Producer Handbook: Marketing Your Film

Successfully Marketing Your Film on a Budget

Resource Download: Why Choose VisionMaker--How NAPT will help you market your film.

Please note, if you receive funding from NAPT through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting funded Public Television Program Fund, your contract will outline deliverables required for marketing your program.

What this write-up will cover:

1. Steps to defining a simple marketing plan.

2. Configuring a marketing budget to coincide with your marketing plan.

3. How to utilize and maintain your marketing plan to continue to get the results desired.

5 Easy Steps to Create Your Marketing Plan

Step #1

I. Define the aspect(s) of your film that you are trying to promote.

How to define your product(s).

a. What is/are the aspect(s)?

b. Price point.

c. Who do you think your market is?

II. Defining Your Target Audience

a. Having a well-defined target market is more important than ever because with the overload of advertisement in the world. Spend your money/energy reaching your target audience.

b. What does this lead us to? The answer is Niche Marketing.

By definition, Niche Marketing is "a subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing; therefore, the market niche defines the specific product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that it is intended to impact."

In takeaway terms, Niche Marketing is "a targeted, well-researched segment of the marketplace that has a particular interest in a product or service that you have to offer."

c. How do you find your Niche Market?

i. Define your product(s) being offered--or at least the ones you want to promote.

ii. What are your niche prospects' needs?

- Affordable?

- Quality?

- Customer Service?

- Flexibility?

- One-Stop Shop?

- Location?

- Brag-ability Rights? (i.e. Employed an all-Native American production crew on location in...)

d. Things to Remember

i. A bigger niche market is harder to market to because direct mail and online advertising costs go up due to your online advertisement fees increasing. Due to the popularity of keywords used your costs will go up for things such as Google Ad Words. The popularity of the website you are advertising on will also determine the price of the digital ad.

ii. Some niche markets are heavily saturated, thus you have increased competition.

iii. So what can you do to stand out from the crowd?

Determine the following:

- What makes your product different?

- What can you offer that no one else can?

- What do you want your film to be known for?

Step #2

I. Define your budget.

a. Configuring a budget.

i. Any pre-existing funds?

ii. Secure funding through grants, underwriting, sponsorships and other fund raising activities.

iii. How long does it need to last?

iv. How will you monitor it?

v. How will you track the return on investment (ROI)?

Step #3

I. Writing the campaign treatment and making a task list.

II. Steps to successfully launching and maintaining your campaign.

a. Determine what your campaign is.

b. Determine your campaign's budget.

c. How will you monitor it?

d. When will the soft launch occur? The hard launch?

e. Plan out a marketing timeline.

- Showcase month-by-month planned objectives and results you've hoped to achieve by that month.

f. Outline in detail your campaign initiatives.

- Initial planning.

- Items needed to execute various phases.

Task list items could include, but are not limited to:

a. Campaign Treatment

b. Logo Design

c. Letterhead

d. Envelopes

e. Collateral Pieces

f. Online Copy

g. Public Relations Initiatives

h. Community Outreach Initiatives

i. Promotional Materials

j. Print Ads

k. Broadcast Spots/On-air Publicity

Step #4

I. Utilizing the Internet....Wisely.

Online Niche Marketing is a technique used for marketers to target Internet-based segments of a larger market.

a. Ways to Reach Online

i. Cater your website to your niche market.

ii. Design your online advertising to meet their needs.

iii. Promote your digital ads on external websites that would draw your niche market.

iv. Choose Google Ad Words wisely.

v. Social Media advertisements and group page maintenance.

II. Social Media

By definition, social media "describes the online technologies and practices that people use to share content, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives and media themselves."

a. What does social media utilize?

i. Online Video

ii. RSS Feeds

iii. Mobile Marketing

iv. Podcasting

b. What is the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0?

i. Web 1.0 is about commerce.

Examples include: banner ads, search engine optimization (SEO) and email marketing.

ii. Web 2.0 is user-generated media.

Examples include: blogs, podcasts, mobile phone, RSS feeds, online videos and widgets.

c. Most importanty, don't give in to crazy expectations.

i. No one is going to "like" your product immediately upon viewing your page.

ii. Your potential customer most likely will not watch your uploaded videos.

iii. Your campaign probably won't take-off instantly.

iv. You won't see immediate sales.

v. There are going to be some costs incurred.

d. Social Media is the most powerful way to interact with people online because:

i. Your audience/potential customer is already online.

ii. They are online because of other websites, social networking and blogs.

iii. You can reach out to them through content that is relevant and engaging to them.

iv. The "key" is to not disrupt their user-experience.

e. Social Media Reminders

i. Don't rely on it to build your film's promotional distribution list.

ii. It can help drive traffic to your website, but it shouldn't be the only thing you rely on.

f. Social Media Costs

i. Production Costs

- Video

- Articles

- Images

ii. Media Buying

iii. Hosting Fees for Serving Content

iv. Fees for Distribution/Tracking Tools

v. Consulting or Agency Fees

g. Where can you go to get started?

i. Go to one or more of the top three: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

h. Are your employees/production crew on Social Media?

i. Professionally or Personally?

ii. Set expectations with current employees and new hires. Make sure they know the difference, as it is key to preventing future upset particularly with vendors, clients and funders.

i. The Ten Commandments of Social Media:

1. Blog

2. Create Profiles

3. Upload Photos

4. Upload Videos

5. Podcast

6. Set Alerts

7. Comment

8. Get Connected

9. Explore Social Media

10. Be Creative

But remember......

1. Don't complain when people are mean.

2. Do write only what is worth reading.

3. Don't speak about what you know nothing about.

4. Overall, realize that once something enters social media, it spreads quick and you'll probably never be able to completely erase what was posted.

j. Where will Social Media lead people?

i. You can't expect it to be your website, but sometimes it will be.

ii. What can you do to make it the best user-experience?

a. Know your brand and stay true to it.

b. Create a style guide and follow it.

c. Ease of navigation.

d. Utilize Microsite pages.

e. Feature testimonials.

f. Remember the keys of SEO.

III. The Keys of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

a. First major thing to consider:

i. Unique Content

You have something to say that is uniquely yours to the Internet community. Something that will be seen as "value." Use appropriate terms that would be typed into the search engine on your webpage.

ii. Appropriate Links to Your Website

Just because you have a home page doesn't mean that's where people need to be linked to. Link them directly to the page that best suits what they searched for and you are more apt to guarantee that sale.

b. Second major thing to consider:

i. To increase your SEO rankings, the more sites that link to your site, the better off you'll be.

ii. So, if you're not showing up on the search engine's results page...

a. It's never too late to fix this.

b. Look at your brand.

c. Look at your film's offerings.

d. Look at your business partners or potential partners.

e. Look at your competition. Who is ranking and why?

Step #5

I. Knowing a beginning and an end result--you need to track proof-of-performance.

II. Research

a. Forms of campaign research:

i. Studying the market place.

- Is there a need for your product?

- How much competition? How saturated?

ii. Surveys

- Could pinpoint something you might not have realized that market was missing. This could become part of your selling strategy.

- Shows that you care.

- Helps you create true proof-of-performance.

iii. One-on-One Interviews

- Allows you to see true opinion and reactions up-close.

iv. Focus Groups

- Allows individuals to feed off other's ideas. This is a good test of influence.

b. What is the motive for research?

i. Getting answers to your questions without spending a fortune.

ii. Testing a concept or an idea.

iii. Adding layers to complex products or services.

iv. Learning about satisfaction and customer awareness.

c. For your research, do you outsource or stay internal?

i. Research Firm

- Large survey pool.

- More complex analysis.

- Unbiased, outsider view administering.

- Reliable statistical results.

ii. Internal

- Small survey pool.

- More simple analysis.

- Internal.

- Generalized results...may be skewed based on how administered.

d. Research Tips

i. Do give the audience being interviewed the topic in advance, unless it is absolutely top secret. This allows the audience to gather all of their thoughts about the topic that might not be the first thing to come to mind.

ii. If hosting a Focus Group/Roundtable Session, do have a moderator that is not biased one way or another, and who is not afraid to generate subject prompts to keep the flow of conversation going.

iii. Don't be afraid to talk hypothetically.

- Ask, with financial restraints aside, what would you like to see or have happen? This will help define a vision or ultimate goal. Although it may be unachievable in the immediate or sometimes further future, don't stop reaching.

iv. During the interviews:

- Take good notes.

- Video tape (must get releases signed first).

- Summarize and categorize your results.