How to Market Your Invention and Make Millions

The hardest part of the invention process is marketing your product. If we could all apply for a patent and see how the phone sounds and make millions, everyone would be jumping into the invention game. But the sad truth of the invention process is that your phone won’t ring non-stop just because you have a patent.

So as his patent gathers dust, he realizes he better do something to let people know about it. This is called marketing. If you don’t market your product, all your other efforts will be wasted. The longer you wait to commercialize your invention, the longer your prized patent will expire. And if your patent solves a common problem, you can bet someone else has that problem and is thinking of a solution too. If they come up with one, it might be completely different from yours, for which they might as well receive a patent. This is called competition.

If your competition understands or has experience in marketing and successfully places your product in stores, on television, in catalogs, and on the Internet before you do, this is called being first and fastest to market. They will gain what is called market share.

The solution: find the fastest and cheapest way to introduce your product to the masses.

A quick look at your marketing options would yield these possibilities: exhibiting at a trade show, sending brochures to store buyers, advertising in a magazine, creating a website, doing an infomercial, licensing your product to a large company, enter a home shopping channel.

Of the above ways to market your invention, the fastest way to reach the masses is to place your product on a home shopping channel. And the best part of selling on QVC or HSN, the two major home shopping channels, is that the airtime is free and the exposure your product can get is tremendous. (QVC reaches 166 million viewers worldwide and HSN 89 million.)

Ten minutes at one of these stations can not only produce sales and revenue for your business, but it can also attract the attention of store buyers, large companies looking to license products, large companies looking to partner with others. Getting on QVC can be the difference between being first and fastest to market or seeing someone else go before you.

Spanx pantyhose sold 8,000 units in 8 minutes on its first airing on QVC. Sabatino’s Sausage Company sales went from $1 million to more than $6 million thanks to QVC. Deco Wrap, a window treatment product, sold more than 80,000 units in one day on QVC on several occasions when it was the featured product of the day. There are countless success stories.

The quickest way to get into QVC or HSN is to find someone with connections

Start by contacting your local SCORE chapter to see if anyone there has connections to a QVC agent or representative. You can also exhibit at invention conventions and industry trade shows. They often attract QVC buyers and agents and you will be able to get a list of attendees once you become an exhibitor.

Ways to find competent people who can help you are everywhere, you just have to start somewhere, even if it’s Google. But be sure to do your due diligence before signing a contract of any kind.