AUTM 2016 Eastern Region: Marketing Takeaways

While AUTM’s annual meeting offers a superb opportunity to immerse ones’ self in our industry, the busy schedule and large number of attendees can be a lot to take in; AUTM’s regional meetings however offer a more intimate environment to delve deeper into specific topics impacting our world and build new connections. For two days, technology managers and business executives who manage intellectual property met in Philadelphia, PA for the 2016 AUTM Eastern Region Meeting. In attendance from “team Emory” were our Director, Todd Sherer, as well as our Marketing Manager, Quentin Thomas, who was also a part of a panel on Guerilla Marketing. Here are a few tactics and tips from the Guerilla Marketing panel picked up at AUTM’s Eastern Regional meeting.

Email Tracking
Tracking your emails can provide valuable information beyond just open rate. Knowing who opened your emails and how often they were opened can provide ideas as to whom you should, and sometimes more importantly, should not follow-up with, as well as how to follow-up. Resources for tracking emails include services such as MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, and Emma, as well as plug-ins for Outlook.

Licensing Deals from Marketing
There was conversation around the ability to track licensing deals stemming from marketing efforts. The consensus was that it is often not reasonable to track licensing deals directly linked to a marketing campaign, particularly for technologies that require lengthy conversation. You are limited to the memory of the licensee and licensing team or forced to wade through many emails to make the connection.

One important piece of information marketing efforts are helpful with is the decision on whether to continue investing resources and money into certain patent families. The lack of response for a technology marketed to many companies may be an indication that there is no interest in that technology or area. Any feedback received is even more helpful for the technology transfer team and PI.

Getting the PI Involved
Work with the PI to help make marketing his/her work easier. This type of work can range from creating feature videos around that PI or research to providing the PI with a unique hyperlink that goes to all the available technologies on the tech transfer office’s website. This hyperlink can be used in any of the PI’s materials, including the faculty profile page.

Involving the Team
Don’t hesitate to discuss marketing analytics with the team. In fact, discussing analytics with the team can be helpful for multiple reasons:

  • It gives the team a better understanding of the marketing efforts and how they support the team’s goals.

  • It invites new perspective to the work you are doing.

  • It helps you digest your data in a way which is easy to communicate.

These are just a few ideas that came up during a session at AUTM Eastern Region Meeting. We are interested in hearing yours. Be sure to join us at future AUTM events and reach out to us on social media at @EmoryOTT.