An average person is expected to spend about a hundred minutes per day watching video content online in 2022. Also, 81 percent of businesses use video advertising as a part of their marketing strategy. These numbers clearly indicate that video marketing is a crucial element of any business’ online brand marketing strategy, making it an irreplaceable contributor towards a brand’s digital success.
However, businesses nowadays are also considering a brand licensing strategy as a revenue-generating potential. With the popularity of video marketing surging to impressive levels, such a strategy can help businesses promote and market their brand with a greater impact. It can increase engagement, inform and educate viewers, and build long-lasting relationships with them. Let’s get to know more about it here.
Brand licensing is the leasing of a copyrighted or trademarked property for use in relation to a product, service, or even their promotion. Typical examples of a licensed property include a name, logo, quote, graphic, character, signature, or a combination of many different elements. In the context of video marketing, it is the legal process of licensing any kind of video content. It is done usually to access high-quality videos from a stock video website or the online marketplace of a content creator.
You might want to get stock video footage for use as a primary shot or to show a place in your travel vlog. You might also look for placeholder content in a bigger project or an important freelance gig. Irrespective of the project you are working on, stock video platforms give you a simple, relatively affordable way to find high-quality video content. The only way to access it is by investing in a license.
Expanding the horizons of the brand
A video licensing strategy allows businesses to sort of ‘rent’ a popular brand’s video content and use it on their products, services, or promotions. When incorporated into video marketing, it can help businesses connect a powerful brand to an offering that’s in demand. This, in turn, greatly helps to boost sales and take the enterprise a rung higher. It expands the brand’s horizons by taking its equity to new markets, categories, and associations. Given the wide spectrum of video properties existing in the present times, licensing proves to be a multifaceted strategy. It increases consumer awareness and the overall potential of the business to rake in additional revenue.
Gauge consumer perceptions in a new market
By using a brand licensing strategy with video marketing and overall brand marketing, businesses can get an opportunity to venture into new geographic regions. It allows them to test the perspectives and responsiveness of customers or consumers in the new market. At the same time, businesses can choose to adopt an independent distribution model in the tested market if the licensing strategy proves to be a profitable experiment.
Develop a unique marketing approach
A video licensee knows the nitty-gritty of their market much better than an average licensor would know. Equipped with this knowledge, they will be able to market their intellectual property in a way that appeals to the average consumer in the market. It is an opportunity to reach out to more consumers with a product, concept, or message without actually investing in them fully. There’s certainly a pre-planned arrangement between the licensor and the licensee, but both parties get a good level of freedom to define a unique marketing approach for producing and distributing video content.
Build and maintain a robust fanbase
Licensing can prove its potential as a great video marketing strategy by helping businesses up their fanbase in a big way. The most loyal fans of a brand look for novelty for them to stick around. So, it’s imperative that brands plan their product diversification strategy carefully. Seizing new opportunities to match properties to products by finding the ideal licensing partner can help businesses unlock latent growth potential. At the same time, brand licensing can help businesses find new fans by targeting them through valuable and meaningful video content.
Increase revenue
As the customer base of a brand grows as it expands into new product categories, there’s also an uptick in its revenues. With the expanded reach that video licensing unlocks, brands will be able to tap into new profitable opportunities with the right merchandising strategy. It fosters the growth of consumers’ buying motives, considering both the current segment and the brand’s new converts. Also, licensing could boost the value of video production without having to invest in a new camera or equipment, meaning there’s not a significant hike in the cost.
Support other projects
As mentioned earlier, video licensing, when used as a marketing extension, create opportunities for brands to earn extra revenues and increase brand awareness. With the extra cash earned from licensing, licensors can reinvest it back into the core development projects. This way, there will be an optimal circulation and utilization of funds. But many experienced brand licensors recommend that businesses reinvest at least a third of the royalties into future licensing projects.
In today’s highly dynamic and competitive world of brands, video licensing is gaining tremendous momentum. The discussion above throws light on the potential of brand licensing in the ever-expanding realm of video marketing. Video licensing can be a great strategic move, provided proper preliminary research is conducted, and best licensing practices are followed. It may seem like it’s risking a brand's equity, but if done wisely, the results are truly rewarding.
