Marketing an Indie film online these days could be tougher than you expect it to be. The way indie films are presently promoted and distributed is inefficient. The film industry must seek a way to advertise and distribute indie films online in a cost-effective manner or this film industry is headed towards a severe decline.
Either you wish your indie film to be a favourite at the Independent film festival or you just hope it to be a widely watched short film, you will need a promotional plan to get attention to your masterpiece. Digital technology has transformed the industry and if you want your film to stand out from the competition, you need a media-savvy promotional strategy.
As a producer or director of an Indie film, you, of course, would not have resources like the major studios in New York or California. However, this article fetches ideas for you to promote your indie film online and reach out to the audience.
1 - Pre-roll video advertising
Pre-roll video advertisements are an absurdly effective tool for developing interest and broadcasting your trailer online. They are comparatively less expensive, and you are not expected to pay if the viewer clicks on “skip” in less than five seconds. You can use any service like TubeMogul to broadcast your trailer before related videos on YouTube, Vimeo, IMDB, and many other websites.
Pre-roll ads should hold a call to action for the viewers i.e. something they should do right now. This could be visiting the film’s social media pages or participating in a competition to win something for free. Of course, the more interesting you make it, the easier it is to catch the audience.
2 - Market your film on social media
The leading social media platforms allow massive audience tailoring. Identify the demographics of your audience such as gender, age, or income and when you advertise your indie film on social media, make sure your advertisements are shown to the moviegoers you have identified. Online marketing in today’s media has outweighed television advertising for everything from indie films to big-screen franchises. Thus, it is very essential to realize the importance of social media marketing.
Social media marketing is mainly about catching the eye of the viewer. The content you post on social media should be designed well enough to captivate your audience. You can use PosterMyWall's social media graphic templates to design your indie film posters and post them on social media. With thousands of movie poster templates on PosterMyWall, enhance the quality of your content and increase your online reach.
3 - Create a film website
Once you have a great trailer to watch and a focused marketing plan, try using them to steer your potential audience to your indie film’s website. Just like the early days of the internet, websites should be filled with exclusive content to make you stand out from the crowd. You can use movie poster templates on PosterMyWall to design exclusive content for your indie film website.
If nothing else, your website should consist of a great landing page with links on it for the crowd to watch your content. The audience that made it to your website is surely expecting things from you. Thus, make sure to not disappoint them and meet their expectations.
4 - IMDB listings and advertising
It is said that the most difficult place to sell a book is in a bookstore, but with the massive number of people visiting IMDB in search of new shows and films to watch, it would be shocking to ignore the website in your indie film’s online marketing plan.
Like Google, Yahoo, or YouTube, IMDB too is a search engine. Its algorithm substantially works by popularity and relevance. Therefore, you should make sure that your page on the website contains as much information as possible, and is competently linked all over the site. You should be comprehensive while filling in the information required in the listing and be eager to drive people to review your indie film. IMDB also has a wide range of advertising packages that are worth having a look at.
5 - Use social media competitions and quizzes
Quizzes or competitions might not be the most innovative way of generating online engagement, however, they are renowned for maintaining a balance of low risk with high reward. They never fail to attract, and by providing a fair incentive, they can do wonders in making people share the content with their fellow companions.
The more audience on your social media competition, the better it is for your indie film marketing. A trick that never fails with them is to offer a greater incentive for people who invite more people to join. An easy way to implement this is by setting up a unique URL parameter system through which they can get an extra 5 or 10 entries for the contest for every person who enters via their unique link.
Wrapping it up
This age of digitization has changed the marketing perspectives a lot, and previous strategies might not work in this rapidly changing digital age. Thus, it is necessary to evolve the promotional strategies and with the help of this blog post, start marketing your indie film online.
