How Do I Figure Out Who will Buy my Movie?

There’s a difference between market research and marketing.  Market research is all about placing the target, and marketing is firing the arrow at it.  You can’t fire the arrow if you don’t place the target first.  To follow the metaphor, you can’t market your movie unless you first figure out who you’re going to market the film to.  This blog is about giving you the basics of figuring out who will want to buy your movie.  ​

There is no single, simple process to figure out who will watch your film.  Really, it’s a series of questions and educated guesses.  There are tools you can use to figure out who your film is likely to resonate with.

One of the most simple ways to get started is to figure out movies that are similar to yours, and look at the ratings by age on IMDb Pro.  This will give you an idea, and a point to start from.

Figuring out the ethnicity of people who will watch your film is also tricky.  Generally, the best way to figure this out is to go by the ethnicities of your main characters.  If your entire cast is white as a daisy’s petals, then it’s likely that your audience will appeal primarily to white people.  If it’s a diverse group, then it’s more likely that the appeal of your film will be diverse.

This method is admittedly far from foolproof, and you will definitely break out of this core demographic in terms of ethnicity, but your goal here is to figure out who you’re targeting, and plan where to start marketing your film.

There’s a lot more to figuring out who to market your film to than basic demography.  There’s also interest groups, and niche audiences.  The biggest ways to figure out what niches your film appeals to.  More than likely, it appeals to one.

If the film focuses heavily on LGBT issues, then marketing the film to the LGBT Community is a good idea.  The same can be said for faith based films.  In fact, the two niche markets behave very similarly when making purchase decisions, despite their polar opposite placement on the political spectrum.

There are lots of other niches that you can consider targeting.  Some would include bicyclists, vegans, bowling enthusiasts, single parents, families with family members with disabilities, recently divorced men, women, or other, gym rats, goths, punks, nerds, geeks, karaoke lovers, and basically any subculture you can think of.

You simply need to figure out which of these subcultures features prominently in your film, then try to make a decision on who you can market your film to

One important thing to keep in mind in deciding what sub-cultures to market to is that authenticity is key.  If your depiction of a particular subculture is inaccurate, then it’s unlikely that they’ll like your movie and tell their friends about it.

This process is really more art than science, especially given that there’s not a lot of data out there about how well any particular film did with what demographic.   But giving this thought early on will help you more than you’d expect not only in marketing your film, but even in making it.

Thanks so much for reading.  If you want help figuring out your target market, you may want to check out my resource packet for a free e-book, templates, monthly blog digests, and more.  Also, check out the content tags below the button for related content.