Learn how to make the most of your licensing data using software and automation 

It’s no surprise that technology is changing the world around us faster than ever before, and the licensing industry is no exception. As the A.I. and data automation revolution presents new challenges for our industry, it also presents us with new opportunities for success as well.

Here are five steps for turning your licensing data into licensing revenue, inspired by the features we find most important to utilize when building data strategy, and how your licensing business can get started.

Evaluate and Automate Licensing Data 

Before you can share data-driven consumer insights with retailers, or use strategic insights to inform your business growth, you have to evaluate the data you have. The best way to do this is by automating your internal reporting processes. Consider what data you have and what gaps in your data you may want to start addressing and tracking. 

At Brainbase, we founded a single platform to unify your global licensing operations to help licensing companies move forward in a changing technological world. It’s one of the reasons we’re passionate about brand licensing software that makes the experience of automating your data- and analyzing it- be easy, clean, and efficient.

Make Data-Driven Cases

Remember that retail partners are placing more and more emphasis on consumer data in their own business strategies. They want to consider consumer insights and data-driven reasoning as they evaluate brands and licensing products. 

Automated licensing software simply streamlines consumer data your company even already has and makes it easier to access it, manipulate it, and analyze it. Having quick and reliable access to this data can then empower your team to close deals based on data-driven facts, and make powerful cases to retailers. By backing up your intuition with quantitative data, you’ll build smart deals that benefit both parties.

Identify New Licensing Revenue Opportunities

Synthesizing your data with licensing software makes it faster and easier to target new partnerships and find new opportunities by market, region, consumer, and category. With a platform that unifies all your company’s data and insights, you can compare data from several different departments and regions; historical and current sales and royalty data; and do an easy gap analysis to figure out quickly what’s next for a property in terms of categories, territories and trending products. Not only will you maximize your existing revenue, but you’ll find room to grow and earn new revenue, too.

Forecast and Optimize 

Next, learn to use your data predictively. This includes generating your own predictive reports to inform your strategies, as well as the ability to analyze forecasts from licensees and take that data into account, too. You’ll be able to look at forecasts of your performance, revenue, royalties and more, on both a wide scale and at a granular level. You can also perform forecast analysis based on previous historical trends, or on a more granular and/or market-specific level. As your business grows, you’ll continue to input detailed data into your licensing software, resulting in highly accurate forecasts and opportunities to spot trends over time.

Generate Your Own DTC Insights

Collecting first-party data on your customers via DTC is incredibly valuable but it can be difficult to land on actionable insights. Licensing software can help break through the noise and connect consumer insight to licensing business insight. 

With a better view of first-party consumer data, you can get the whole picture. You can understand who your customers are, their preferences and demographics, and your audience’s sentiment and connect that to how/where they shop for licensed products. This data can also be used to personalize your relationship with customers, and their shopping experience, such as “recommended for you” categories or remarketing strategies. 

Conclusion

As a licensing business, now’s the time to provide your team with the tools they need to not only keep up in licensing, but to become an industry leader. By using data automation and A.I., you’ll be able to save time, decrease the likelihood of accounting/reporting errors, increase productivity and beneficial communication, and create more time to develop positive relationships with your partners and customers. But most importantly, you’ll also be able to use your data to increase strategic insights that will actually help your business create new revenue.