Printable and Emailable Marketing Collateral for Industrial Partnering

As I wrote in my last article, preparing any marketing collateral begins with your value proposition. ?As with multimedia material, for most written material KISSS (Keep is Short, Simple, and Sweet) applies. The obvious exception is a scholarly publication or a feature in a trade journal or new magazine.

There are five types of written material I encourage the people I work with to develop. ?I will briefly discuss them in this post.

1)??? Postings for technologies available for licensing or sponsored research opportunities

I like to develop these first, as they provide the basis for creating other collateral.

Before developing any material, think about who the audience is and where you want to place it. Posts on marketing websites are not my favorite way to reach people, primarily because we live in a world of posting overload. I find them most useful for reaching people There are a number of marketing websites on which you can post information about your technologies available for?licensing or companies looking for funding (e.g. crowd sourcing). In general posting is only effective for me if someone is already looking for what I have. So, the post is a way to stimulate serendipity.

Because posting is about encouraging serendipity, when it comes to marketing websites, my favorite for knowledge and technology transfer offices is the Association of University Technology Manager’s Innovation Marketplace (AIM) at Find Innovations | AIM (autm.net), https://aim.autm.net/.? According to AUTM: “With more than 26,000 technologies listed, AIM now has more innovations listed than any portal of its kind. The site generates more than 1.2 million page views annually from industry tech scouts and others who are searching for research collaborators.” (See https://autm.net/surveys-and-tools/databases/autm-innovation-marketplace/.)?

I like this post format because it is a simple and logical presentation. It is short and to the point, which means you can clip and paste it and post part or all of it on an industry association site (which you may have to join to do) or into relevant groups on LinkedIn. ?What it lacks, and I would definitely add for any posting on your own website, or another sit which allows it, is a graphic or picture or video.

[You must be a member of AUTM to post, but as a past Board Member and Vice President of the Association, I can attest to the value of its annual and regional meetings for networking and staying abreast of new developments in the profession. There also are a wide range of other training seminars and courses, access to surveys, and other benefit you can explore on the website at Membership Types – Student, Electronic, Emeritus | AUTM.]

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2)??? Email Templates

Because "cold-call" emails are a crap shot, I try to make it more efficient and less time consuming. Hence the use of email templates.

Never send an email from gmail or Hotmail or the like. Send it from your institution or organization email. That helps reduce the spam-induced “Oh my God what happens if I open this? Worry!"

The most important part of a cold-call email is the subject line. After all, the subject line is where you make your fist impression.

Good subject lines are hard to write, so think long and hard about what you want to say. On the one hand, it should be intriguing enough that someone wants to open and read the email. On the other hand, it should not trigger that “is this spam” concern. The best subject line is to use the name of a person who the recipient knows and who suggested you contact them. “Jane Doe at U KY suggested I contact you about our new harvesting technology available for licensing”. If you cannot do that think about what the hot button for the customer segment is likely to be. Using our farm harvesting equipment example, subject line might be: "University of X, Department of Agricultural Automation invites you to our annual on-line webinar: Window on the Latest Advances in Harvesting Technology." If I'm a technology scout or R&D director for a company making agricultural equipment, I probably want to know what is coming down the pike. If my subject line says, University of X looking for licensees for automation technology bringing harvesting containers to pickers and returning them to collection stations", unless I am looking for that specific item, I don't bother reading it.

Always personalize the beginning and end of the email – even if the personalization is generic at the level of a specific customer segment.

In the body of the email, be brief. If we follow the example, in the body of the email I will "after a presentation on new technologies trends in the referred and trade literature and a review of our 2023 Global Harvesting Technology Patent Landscaping, we will present an overview of the work going on at the University of X. Here are examples of some of the new technologies we will be presenting (pictures with captions) plus a link to all your patent and publications. ?(See “5) Appendices” below.)

Close with for me information, please contact me directly at phone and email.

if the subject line is the first impression the signature file is the last impression. Your signature should include a quote or line that carries this kind of message: "University of X: Partnering with industry to bring better technology to farmers for XX years."

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3)??? Press Releases

A press release, like a short video, has to be engaging and entertaining as well as informative. You want the reader to say “Golly gee! That’s very cool,” or whatever the current hip equivalent of that phrase is. Always include a picture that depicts the technology.

Press releases are teasers. You want to grab the reader and encourage them to contact you for more information. ?

Here is a short description, from a post of a technology pulled randomly off AIM. While it may work for its intended purpose -- an AIM post -- it would be horrible as the lead paragraph of a press release. “The technology is designed for more efficient fruit harvesting. It is composed of mobile robots, instrumented carts, and a predictive scheduling server. The mobile robot system transports filled harvesting containers from pickers on the field to collection stations, while providing pickers with new empty containers. Pickers' container needs are predicted by the scheduling server, which optimizes coordination of the robot fleet. The carts send real-time location and harvested crop weight data to a field computer. The system increases harvesting efficiency by reducing pickers' non-productive walking times.”

Message: efficient fruit harvesting in case for some reason you are interested. Ehh. It's informative. But suppose you begin by saying: “Climate change is impacting fruit growing and harvesting. While traditionally harvest takes place in the autumn, higher temperatures mean the crop may mature earlier. Threatening storms mean harvesting may have to occur faster or a crop can be lost. Moving away from calendar-based harvest dates requires a more flexible approach to fruit farming, which in turn demands new technology to meet changing requirements for speed, efficiency, and cost.”

Message: Big market driver has created a great opportunity for those nimble enough to exploit it. (Kaching – cash register sound). Now paste in the AIM description. Put a header on that says New Harvesting Technology Helps Fruit Farmers Adapt to Climate Change, add a photo of the system operating in the field with storm clouds in the sky threatening and now the press release has more than cost-efficiency to grab you. It's about making money by helping farmers adapt to climate change. Everyone knows we will all have to adapt to climate change and that include farmers.

Whether this particular lead paragraph works for you is not important here. What is important is the concept of introducing your technology as a way to help address a widely acknowledged problem. Big problem – simple solution. That?can grab the reader and makes them think “golly gee”, maybe I'll read on. If they are still interested after reading th release, they will probably contact you to find out ore.

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4)??? Articles

“Golly gee” works a bit different when you are looking for sponsors for research funding or to build a center on campus.? Fortunately, on-line and print trade journals, local and regional papers, Sunday supplements of national and international papers, and magazines from Popular Mechanics to TIME to the Economist to Forbes are always looking for content and good stories.? Clever scientific solutions to complicated problems can make a good story – especially when it is related to something that keeps on showing up in the news, like the problem of feeding people in a world beset by climate change, water shortages, wars, etc.

A few years ago, while working as a Senior Advisor to the President of King Mongut’s University for Technology Thonburi in Thailand, I ran into a group of engineering students who had developed a robotic hand for picking easily bruised fruit. The prototype hand was made out of paper. The paper was folded using an Origami approach to make it stiff enough to pick fruit. The plan was to make the production version out of a flexible (to a point) plastic. Simple solution for a complicated problem. Very clever, very “golly gee” when you watched them fold a “picker” and load it on the robot and then watched it pick fruit.?

Now suppose this picking hand is being developed at your university. Your university is also developing the harvesting system discussed above. Now we have the ability to combine technologies to create flexible and scalable automation solutions for harvesting fruit – and probably some vegetables as well. Message? Simple Solutions for Complicated Problems in Farming. University applies creative technology to help save family and mid-sized farms. Article material. "Humm… wonder what they have, wonder what else they are working on."

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5)??? Appendices

I like to think of patents and articles in the referred literature as stuff for appendices. Face it, you have to be a dedicated and really interested reader to wade through a long patent or a research publication in a referred journal.

Still, a list of patents and publications says there is something real here. So, I make a table that lists all the relevant patents and articles, with an abstract, date of publication, etc. which I can use both as a table of contents for the appendix or a clip to paste into a posting, email, press release, or magazine article if it seems appropriate to do so. To see the full patents and articles in th appendix I provide a hot link.

I also like to have an appendix I that contains all the (favorable) press coverage. This appendix is only worth doing if you have enough entries that the message is “something interesting is happening here”.

Closing thoughts: Think about the fiction books you have read. Some of them are easy to read. Usually those have short sentences, short paragraphs, and short chapters so the story flows with a rhythm that is like a beat you can dance to. Another think that makes a book easy to read is when you understand the language used. You do not have to look up words to see what they mean. That's the short and simple par of KISSS. The sweet part usually comes from being able to see yourself in the story. You can relate to the characters and what is happening in the plot. Even if your lead character is a technology, it will have end-users who use it for some purpose. When you present the technology and it's application(s), the response you want is "of course; got it; can see that." Sweet.