Market Your Film - Movie Marketing Plans Made Easy

EchoWOM Team
Apr 6, 2017
6 min read

This 12 week marketing plan provides very useful information on movie marketing campaign. It is not possible to guarantee you that your movie will be a viral success. However, it is better to take some action rather than letting your movie sit on the shelf.

The strategies and techniques that are contained in the movie marketing plan described below can be utilized during a 12 week period.

Overview of Movie Marketing Plan

In order to develop an effective movie marketing plan, it is essential to develop achievable project goals. This involves responding to the questions below:

In order to break even how many unit sales/movie views must be sold?
What general audience are you targeting?
Over the coming 12 week period, what do you expect to be your primary accomplishments?

Week 1 – Definition of Target Audience for Your Movie There have been many changes in the movie industry which have had a profound effect on movie marketing. There is considerably more competition among the many films that are produced each year and everyone is trying to find their own niche. The film distribution process has become much more democratic. As a result, even before writing the script for the movie it is essential to have a clear definition of your target audience. It is important to ask whether there is an existing audience for your movie. You should also ask what sites your audience visits most frequently.

This article will assist you in defining the market for your movie. You should begin with the three steps below.

Formulate a listing of the five perfect movie fan categories for your movie.
Make a list of the online and offline platforms where you can reach these fans.
Try to determine the reasons why these types of fans should watch your movie.
Create accounts for your film on all the major social media platforms.

Week 2 – Start the Website To Market Your Movie

Internet marketing is a very important component of the marketing for your movie. This is because the divide between your television and your computer is vanishing rapidly. In a few years, all of this media will be accessible and available to viewers on demand. This will require that you attract the Internet traffic that you target to your desired point of sale and turn the visitors into customers.

During the second week, the following topics will be covered:

Create a dynamic website for your film.
Start building your fan email list using social media and landing page.
Create a list of influencers that can help spread the word about your movie.

Week 3 – Understand Your Target Audience

In the current indie filmmaking environment (without retail DVD distribution), it is essential that you identify the audience for both your career as well as your current project. This need to engage with the audience is a major change for many people.

The most important part of your movie business is your audience. If you do not have an audience, you don’t have a business!

In Week 3, we will focus the following topic:

Identify the main publications that appeal to your fans. Determine the offline and online locations for your fans.

Week 4 – Learn How to Track

There are typically many different ideas from the project team about the best type of marketing practices for your movie. The reality is that a marketing idea is only good if it works. It is crucial that you test your strategy to make sure that it works.

In your fourth week, you will try to understand user behavior by setting up the appropriate tools. This include the following steps:

Influence user activity by modifying your website.
Identify the appropriate tracking tools that you can apply to your particular website.

Week 5 – Make Refinements in Your Movie Marketing

When a major studio releases a movie, it is sometimes pushed as an action flick. However, they then shift the ads to calling it a love story. What is the reason for this drastic change? This occurs because the individuals who are responsible for movie marketing are constantly testing the message with sample audiences.

The most important aspects of the movie are usually identified by the audience and not the person responsible for making the film.

Week 5 focuses on the following:

Develop and refine your hook to stress the important aspects of your story.
Utilize audience feedback in order make refinements in your movie messaging.
How to exposure of your movie to major influencers within your target market.

Week 6 – Movie Search Engine Optimization Strategies

Your focus will be on using the internet since you do not have a large marketing budget like the major studios. The desired goal of your marketing effort is to develop cost effective marketing strategies to attract traffic to your website so that your visitors will purchase the movie. There are several strategies to accomplish this. One of the best and most effective methods is to create valuable content that is targeted at your intended audience.

Week 6 involves the completion of the following tasks:

Utilize a SEO friendly framework to develop the website for your movie.
Carry out keyword research that is tailored to your intended audience.
Use keyword research to effectively define your content strategy.

Week 7 – Develop Appropriate Content

In order to carry out effective movie marketing, it is necessary to develop appropriate content in order attract visitors to the website for your movie. Many filmmakers find it to be very challenging to produce this type of material to post on their websites.

There are many ways of creating website in addition to writing relevant content that is keyword specific. There is a wide variety of video, audio and text content that can be posted to your movie website. It is important to utilize all three types of content since every viewer has their own preference.

Week 7 focuses on these objectives:

Develop an appropriate timeline for delivering the content.
Use genre/movie/story keywords to formulate a content strategy.

Week 8 – Building Buzz and Spreading the Word

The focus of Week 8 is to cut through the tremendous volume of material on the internet in order to deliver results more effectively. Some recommended actions are presented below:

Make refinements to your trailer so it can be posted in as many locations as possible.
Create and distribute a press release.
Develop inexpensive ads which can be used to attract visitors to the website for your movie.
Formulate a list of the leading publications in your niche.

Week 9 – Use Leverage on the Blogging Community and Social Networks

There are many filmmakers who lack basic social networking skills. As a result, they have a very hard time developing an effective social networking strategy. Although their film may be much better than their competition, they don’t how to get the message out on social media.

The goal in Week 9 is to introduce an effective social media strategy that emphasizes word of mouth.

Post to different blogs as part of a strategy for guest posting.
Use the appropriate social networking channels to reach potential users.

Week 10 – Launch by Hitting the Red Button

Since making a movie usually involves considerable money, time and effort, it is important that you do not waste time and delay. Your goal is to get maximum exposure for your movie so it gets seen and sold. If you are really lucky, you may also get a multi-picture studio deal. Effective movie marketing is not totally scientific. However, it is easy to measure the results.

During Week 10, we will see what works by hitting the red button.

Distribute your movie copies to a number of review websites and do some networking so that you can get positive reviews.
Formulate a launch strategy that is divided into a number of milestones and tiers.

Week 11 – Use Email for Effective Marketing

Email marketing is a great way for keeping communication channels open and developing a relationship with your audience.

Week 11 focuses on the creation and execution of an email marketing campaign (ad).

The campaign should begin with six targeted emails that are sent at pre-determined intervals.
Contact other filmmakers to determine whether they would be willing to send similar emails to those on their lists.

Week 12 – Continue to Grow Your Community of Fans!

It is very important to remember the following: “My audience is my business. Without an audience, I have no business.” With modern film distribution, it is no longer possible to sell your DVDs to Blockbuster because it no longer exists. Therefore, you must remember that your audience is your business. This is not only true for your current movie, but also for your future projects.

During Week 12, the focus is on the creation of long-term community engagement.