5 Quick Tips for Effective Email Outreach (for IP Dealmakers)
Email outreach is an essential tool for universities, labs, and businesses aiming to take IP to market, commercialize patents, or find collaborators. Effective outreach is a foundational skill for marketing and sales professionals, but what about IP dealmakers trying to manage email outreach efforts on top of everything else they do in a day?
Whether you're launching a new campaign to find commercial partners, sell patents, or just starting market discovery, how can you ensure your outreach efforts stand out, start meaningful conversations, and drive successful partnerships?
Here are five best practices from the IP community - and our own time at ICORPs - to help you ramp up partnerships, market discovery, get valuable feedback, and expand your network.
1. Targeting Is Key
Success starts with targeting the right people. Define your objectives before starting your outreach campaign. Are you looking for feedback, collaborators, or licensing opportunities? The more specific your goal, the better you can tailor your message to resonate with potential partners. Setting a reachable benchmark—like contacting at least 100 relevant people in each campaign—will also help you gauge success and iterate based on responses. In ScaleIP, you can easily reach this target by filtering and identifying key contacts within the platform’s extensive database.
For meaningful insights, try to reach more than one person within a company, preferably across multiple roles within each organization. This broadens the range of feedback and increases the chance that your message will reach someone willing to engage. Try to target around 20 companies in each campaign - with 3-5 individual contacts per company - to maximize your chances of valuable responses. With the data sources and AI insights available in ScaleIP, you can gain a deeper understanding of each company and tailor messages that directly address their needs.
2. Build Connections with Personalized Messages
No one likes generic emails, especially decision-makers fielding hundreds of cold outreach messages a day. The more personal the message, the higher the likelihood of a reply. Use personalization to capture attention and show genuine interest. ScaleIP enables you to leverage data sources and AI insights to gain a deeper understanding of a technical fit, as well as each company’s past licensing and partnership history. ScaleIP enables you to leverage data sources and AI insights to gain a deeper understanding of a technical fit, as well as each company’s past licensing and partnership history. Highlight aspects of your IP that address the recipient's needs.
Take it further by viewing LinkedIn profiles — conveniently listed directly in ScaleIP — and incorporate additional details to customize each message. Some ways you can incorporate LinkedIn insights into your outreach:
Mentioning a recent article they published
Congratulating them on a promotion
Referencing a shared interest
These small touches convey that you’ve done your research and help you stand apart from impersonal cold emails. Tailoring your email with insights from ScaleIP shows that you’ve put thought into why this connection is valuable for them and positions you as someone genuinely interested in building a mutually beneficial relationship.
3. Focus on Discovery and Feedback
Email outreach is not just about making a sale—it’s also about learning. Use this as an opportunity for market discovery. Ask questions, request feedback, and invite your audience to share their challenges. This transforms your outreach into a conversation, providing valuable insights for your R&D team.
Ask questions like: "Is this challenge relevant to your company?" or "How do you currently address this issue?" Gathering this information helps you better understand the market, refine your messaging, and create IP that serves real-world needs.
4. Follow Up, But Don’t Overdo It
Outreach is rarely one-and-done. Successful connections often stem from follow-ups. If you haven't heard back after your first email, don't give up. Follow up after a week if you haven’t received a response, but avoid excessive messages that can feel intrusive. If someone isn’t interested, respect that boundary and move on to the next prospect. It can take 6-8 emails to get a response — remain courteous and keep adding value. ScaleIP makes it easy to track responses, adjust your follow-up strategy based on engagement levels, and monitor your lead status.
5. Build Your Rolodex Over Time
Email outreach is not just about the immediate response for the current campaign — it’s about building a network of lasting relationships over time. Even if you don't strike a deal immediately, every positive interaction expands your network. Over time, these contacts can become collaborators, partners, or sources of future opportunities.
By using the structured, personalized email outreach available in ScaleIP, you’re not only advancing market discovery and gathering feedback but also creating an asset that continues to grow with each campaign.
Start Growing Your IP Commercialization Rolodex
Ready to improve your IP commercialization email outreach? Ping us in the chatbot below and let’s talk about how to help you take your IP to market faster than ever.
