How To Sell Your Toy and Game Ideas
Have an idea for a toy or game, but you're struggling to find a way in to a toy company to pitch it?
Let's say you have a pretty amazing toy idea and you want to get it in front of a toy or a game company, but you have absolutely no contacts in the toy industry. Where do you start? How do you get in the door to get your idea heard?
I'm going to share how to get into any toy or game company to license your idea.
There are three main ways that I'm going to share with on how you can get in at almost any toy company.
I'm Azhelle Wade, AKA the toy coach, and I've worked in the toy industry for over 11 years, gaining three patents and managing multi-million dollar toy lines. I help mission-driven toy creators make their toy dreams a real thing with advice like this. I help mission-driven toy creators make their toy dreams a real thing with advice like this. Let's say you have a pretty amazing toy idea and you want to get it in front of a toy or a game company, but you have absolutely no contacts in the toy industry. Where do you start? How do you get in the door to get your idea heard? There are three main ways that I'm going to share with you today on how you can get in at almost any toy company.
#1 Cold Emails
The first way is with cold emails. You may have heard of the term cold calls, which used to be the norm years ago, but today it's all about email. In order to connect with a toy company via email to pitch your idea you have to know who you need to talk to. That means knowing what different titles are at toy companies. If you're trying to reach a larger toy company, you might want to find someone with the title of inventor relations. And if you're trying to reach a smaller toy company, typically anyone at a director level or higher in a product development role or a business development role is who you want to reach out to. Now, when you find that person, that director of product development or that head of business development, you want to send them a message, a quick email, asking how you can submit your idea.
#2 Utilizing Submission Portals
The second way to get in at almost any toy company is to utilize submission portals. Some toy companies have online inventor submission portals that are public built right into their websites to find these submission websites you should visit the webpage of the toy company that you're interested in pitching to. Then one of my tricks is instead of searching the entire page, scanning all of that text, just hit command F if you're on a Mac or control F if you're on a PC to bring up a search bar and in that search, you're going to type the words, inventor or pitch or submission or portal. Usually those are the key words that will help you quickly find a link to a submission portal.
A little while back, I interviewed the senior director of inventor relations at hasbro, Tanya Thompson, who talks about the inventor submission process utilizing Hasbro Spark Inventor platform. That spark platform is one of those inventor platforms that you can submit to right now, just hang on. I will give you all of the details on how to do that but before we get there, I've got a question for you. Have you ever submitted an idea to a toy company before? Tell me your story in the comments. I really want to know.
#3 Attending Toy Industry Pitch Events
The third and final way I'm going to share with you to get in with almost any toy company is really the most effective, but it can also be the hardest to achieve. This third way to get in at toy companies to pitch your ideas is to attend toy industry pitch events. Toy industry pitch events are organized with the goal of bringing together aspiring inventors, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, toy companies, all who are looking for toy ideas and new toy product. Landing a meeting with a retailer or a toy company during a pitch event, whether it's an in-person pitch event or it's a virtual pitch event is going to give you instant credibility as a professional toy inventor or entrepreneur.
Why is that?
Because these events already have a lot of credibility built into them. By attending them you get some of that credibility transferred to you or working in your favor.
However, these toy industry pitch events can also be the hardest to get into because sometimes you'll have to prove that you are seriously engaged in the business of either inventing a toy product or manufacturing toy product. That could mean showing proof of past inventions with patents or showing order forms from retailers. Most toy industry trade show events, like the New York toy fair have pitch events built into them.
So there are opportunities for you to attend the show, see product, meet people, but also arrange pitch meetings within the show itself. If you are interested in a pitch event that offers more guidance through that entire pitching process, you might be interested in the one that I created, the TCA virtual pitch event. We just wrapped up our most recent TCA virtual pitch event. And we've had Hasbro, Just Play, Jazwares, Spinmaster, Mattel, Zuru, Learning Express, Fisher-Price, and so many more toy companies, retailers, and even publishers attend the TCA virtual pitch event in the short year that it's been around.
Check out my coaching and connections program, Toy Creators Academy by clicking here and be sure to subscribe and check out all of my videos on my YouTube channel to learn more about how you can make it in the toy industry.