If you are like most filmmakers, you haven't thought much about your movie marketing plan. And this makes sense. You probably figure that all you gotta do is make an awesome movie and some film distributor will come along and write you an equally awesome check.
But here's the movie success pardox…
Having spent the greater part of my film career working in film distribution, I can tell you that the filmmakers who actually land the BIG deals have a movie marketing plan. In other words, these filmmakers don't necessarily need a distribution deal to get their movies seen and selling.
Movie Marketing Plan
Creating a basic movie marketing plan is simple. You really just need to sit down with a few trusted collaborators and answer the following five questions.
1. Who Is Your Target Audience?
When it comes to defining a target audience, most filmmakers will say “everybody.” But since you do not have the movie marketing budget of a major motion picture studio, realize that everybody is nobody. You will need to home in on a group of people most likely to buy your movie.
Example: Purple pine cone Movie? Market to people who love purple pine cones.
2. How Large Is Your Target Audience?
Once you define your ideal audience, the next step is to figure out the size of your audience. This is important because if your audience is too small, you may not be able to find enough people to buy your movie. And if your target audience is too large, you may not have enough money to reach them.
If your current niche is too small, open it to a bigger audience by expanding. Too large? Niche it down.
Example: Only 20 people search for Purple pine cones online per month. There are over 5,000 people searching for pine cones. See the difference?
3. How Will You Reach Your Audience?
There is a lot of talk in the filmmaking community about building an audience. While I understand the sentiment, building an audience can be time consuming and expensive. But here's the good news. Assuming your audience is large enough, odds are good they congregate online.
Your goal is to find out where your audience congregates online… Then join the conversation.
Example: Online forums and offline trade shows devoted to pine cone loving aficionados.
4. What Is Your Promotional Strategy?
Your movie marketing plan will consist of breaking your promotional strategy into small tasks that you can execute on a daily basis. Your promotional tasks will include online paid promotion, online free promotion, offline paid promotion and offline free promotion.
Example: Thursday you write a guest post for a popular Pinecone blog and link back your movie website..
5. How Many VOD Sales To Break Even?
Out of everything we mentioned, knowing how many unit sales you need to break even is one of the key elements of your movie marketing plan. To figure it out your number, assume that any video on demand platform will hold onto at least half of your sale.
This means, if you sell a movie for $10 dollars, you'll only net $5 dollars. So with this in mind, to recoup a $100,000 dollar budget, you will need to sell 20,000 units.
Example: 20,000 sales multiplied by $5 dollars (net) equals $100,000
Once you complete your movie marketing plan, two things will happen. You will either land a dream distribution deal (because you don't actually need the deal) or you will have the confidence to reach your audience yourself. In both scenarios a movie marketing plan is essential.
If you'd like more info on how to create a movie marketing plan, check out my film distribution system.
