73 BUSINESS ADVICE For those in the craft market, brand licensing can be a great way to take your business to the next level, expanding your reach, increasing sales and providing greater brand credibility. But how exactly do you go about leveraging brand licensing for your craft business? As one of the UK’s leading brand licensing agencies, with many successful craft collaborations under our belts, we’re here to give you the insight. Let’s start by explaining brand licensing. This is the process in which a brand (or a person) enters into an agreement with a manufacturer (otherwise known as the licensee) for it to use its name or image on products to increase its presence in the market and generate additional revenue. To create the majority of these arrangements, a brand licensing agent is appointed by the brand to identify the product categories that will be most suitable for their existing and target audiences. The agent then seeks out the best licensees to create these products and then works with retail partners to ensure the products reach consumers and generate as much revenue as possible for all parties. And it’s not just revenue that’s generated. For small manufacturers, brand licensing can be used as an effective tool to expand your business beyond its current scope, allowing you to tap into new markets, and potentially more lucrative ones, thereby reaching customers that wouldn’t have found your product otherwise. Having a big brand on your side also provides more credibility and recognition for your products, which can help build trust among potential customers. Plus, the relationship gives you access to resources that may not have been available before - namely marketing budget, industry expertise, capital and distribution channels - so you can grow your business even more quickly than you could without them. Of course, to work well, brand licensing requires incredible insight into the market and consumer buying habits, as well as strong relationships with manufacturers and retailers alike. But even with all of that, brand licensing deals can still fail with poor sales performances or no retailer interest. Fortunately for us and our partners, we at The Point.1888 have a different approach – a retail-led strategy, which means that we base our decisions on Licensed to sell Janine Richmond, Head of Product and Brand at The Point.1888 talks to Craft Focus about unlocking the potential of brand licensing for craft companies
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTA0NTE=