I work as a marketing officer in an Intellectual Property office in the Middle East, we offer services like Trademarks registration, Patents registration, copyrights, and everything related to Intellectual Property. As a marketing Dept. we depend on contacting more clients by making more visits, and that is the only Marketing Tool we use. The CHALLENGES we face are:
1- We don’t have Marketing plan / Marketing strategy.
2- We need more marketing tools to depend on.
3- Many clients are not convinced that registering their Trademarks are for their best benefit even though we try hard to deliver them the idea of the many advantages they will get when having their TM registered and the disadvantages of not registering.

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Jay’s Answer: First, recognize that the biggest expense with intellectual property (IP) isn’t registering – it’s protection. If a small company registers a trademark and later finds another company infringing, they need to file a lawsuit. And we know that lawsuits are expensive to file and defend. Therefore, I don’t generally recommend that small businesses register their IP unless:

• They have “deep pockets” to defend in court, and/or
• They plan to sell their company in the foreseeable future

Intellectual property is highly valuable in valuating a company. Patents, copyrights, etc. can all become sources of licensing revenue.

Instead of making more visits, I would strongly suggest creating a series of white papers (available for free in exchange for a prospect’s contact information) detailing the pros and cons of registering their intellectual property:

• How much revenue a company lost (or gained)
• How companies have created new opportunities by “spinning out” licensing divisions.
• How having copyrights, patents, etc. in a company’s marketing materials increases the perception of their value/expertise.
• How to protect the value of their intellectual property

I would encourage you to also offer free seminars in-house as well as educating local marketing/advertising firms about the issues of IP, and encourage them to have their clients’ work protected.