreign markets. Not getting proper legal advice when it comes to intellectual property is one of the five more common mistakes a first-time inventor should avoid, and this becomes even more important when dealing with foreign markets. Make sure your intellectual property legal team has experience dealing with intellectual property in foreign markets.
The rules are different depending on whether or not your home country has a treaty or convention with the country you are exporting to. If so, then proving your intellectual property is registered in your home country is likely enough to be recognized in the foreign country. For countries that don’t have treaties or conventions with your home country, you will need to research the laws in that country, so make sure you seek professional legal advice from a lawyer who knows the intellectual property laws in the country or countries you will be exporting to.
Seeking appropriate legal advice regarding your intellectual property at the beginning stages of your product development can save you money down the road when you discover someone has copied your design. While we don’t provide legal advice at Pivot International, we do have many years experience getting ideas from the conceptualization stage to the production stage. Check out our list of product and business development services to learn more.
Developing Your Marketing Plan for 2018
Now that we are well into 2018, it’s time to start thinking about your marketing plan. Your marketing plan is a strategy to get customers to buy your next product. Without a great marketing plan, you’re a best kept secret – which means nobody is seeing your products. There are four main steps to creating an effective marketing plan.
Step 1: Research
You can never do enough research when it comes to marketing. The number one thing you want to research is your target market. Who is your ideal customer? Where do they shop? What do they like? What problems do they have that you can solve through your products? Once you know your target customer inside and out, it will be a lot easier to create a marketing plan that will appeal to them.
Step 2: Plan
This is the largest step and it includes several smaller steps such as setting goals, determining where to advertise, and setting a budget. Start with your overall marketing goal. Some examples include: promoting your business as a whole, introducing a new product, creating a seasonal promotion, or featuring a specific product. Once you know your overall goal, you’ll need to come up with a more specific target such as a sales volume or dollar amount you want to achieve. It’s important that your specific goal is measurable because this will really help you when you get to Step 3.
The two most important things to consider when it comes to planning your marketing are your target customer and your unique selling proposition. What are the key benefits you offer that your competitors don’t? Focus on attention-getting marketing that highlights the benefits of your product, not the features. Forgetting to appeal to your customers on an emotional level is a big digital marketing don’t.
Make sure all your advertising is consistent with your branding and includes strong calls to action to encourage your customers to buy. You’ll also want to make sure you’re choosing the right media to deliver your message so your potential customers see it.
Step 3: Evaluate
Once your plan has been put into action, it’s time to evaluate how well it’s working. Marketing isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing. You will constantly need to evaluate each type of advertising to see what worked and what didn’t.
Step 4: Adjust
Marketing is a process of testing and adjusting and then testing and adjusting some more. You’ll want to stop or adjust anything that doesn’t bring you business and increase the activities that create sales for you.
Ineffective marketing is one of the three critical mistakes in the product launch process. Don’t let this happen to you. Follow the steps outlined above to come up with a killer marketing plan for 2018. Pivot International can help. If your marketing plan includes changes to your product design to reduce costs or add features, we offer product design services and global manufacturing services that can take your product to the next level. To learn more about how we can help you develop your product marketing plan for 2018, contact us today.
Dealing With Sales Slumps
The holidays are over, the hype has disappeared, and so have the sales of your product. What do you do now? First of all, don’t panic! You’ve just come out of one of the busiest times of the year for sales. It’s normal to experience a slump after the holiday season or the launch of your product. There is a lot of marketing involved during both those events. Here are a few things you can do to improve sales when you find yourself in the middle of a slump.
Come Up With a Plan
You need to have a regular marketing plan in place. This is your guide to follow when you aren’t launching a new product or preparing for the holiday season. Start by mapping out the major events for the year (like new product launches and holidays). Then think about what kinds of sales targets you want to meet during the rest of the year. Once you know the sales targets you are working towards, you can determine which products and in what quantities you need to sell them in order to reach your goals.
Your marketing plan should focus on your target customers. Putting a marketing plan in place that focuses on your target customers will really help you scale your product based business.
Focus on Your Customers
When in a slump, you should consider whether it’s because of the seasonal nature of your products and promotions or if there might be something wrong with your product. You’ll want to be proactive when thinking about your product so you can avoid costly mistakes like product recalls. Be sure and ask for feedback from your current customers and check online to see what people are saying about your product. Do whatever you can to make things right in the eyes of your customers.
If there are no problems with your product, reach out to potential customers to find out what would make them more likely to buy your product rather than a competing product. You might be surprised by what you find.
Stay Positive
A sales slump can really weigh heavily on the mind when there are bills to pay. Try not to let this affect you. Your next big sales day could be right around the corner. The more you focus on not having any sales, the more difficult it will be to get out of the slump. Take a day off so you can come back with a positive attitude and some fresh ideas. Brainstorming ideas with a colleague or conducting a customer focus group are great ways to generate some fresh marketing ideas.
Generating sales is a vital part of business development. Try staying positive, focusing on your customers and coming up with a solid plan to beat post holiday and post product launch slumps. At Pivot International, we can help you outsource your product design development and manufacturing to help you focus your time on sales. To learn more about how we can help you overcome your sales slumps, contact us today.
What To Do If Your Sales Aren’t Meeting Expectations
Nobody wants to face the reality that their sales aren’t living up to their expectations. It would be amazing if products magically sold themselves, but the reality is that,that just doesn’t happen. So, what do you do if your sales aren’t meeting expectations? You figure out why!
Rather than blaming people (including yourself) for the lack of sales, start figuring out what the root of the problem is. One way to do this is by using the Five Whys model pioneered by Toyota. You start with a statement of the problem, then start asking why until you have a solution you can do something about. The best way to explain this method is to demonstrate it.
- Sales Manager: Our sales are 25% less this quarter than we projected.
- CEO: Why are our sales down 25% this quarter?
- Sales Manager: Product X isn’t selling as well as we thought it would.
- CEO: Why isn’t Product X selling as well as we thought it would?
- Sales Manager: There doesn’t seem to be the demand we predicted.
- CEO: Why isn’t the demand for Product X as you predicted?
- Sales Manager: A similar product with additional features was released by our competitors at the same time.
- CEO: Why doesn’t our product have those features?
- Sales Manager: We didn’t think about them.
- CEO: Why didn’t we think about them?
- Sales Manager: We didn’t talk to our customers and find out what they wanted.
After asking five questions starting with “Why,” the CEO has determined that market research on Product X wasn’t complete. Market research can be conducted on a shoestring budget and it’s very important that it’s done as completely as possible before the product is designed and manufactured, because it’s much more costly to make changes to a product that is already on the market.
There’s another example of how the Five Whys model works on this website. The Five Whys method is noted as being the fastest way to get to the root of the problem. Once you know why your sales aren’t meeting your expectations, you can start figuring out where to spend your time to improve your sales figures.
Some things that often help boost sales that are quick and easy to do include:
- Talking to current customers. Find out what their needs are and if there is anything you can do to help them meet them.
- Getting a referral. When you’re talking to your current customers, ask them if they know anyone who might be interested in your products.
- Increasing your social media presence. Social media is free to use and with so many people online, you can guarantee your target customers are out there waiting for you.
If you’re still not clear on why your sales aren’t meeting your expectations and what to do about it, Pivot International has years of experience in designing electronics, electromechanical and mechanical products to meet market requirements. We can provide you with an implementation plan to revitalize your sales. To learn more about how Pivot International can help you improve your sales, contact us today.
Developing Your Marketing Plan for 2018
A key component of any successful business is a marketing plan. Ineffective marketing is one of the three critical mistakes companies make when launching a product. A marketing plan acts like a blueprint for the coming year in terms of where you want to spend your advertising and marketing efforts. It includes specific objectives as well as timelines and financial resources needed to accomplish those objectives. Regardless of your marketing budget, there is plenty you can do to help spread the word about your product and start making sales.
Here are a few questions that will help you create an amazing marketing plan for 2018.
Did you meet your 2017 goals?
Before you start thinking about what you want to achieve with your marketing in 2018, it’s a good idea to take some time and reflect about 2017. Hopefully you kept track of what worked and what didn’t in regards to your 2017 marketing efforts. If you didn’t meet your 2017 goals, do you know why? Take some time to think about this and brainstorm because once you figure out what went wrong in 2017, you can make the necessary changes and incorporate them in your 2018 plan. If 2017 was a great year for your marketing then make a note of the tasks you want to repeat in 2018 and include them in your marketing plan. Take some time and schedule them in your calendar too.
What are your 2018 goals?
When thinking about your 2018 goals, remember how you plan to sell your product. Different market avenues will require different marketing strategies so knowing whether you are going to focus on ecommerce, retail, or something else, will help you develop the best marketing plan. Once you know how you will sell your product, you can create a plan with this end goal in mind.
What is your budget?
You can create an effective marketing plan regardless of your budget but it’s important to know what your budget is so you can stick to it and avoid unnecessary costs. There are plenty of ways to create buzz for your product on a low budget, including maximizing your use of social media, connecting with existing customers, and building an email list. The key when it comes to developing your marketing plan is to keep your budget in the back of your mind and make sure your marketing activities accurately reflect your budget.
What are your necessities versus your nice-to-haves?
Along the same lines as your marketing budget, knowing what your marketing necessities are as well as your nice-to-haves, will help you stay on budget. A necessity is something that is fundamental to achieving your marketing goals. A nice-to-have, on the other hand, is something that might add to your marketing efforts but isn’t going to make or break your goal. In other words, if you can achieve your marketing goals without spending the money to buy fancy pens with your company logo on them then skip the pens.
Now that you’ve considered these questions, you’ll have a good start on your 2018 marketing plan but to be the most effective, a marketing plan should be a very detailed, comprehensive document. If you’ve answered these questions and you’re not sure what your next step is, we can help. At Pivot International, we offer business development services, including creating marketing plans, to help ensure the success of your product. To learn more about how we can help with your marketing plan for 2018, contact us today.
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