What Are The Most Frequent Lottery Numbers:In part one of this description I did a quick overview of branding and art licensing, how it works, and where it started. In this part of the article, I will endeavor to rejoinder some exact questions posed to me regarding this Internet phenomena, which, once was intimately held information by major captains of industry, and now can be done by a high school student.
Today's Branding & Art Licensing With the E-Sharks
There are some routes to go regarding branding and art licensing. The most usual is one's own website featuring one's own artwork, writing, products with your art such as tee shirts, clocks, mouse pads, etc. This is how I started with my cartoon site in 1997. I didn't well have anything to sell, but, strangely enough, after my creative team and I produced a few hundred cartoons, we received a call from a San Diego T shirt builder who wanted to buy the ownership to 12 of our images for ten thousand dollars. We took it without blinking an eye. That was around 1998. We understanding we "had arrived". Many humbling experiences would squelch that understanding in a millisecond.
We went through a estimate of evolutions, trying distinct varieties of cartoons in various subjects. The cartoon that branded us the fastest was called Panel Hollywood, in which we portrayed the caricature likenesses of a estimate of film stars, musicians, politicians etc. And mailed each a copy with a invite for a review. Out of the two hundred or so we mailed, maybe fifteen or so responded, but they were big adequate names that we now had a Hollywood following and potent "reviews" page. It was my strategy from the start, but, it was difficult looking a decent caricature artist. I was and am the idea person, and recruited a team of illustrators willing to work speculatively. It was based on the Disney model (only not animated).
I was trying to shape out a way to monetize the site, but was not having much luck. Google didn't exist, so of policy neither did AdWords. Neither did social networking, bookmarking, podcasting, or much of anything else. I settled banner ads and made phone calls and sent emails and snail mails. That was about all one could do on a shoestring at the time. Gently people began visiting our site. Within a year or so, we looked up and had produced practically 1000 cartoons. Then the unthinkable happened. The web host went belly up. Our site was gone. I did not comprehend at the time, but like any other file, websites could be saved to disk. Fortunately, one of my illustrators who was now boss of my project did know it and had saved it. I can still remember the terror of that day, as he was out of town, and I could not reach him for some days. This time we researched the web hosts, got references and sought their rankings. We ended up paying a bit more per month, but that little bit more gave us peace of mind.
A few more years went by and I learned we could license the ownership to these images and, of policy sell them to publications. We felt we might try newspaper syndication, but one has a best occasion of winning the lottery. Newspapers were hurting then as much as they are now, and very few new cartoons were being accepted. So we marketed to universities, other websites, etc. And offered a custom-artwork department. This sold relatively well. Colleges bought them for textbooks, power point presentations and such, and businesses bought them for an intriguing humor page on their sites. I learned to barter and bartered the images for many goods and services we needed to keep going. Probably without barter, we couldn't have made it. Money was very tight.
Then I discovered, well by accident, we had created "a brand". people came to expect a certain element of surprise in our cartoons, a twist, a Far Side-like experience. I mention the Far Side for some reasons. Gary Larson was a major influence on my development, and some critics compared the cartoon to it. I thought about that the extreme compliment of course, and still greatly admire Larson's work. At times, the influence was so strong, I had to walk a thin line, and remember, The Far Side was his brand. What could I do to make mine different, yet store to a similar niche of people?
First, I decided on full color. Then decided on much more text and less emphasis on the brand of characters, and more on the essence/spirit of the cartoon, that is, the theme of the cartoon would be similar, even if the field matter was often different. There is so much one can "brand" in a particular panel. I also realized that I didn't want to just tackle one subject, but many. So I categorized them into medical, science, law, celebrities, music, sports, relationships, etc. This opened doors to all kinds of possible markets. Keep in mind, if one is marketing to, say, university textbook publishers, and one only creates physics cartoons, not a lot of textbook publishers are going to take a second glance, that is, unless they only issue physics textbooks. Hence the incompatibility of field matter.
Fast forward a few years. Enter P.O.D. (print on demand). It all started with a business called Cafe Press which offered a few items like tees and mugs in which you could digitally place your art and even open a store for about per month. That selection is still open, plus now, in association with Commission Junction, one may open an company account. Then came Printfection and Zazzle. All three are a bit different, but the latter two do not fee a penny to have a store. They have a base price, like Cafepress, and you provide the mark-up you want on each product. You can open a variety store, or a specialty shop dealing in niche products or any way you like. Zazzle and Printfection offer you the selection of as many shop as you like, so you can experiment. Zazzle is particularly flexible in that you have the selection of text as well as images, or both, and the customer (if you allow it) may alter the text, take off it, or put their own.
I opened a estimate of shop at these sites, some of them variety shop selling all sorts of licensed image products. Someone else one, at Zazzle is well a "gallery of products" but functions in the same way of a store. Doesn't cost a dime to open one. A third one is taking off now at Printfection featuring mostly tees and clothing with a few special edition added affordable gifts.
Then I started getting best at following trends and noticed no cartoonists had "gone green"; that is, open a totally 100% organic t-shirt shop for men and women. Within a few months, I had practically 200 licensed image tees displayed.
While creating your products digitally (may sound difficult but it is not), and if you frequent the forums, other creators/shopkeepers are very helpful, continue description marketing, social bookmarking, opt-in emailing (if you wish, many don't like it), or anything your marketing style is. I try to use a little of each and even set a small budget on Google AdWords for some of the shop (and even exact products in some ads that lead to the destination stock itself instead of main landing page. This can be done with description marketing as well with embedded links (these are the blue hyperlinks you see in this, and other articles.
If you are on a bigger budget, you can still, and I recommend you do, begin your branding and marketing with P.O.D stores, but I also recommend joining Lima (the licensing association). Here you will run with the big dog corporations and licensing agencies, etc. The list is widespread but if you
hook up with a good licensing agency, you may be set for life.
In the third part of this three series article, I will go more into the details of marketing, where to start, etc. Meantime, there are plentifulness of articles right here on this website regarding that very topic. Don't be fearful of learning. You will make mistakes but so did Sam Walton and Bill Gates. Mistakes are going to happen. It is learning from them that makes up "the experts".
Happy branding!
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