The changing landscape of pre-production marketing planning

craigbowman

craigbowman

Veteran
At one time I used to just register a domain. Now with the explosion of smart phones, qr codes, and even the advent of facebook connect and ipad stuff I'm finding myself spending geometrically increasing amounts of time and money trying to make sure I'm not missing anything obvious when putting the marketing plan(s) together on the projects I have in development that are in pre-production.

How are you dealing with all of this?
 
Facebook Page
Twitter Account
Vimeo Account
YouTube Account
Instagram Account
Viddy Account

Incidentally all of these are free, and I don't think we'll pay any money for an actual "movie" website this next go 'round.

It's kind of a double-edged sword, but at least with those free things you can start engaging markets sooner than when you actually start.
 
Sorry if this is tangential... but here is my 2c on the sad state of marketing for indie projects:

1. Fail to create a story in the first place that people would want to watch
(this basically puts marketing at a huge disadvantage)

2. Fail to allocate enough money to shoot stuff for trailer during production
(yes, you should be shooting certain lines, alternate angles, slow-mo etc... with a specific eye to marketing)

3. Fail to allocate enough money to making an awesome trailer and well-designed title and basic marketing materials
(though this may be a lost cause if there's nothing cool to actually show off)

4. Gamely attempt a social marketing campaign, only to see it fail to gain traction
(because people check out the trailer and decide it sucks, killing the viral potential right there)

There are a ton of ways to connect to your audience but without having a really stellar core statement of the film's strengths to rally around... what's the point? This should be figured out beforehand. Even if it's an art film... completely experimental... what gets YOU excited about the project? Start thinking about other people like yourself. What would get you to watch a similar movie if someone else made it? Recommendations from friends plus a nice trailer? Mentions on certain blogs? Flyers? Music tie-ins? Free stuff? Behind the scenes? Let that guide your social media campaign to some extent. Ask your friends too how they decide to watch movies... just keep your mind open and discover the paths to letting people know about your movie...

To me, the social media stuff changes every year anyway, so in a long-term plan I'd probably just want to identify and building an audience through whatever the methods du jour are (and starting as far ahead of time as possible...).

When it gets closer, you can figure out specific strategies... to me the thing is that 95% of indie movies don't get to the point where they are actually deserving of a social campaign because they just fail earlier on for the above-mentioned reasons.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
I'm with Bruce.

A facebook page & twitter feed mean nothing if your movie sucks.

If your movie is well written, well acted & well made, a facebook page & twitter feed will be nice, but will not make or break the film.

In the end, it's the quality of the film that will make or break the marketing.
 
arniepix said:
In the end, it's the quality of the film that will make or break the marketing.
Click to expand...

This is wrong on so many levels. You don't have to make a good product, you just have to make people want it and to want it they need to have heard about it. Not the same thing. Ideally, you are making a good product targeted towards your desired demographic. Those are synergistic factors. The product needs to be good enough.

If I was planning the 10k feature as per the thread, I would have the bare minimum practicals (food, cost of fuel, assuming mostly volunteered / lower cost work) and the rest to marketing. If I could put all 10k into marketing, I would.

I think the most important crew person that you could find would be a person skilled in effective marketing.

I don't know what indie film purchase CTRs generally work out to, but in other mediums 2% isn't considered bad. If you need to sell 1000 copies to make a profit, how many QUALIFIED (into the niche, not 6 years old - ie has a credit card) people need to know about it? How many people need to know about it to find that many qualified candidates?


On the general topic -

How does outreach factor into this? There seem to be loads of film blogs - of all ilks - and I rarely notice pre-pro indies stumping on them. In other fields, these micro niche sites are always looking for content and shares / guest posts / interviews are valued. Each of the micro blogs may only have 10 unique viewers, but that can add up. That thought should be put towards blogs in the niche of the film - as selling to filmmakers seems like a poor plan.

I would think reaching out to a bunch of these for interviews / press release may be effective and will cost nothing outside of a few email exchanges. Maybe get one to do a series covering the production? I think alot of the social media approaches are too passive.
 
LbSand said:
This is wrong on so many levels. You don't have to make a good product, you just have to make people want it and to want it they need to have heard about it. Not the same thing. Ideally, you are making a good product targeted towards your desired demographic. Those are synergistic factors. The product needs to be good enough.
Click to expand...

Very true.
 
A kickass promotional poster, trailer, and tag-line are the main things to worry about I think. Yes social media can play a big part in marketing these days, but most people I know still determine their interest in a film by those three tried-and-true promotional materials. Getting them out there - that's the job that falls to facebook et al.
 
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