Why you NEED to HELP your Distributor Market your Movie (If They'll Let You.)

If you think your work is over when you finish making your film, and someone will just give you a few hundred grand more than it cost to make it so you can make your next one then you’re in for a real wake-up call.  Sadly, there’s no money in making films, only in selling them, and the work of selling them is no longer solely on your distributor.  Or, at least you shouldn’t count on it being that way.  Here’s why.

But before we get started on that, it’s worth a few sentences analyzing the distribution and marketing are related, but NOT the same thing.  So what is the difference between film marketing, film sales, and film distribution?  The simplest way to put it is that Distribution is making your product available for sale, and marketing is convincing end consumers to buy it.  Sales is the process of getting it to the various distributors.  Now that that’s done, on to the topic at hand. 

Also, before we get started it’s important to note that not all distributors will accept your help.  Some control and participation in your home market should be part of your negotiation with your distributor if you’re dealing with them directly or your international sales agent if you’re not. 

1.More sales and more money for everyone!

If you want to make money from your film and have the distributor keep the marketing for the film intact, you’re going to have to give them a reason WHY they should listen to you.  As such, you’ll have to help push the film out there.  Also, after they recoup the money they put in, you will be taking the lion’s share of future sales, so it does have a dramatic impact on not only how much you get paid, but also how soon you get paid. 

Also: most distributors don’t do a lot beyond the initial publicity push.  If you want to continue sales and generate awareness of your movie, you’ll need to keep talking about it.

2. Marketing your work builds your brand

In the words of Alex Ferrari of Indie Film Hustle, "if you don't think you need a brand as a filmmaker, you're wrong.

​Generally, a brand is defined as every interaction you have with customers or potential customers.  So the first step in building your brand is building awareness of your work.  That means marketing your movies. 

Do make sure not to be spammy or a jerk about it though.  No one likes a jerk.  Unless you’re a wholesaler to the jerk store.  #DatedReferences

Related: 5 DOs and DON’Ts for selling your film online.

3. You’ll get a much deeper understanding of the process

If you want to make a career in film, you’ll need at least a cursory understanding of what it takes to sell a film, unfortunately, there’s no money in making films, only in selling them.  Getting a much better idea of how this process works will make it easier for you to make a salable film in the future. 

4. Helping Gives you a better idea of what’s going on with your movie

One of the biggest frustrations faced by many filmmakers is not understanding what’s going on with their films.  One of the best ways to stay in the loop is to help your distributor with marketing.  This can give you a lot more up-to-the-minute data that you can act on to make better marketing decisions and with luck get closer to creating a positive feedback loop of sales.  Admittedly, in the current system that’s A LOT of luck. 

5.  If you’re putting the work in, your distributor will be more likely to take your requests.

If you’ve got more face time, and your film is performing well, your distributor is more likely to make pitches they might not otherwise make. Part of that comes down to perspicacity, and part of it just comes down to numbers.

Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, please share it with your filmmaking community on your social media, or drop a comment down below with your thoughts about what you’d like to know about film distribution, grab my free Indiefilm business resources packet for an e-book, a whitepaper, a bunch of templates, and more.

As you may know, I don’t just talk about distribution, I’ve run companies that do it, and still connect filmmakers to the better players in the game.  If you’d like your film to be considered, use the services button below.  That’s my primary business, in fact.

Check out the tags below for related content.

The Most Important Parts of your Indiefilm Marketing Mix RIGHT NOW.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about how we used to market movies, vs what works in marketing them now.  So to expand on that, here are the most important things in marketing your movie in today’s day and age.

Consumer Reviews

It’s been decried as outlandish and treasonous by many studio heads, but among the most important things that filmmakers need to do to make money making movies in today’s market is to focus on getting good customer reviews.  The same is true across any consumer product in any industry these days. 

People tend to look closely at what other people who bought the product think of it.  As such, negative reviews have a hugely negative effect on your bottom line.  The fact that the reviews are often tied into various algorithms or listed across multiple platforms generally makes it the most important single factor in how your film will sell. 

Genre

Genre is still as important as it ever was.  It’s a classification of both what you like, and what you’re presently in the mood for.  When I watch a movie with my wife, one of the first things I ask is what sort of movie we want to watch, and then we list through a few genres.  Not sure of what genre or sub-genre is? Check the links below.

Related: How distributors think of Genre

Related: How distributors think of Sub-Genre​

Professional Reviews

The term professional review has become more varied than it used to be. I don’t just mean someone reviewing your film for the LA Times or the NY Times, in this instance, I could also mean The Nostalgia Critic, Lindsay Ellis, MovieBob or any one of dozens of prominent YouTubers. (I understand that a lot of these are more in-depth film criticism than standard reviews, but I would lump them in there.) Sites like Bloody Disgusting would also fall into this category.

Traditional Press

Traditional press other than reviews is more important on an industry level and as such is much more important for traditional distribution. This would be things like acquisitions announcements trade magazines, or something of the sort.

The other way the traditional press can be useful is if you can get some kind of coverage on YOU or your company in a paper for where you grew up, or something of that sort.  Like most things in the entertainment industry, this is largely relationship based.  

Related: 6 rules for contacting press

​Poster

The poster for the film will always be important, but given that all of the pieces I’ve listed above tend to either greatly influence search results or Search Engine Optimization for your film, the poster has ended up down there. As I’ve discussed in other blogs, the post needs to be both authentic and eye-catching enough to drive the potential viewer to click through to the next stage and find out more information.

Related: The MOST important thing in Marketing your Movie RIGHT NOW.

Trailer

On an independent level, unless you can get some press with it, the trailer is most likely going to help convince people to watch the film more than help them discover it. That being said, next to the reviews, this may have the biggest impact in convincing them to watch it.

Synopsis

Finally, people want to know what the movie is about. It needs to be short, punchy, and focus more on SELLING your story than telling it. 

Thanks for reading! If you liked this blog, you’ll probably like the stuff you get on my mailing list.  For signing up you get a film marketing & distribution resource packet, as well as monthly digests of blogs just like this one.  Or, if you’re researching whether or not you want to self-distribute your independent film, you might want to submit it.  I have hybrid models for distribution that help filmmakers build their brands, and get the right amount of visibility for their films so they can rise above the white noise of content being created.

Get related content through the tags below!

Why Film Distributors & Sales Agents Need to know about your Social Media.

I try to stay active in at least a few Facebook and LinkedIn groups, and one question that comes up more often than I thought it would is why distributors need to know your social media numbers.  The argument that generally follows is something like “Just because people follow us doesn’t mean they’re going to buy our movie.” For the most part, we get that you probably have a lot of filmmaker friends, and your filmmaker friends are often surprisingly difficult to get to buy your movie.  That’s not the only, (or even the primary) reason why we need to know about your social media.  Here are 6 reasons why

1. Film Marketing works better if we’re amplifying your voice rather than creating it. ​

Your distributor is likely to be releasing multiple films around the same time as yours.  That’s just the nature of the business.  We generally need to have at least 5-7 films that we’re promoting or getting ready to release at any one time in order to continue to pay our overheads.  As such, if you can amplify the successes we have for your film, it’s likely that they’ll have a much greater effect than if we just sent out the announcements on our own.

You sharing big announcements and successes of your film with your community will not only have some level of an impact on sales, it will also help build awareness of the film which will help the broader marketing done by your distributor be effective at helping your film capture enough attention to break out of the white noise caused by the sheer amount of content being created. ​

2. We need to see you have the ability to build community.

Being a successful filmmaker requires a lot of the same skills required to build community.   (Check the Community Tag below for more on why.) Your social media is generally the easiest way to understand that.  Again, this is not JUST about sales.  It’s also about how personal you are and likely feeds into how easy you are to work with.

3. We need to see you understand and engage with your target market.

The most important thing in selling your film in the current market is authenticity.  If you try to write about a niche you’re not a part of, it probably won’t be very well received by said niche.  We look at your social media to make sure that you do have ties to those communities, as it means that your work is more likely to be authentic.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or sometimes the inclination to be a part of all the niches and subgroups we’d like to truly understand.  As such, it’s not always possible for us to accurately assess the authenticity of any film targeting a niche or sub-group that we don’t take part in.  Seeing that you take part in those groups can be a good indicator for us. 

4. If you’re a filmmaker, you’re a public figure.  We need to see how well you manage that.

If we end up with a breakout success on our hands, your social media will get some additional scrutiny.  We want to see if there are some bombshells that could cause problems for us later on.  Most of us don’t go back too far, but we do take a look to assess whether or not it’s likely that something bad might come out.

5. We want to understand your brand to see how it will be to work with you

As I said before, filmmakers need a brand. For most people, the way they manage that brand is through social media.  We want to see what you do with it.

Further, we want to see if you tend to do nothing but troll, shitpost, or rant about politics all day.  We also want to see if there’s a major sign of mental instability in your posts.  I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that on its own, but we will be working with you in some capacity for a few years, and we need to ensure that the working relationship will be healthy and productive.

6. We’ll help you find new customers, but it’s more effective if there’s a base to start from.

Finally, as I alluded to at the top our voice and marketing is best used to act as a megaphone to hone to get your message out there. If you already have an engaged base, our job will be much easier. It really is as simple as that.

Thanks for reading. I hope you found that information useful. If you did, you should consider joining my mailing list on the left. In addition to monthly blog digests segmented by topic, you’ll also get a resource packet including templates for submissions to distributors, lead tracking sheets, and even templates to make your investment deck. deck. Also, if you found this because you’re in search of a distributor, I don’t just write about it, I have been one in the past and I currently still know most of them. Click the lower button to learn about my services.

Check the tags below for more related content

What Film Distributors Mean by Sub-Genre

If you thought that I missed a few genres in my blog last week, it might be that they’re more classically sub-genres.  The biggest difference between a genre and a sub-genre is that a genre is generally a tone or a feel of a film (and sometimes some elements related to those tones) and a sub-genre is more related to Themes, Settings, Style, or niche audiences that targeted largely by those themes settings, or style. Some sub-genres pair better with certain genres than others, and it’s common to have more than one in a film.  More as we go through them.

Before we get started, this is not an exhaustive list.  If I get requests, I may publish a secondary add-on to it. 

Crime

Crime is as it sounds.  It’s a piece of content about crime.  These generally have some level of mystery associated with them.  Noir might be classified a sub-sub-genre of the crime sub-genre.  Nearly all noir films revolve around crime (I know exceptions exist) but not all crime films exhibit the gritty darkness that characterizes Noir films. Also, there’s no major demand for noir films, at least as of right now.

Faith Based

What I’m about to say is purely a US distributor’s view on how we classify faith-based films.  When we refer to a faith-based film, we mean an overtly Christian film.  They nearly always have a lot of overt bible references in them and generally involve a fall from grace and a redemption arc.  If you’re making a film about murderous nuns and sexual assault, it’s probably not a faith-based film.  Generally, they have an inspirational feel. 

Again, I’m not saying that movies about Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or any other religion are not films rooted in faith, it’s just not generally what distributors and sales agents mean by Faith-based films.

As an aside, authenticity is Important in these films.  If you get things wrong, it’s easy to alienate this market.

LGBTQ+

So, I put LGBTQ+ here because as an ally and a member of a strong queer community in my social life, I’d rather use the proper term.  However, sadly, when a distributor says they work in LGBT films, they mean films targeted for consumption by gay men.  For quite a while they were the people who consumed the most content in this niche, and distributors figured out how to target them and make money getting them content. 

Again, I’m not defending that, but it is generally what’s meant when you’re having these conversations. 

As with faith-based films, Authenticity is key.  If you haven’t spent a lot of time in the LGBT community, you probably don’t want to make an LGBT film.  This is probably even more important than it is with the faith-based community. ​

Animated

Animated films should be relatively clear, although generally, this refers more to Western animation than it does to Eastern animation like Anime.  It can mean 2d, 3d, or even stop motion, but generally, it means 3d and that’s where the highest demand is.  Most of the time it’s family content, but there’s a bit of a movement building up steam to take it out of that sphere.  We’ll see if it gets there.   ​

Sci-Fi

I’m going to get nerdy on this for a second.  Technically, Sci-fi is a subset of fantasy where there’s an extrapolation of real science in the universe-building.  As such, Star Wars would not be Sci-Fi, but Star Trek would be.  Technically speaking, Star Wars is a fantasy action adventure set in a space-faring culture. 

via GIPHY

​But in practice, Star Wars would be considered Sci-Fi 19 out of 20 times.  Sci-Fi generally means space stuff to distributors.  Aliens would be sci-fi as well.  Shrink Rays are also Sci-Fi, Sci-Fi as are ice rays, multiverses, and a few other things although those types of films are less likely to be thought of that by distributors. 

As an example, Futurama would be an example of Animated Sci-Fi by anyone’s definition.  While they take A LOT of liberties with science, they also had Stephen Hawking consult on the show to invent new math. 

Fantasy

Fantasy is things like magic, unicorns, orcs, centaurs, and the like.  If you could see it in a Dungeons and Dragons game, a Brother’s Grimm Story, or Lord of The Rings it’s likely fantasy. 

There are a lot of other ways one might decide to classify as fantasy, but in general that’s what distributors are thinking about with fantasy.  The massively fantastic world involves some kind of magic. 

Romance

People falling in love, generally with some sort of romantic foil, often a jerk of a rich, handsome boyfriend that the clearly much better Ted Mosbey of guy must win the girl away from that dude she’s been with for years just because the new guy is creative or something.  Clearly not the favorite genre of this author and producer’s rep.

Romantic comedies can sell well, and romance in general can be very interesting when it’s paired well with other content and breaks the mold a bit.  Also, it’s pretty common in content targeted at teenagers, and any sort of serial TV.

Historical/Biographical​

Movies are at least loosely based on history, generally from the 20th century or earlier.  Or, a movie about a real person of significance.  Vice is a recent high-profile example, or anything on the history channel before they started focusing more on ice road truckers and aliens than actual, you know, history.

Music/Musicals

Music would be something like any rockumentary you’ve ever seen, and musicals would be something like Les Mis, Dr. Horrible, Aladdin, Mulan… I can go on for a bit here. (I would have listed Hamilton first, but it’s not a movie yet.)

Note From the Future: That last line almost got this blog the “aged-like-milk” tag.

If this helped you prepare for distribution or sales conversations, you should grab my film resource package to be even more prepared. It’s got an e-book with a lot of exclusive content, a white-paper, tons of templates to help you shop your film for distribution, and you’ll also get monthly blog digests segmented by topic to help you keep your skills sharp. Plus, you’ll also stay up to date on what’s going on in the world of Guerrilla Rep Media and help support the content.

What Film Distributors Mean by Genre

most filmmakers are at least passingly aware of the importance of genre in independent film distribution.  (If you’re not, read this.) But even while most filmmakers have a cursory understanding of what defines a genre, the lines are often less bendable than many filmmakers think they are.  So with that in mind, here’s what distributors mean when they say a certain genre.

Horror

The classic definition of horror is somewhat crass.  Distributors generally say they’re looking for babes and blood when they’re talking about horror films.  The difference between horror and thriller is that generally there’s a substantial amount more blood and gore in a horror film, and even if that’s not the case there’s generally more of a focus on jump scares and less of a focus on suspense. 

Thriller

What I learned in Film School was that Horror films focused more on the supernatural and thrillers focused on crazy white guys.  There’s some truth to this, but in recent years it’s become less true.  The real defining characteristic of a Thriller is SUSPENSE.  The thriller focuses more on the build-up to what’s lurking at the top of the stairs, and the Horror focuses more on the guy with the Axe chasing the protagonist. 

Thrillers definitely need a good payoff at the end.  Think about The Shining, how 80% of the movie is largely build-up and the last 20% is Jack Nicholson chasing his family around.  Without the payoff at the end, the film would be boring and unsatisfying.

Action

We’ve all seen action movies, and they still sell well.  Action movies are all about the chase, the explosions, and the gunfights.  Generally, there’s also a woman who’s in some level of danger and wearing way too little clothing for the situation she finds herself in.  That’s why distributors often call what they’re looking for Girls and Guns. 

Generally, it’s difficult to do an action movie on a budget.  It can work with martial arts and foot chases, but those are difficult to pull off in as heart-pounding a way as would be required to truly sell your film as an action piece.  It’s for that reason, I generally recommend filmmakers making their first film to focus on building suspense and making a thriller. 

Family

Family films are very in right now, and as such a lot of people are trying to make them.  But, just because you call your film a family film doesn’t mean it is one.  Family films generally focus on two things.  Kids and Animals.  If you’ve got a heartwarming movie that focuses on Kids and animals, use this link to submit it.  I’d love to represent or distribute it (if it’s good). 

Generally, these films are rated G or PG.  If it’s rated PG-13, then it’s probably no longer a family film.  (at least according to the general genre guidelines.). Now I get that many families take their kids to see PG-13, this delineation is purely to communicate what sales agents and buyers are looking for, and in the case of family films, we’re generally looking for films that appeal to families with young children.

Comedy

Comedy is fairly self-explanatory.  It’s funny.  The point of it is too funny.  Most times, this genre is mixed with either another genre or a sub-genre.  The Sub Genre is much safer.

All of that being said, I wouldn’t recommend making a low-budget comedy.  Sure, there have been times that it’s worked, but for every breakout success you can name there are at least 20 you’ve never heard of and never will.  In order to make it possible to attract international sales, you need strong, recognizable name talent.  Otherwise international sales are very difficult.

Drama

Drama is an interesting genre to define.  All films require some dramatic elements.  But dramas are generally dealing with life, and the problems that face all of us, or enough of us that the topic is worth exploring.  In general, they can make some incredible cinema, but if they’re not exceptional they tend not to make money.  Also, to be attractive to an international market, you need recognizable name talent to a very high degree. 

Bruce Nash of The-Numbers.com and Stephen Follows of StephenFollows.com did a couple of blogs for the American Film Market exploring this in much greater detail.  I’ve linked them below, but it’s important to note that you SHOULD READ THE WHOLE article before flaming me in the comments on LinkedIn or other social media outlets. 

https://americanfilmmarket.com/what-the-data-says-producing-low-budget-dramas/

https://americanfilmmarket.com/update-types-low-budget-films-break-out/

Documentary

Finally, we have documentaries. These are films that use a mix of interviews, found footage, and re-enactments to tell what’s sold as a factual story. In reality, every documentary has a bias, although some have less than others. Even if everything contained in a documentary is technically true, there’s often bias in how it’s framed and nearly always bias in what information the filmmakers choose to present.

Documentaries tend to make less money up-front but have a longer shelf life than narrative films. As such, more distributors are getting interested in them since Distribution is increasingly becoming a game of large catalogs and long-term profits. More on that in another blog.

With that in mind, the best way to sell a documentary is to figure out what demographic you’re targeting, first, and make a story on a topic that they’ll be able to understand and hopefully learn at least a little bit from. If you want to get a distributor for a project like this, making sure that you and the distributor both understand the target market is absolutely necessary.

Thanks so much for reading!  I try to release blogs like this every week, but it’s not a guarantee given I actually produce and sell movies.  If you want to stay up to date, you should join my email list.  You’ll get access to my film business resource packet which includes templates, money-saving resources, additional information, and MORE! Also, email sign-ups are one metric I track to keep creating film business content, so signing up makes more content happen.

Check the Tags below for related content!

Why you WON'T get Distribution from your Film Festival Run

Part of what I do through the consulting arm of Guerrilla Rep Media is review people’s Decks and business plans.  One thing that I keep coming up in these documents is that entirely too many filmmakers list their distribution strategy as sole their festival run.  There are a lot of issues with this line of thinking, so as I do with any question that keeps coming up I thought I would write a blog about it.  So without further adieu, here’s why you probably won’t get a distribution deal from your festival run.

You generally only get distribution from top tier festivals

Realistically, there are only a few film festivals that will get you distribution.  The festivals that can get you a good distribution deal are pretty much the ones you’d expect.  Sundance, Tribeca, COMPETITION screenings at Cannes, TIFF, and to some extent South by Southwest (Although that’s far less true than it used to be.) Unfortunately, due to Amazon Discontinuing the Festival Stars program, there are no longer any festivals that GUARANTEE a decent distribution agreement if you get in. 

Even if you do get into these festivals, it’s probably not going to help as much as you think it will, although it will definitely help a fair amount. That being said...

You’re probably not going to get into a top-tier festival.

I know I’m being a pretty major buzzkill.  Unfortunately, fewer than 1% of films that submit to Sundance get in.  While that’s likely to be the lowest acceptance rate among the majors, it’s unlikely the other festivals that would get you distribution are going to have much more than a 2-3% acceptance rate. 

So realistically, do you think it’s a good idea to hedge all bets on your film’s distribution on the 2-3% chance you’re going to get into a major film festival?

Even if the film festival offers distribution, it’s probably not very good.

There are some film festivals that offer distribution to the films that get in.  Generally, this sort of distribution is only slightly above aggregation.  Even though it’s often framed as non-exclusive, it’s generally not in your best interest to take it as it ties up a lot of platforms and can greatly discourage more reputable distributors from coming on.  Also, a lot of times the split with these distributors is far less than ideal. 

Some festivals retain this right as part of their submission process, so be careful.

Even if your film gets into festivals, that doesn’t guarantee butts in seats.

If you’re looking to get your film into festivals as a way of building awareness for your project, then you’re going to need to make sure you market that your film will actually be at the festival and drive people to show up.  There are far too many times when a film is shown at a festival in an all-but-empty room.  Don’t let this be you.

If you show your at too many festivals, you can saturate your market

While you definitely want to build buzz about your project, showing the project at too many festivals can just make sure that all the people who would seek out your film have already seen it.  That’s somewhat hard to do, but it’s still something to be aware of, especially since most festivals don’t share their box office with filmmakers or pay a screening fee.

Thanks so much for reading!  Check out Last Week's Blog for guide on what you should prepare to make the most out of your festival run.  In the meantime, you should consider joining my email list for some great giveaways including FREE monthly blog digests segmented by topic.

Also, I do both US Direct Distribution and marketing/Festival planning as a service for my clients. Check out my services page for more.

Check out the tags below for related content

7 Things to Prep BEFORE STARTING your Festival Run

Far too many people consider the festival circuit as the be-all and end-all of their marketing and distribution plans.  While there are quite a few things wrong with that approach from a distribution standpoint.  (See last week’s blog here for an outline of why) film festivals can be a great way to market your film.  Although getting ready to attend a film festival is generally a bit hectic.  There’s always a lot to do, and it’s easy to forget something.  So with that in mind, I’ve prepared a prioritized list of the top 7 marketing assets you’ll need to prep before going to a film festival.

1. Business Card

​If you bring nothing else, you should bring a business card.  Well, also a set of clothes I suppose, but I digress.  If you want to make lasting connections, you need a way to follow up with people.  If you want people to follow up with you, they’ve got to have a way to reach you. 

Simply saying that you’re easy to find online is not really an acceptable answer at networking events like this.  It’s far too easy to forget that they were going to reach out at professional events like this.

2. All your social media pages Set up and active

As we discussed last week, a big part of the reason to attend film festivals is to build your brand and build awareness of your film.  You want to make sure your film is easy to find online, and that there’s a way you can establish a connection with anyone who might want to buy it in the future as soon as you’ve connected with them at a film festival. 

For more, check out this article I wrote on proper Facebook management.

Related: How to manage your indiefilm facebook page

3. Your Website

Its 2019.  Your film needs a website.  Even if it’s just a splash page going to your social media outlets.  The only reason this is below social media is that if you’re going to drive people to your website when you’re not at a festival, you’re going to need something like social media to do it. 

For more information on what should be on your website, check out the blog below.

Related: 13 things you NEED on your Production Company Website

4. Printed Materials to give away

Even a business card can sometimes be hard to remember, and it’s nowhere near enough to capture the attention of the overworked journalists that may attend this film festival.  That’s why you need larger, harder-to-lose festival printouts.  These can give all the information a time-strapped reporter would need to write a quick blurb about your film, and direct to something like an EPK for more detailed information.  Learn more with the article below.

Related: Printed materials for your festival run

But speaking of EPK…

5. An EPK (Electronic Press Kit)

Every filmmaker will have assets that would be useful to a reporter, but not really something that could be easily handled by a printed brochure.  That’s where an EPK comes in.  The EPK is more detailed information and assets that can be used by a journalist or reviewer.  It should have blurbs, links to your trailer, sizzle reels, and interviews if you have them. 

For more information, click the link below.

Related: Everything you need in your Indiefilm EPK

6. An Email List Capture page

Going back to your website, if it’s anything more than a simple splash page, you need a way to capture the email address of people visiting your site.  With their consent, of course.  This will be much more valuable to you than almost any other social media, as it’s more static and doesn’t change its terms as often as other platforms may.  Although that’s been less true as of late with Gmail’s aggressive filtering systems. 

Related: 5 Steps to Grow your Indiefilm Email List

7. A Giveaway for people joining your list

Finally, if you have an email list set up, you should give something away to entice people to join.  I’ve listed 5 ideas for filmmakers below, as the standard fallbacks of ebooks, and other marketing giveaways aren’t always valid.  Check the article below to see what I mean. 

Related: 5 Giveaways for your IndieFilm Email Marketing

Thanks so much for reading!  If you want more content like this, you should join my mailing list.  Just as it says in #7, I have a few giveaways for you including a monthly blog digest and a FREE Film Marketing Resource package!

Check out the tags below for related content

5 Ideas For Email List Giveaways for Indie Filmmakers

Traditional marketing wisdom states that you should offer something of value to your potential customer prior to trying to sell to them.  However, this value proposition is different when you’re talking about making a film versus selling a software application.  It has to be something of value to your customers, and since most of your customers are not going to be other filmmakers you’re going to need to think outside the box and offer something that people who only consume content are going to be interested in.  Here’s a list of some ideas to get you started.

1. An unreleased short film

Unfortunately shorts don’t tend to have much value of their own.  Their primary purpose is to build the skills and the brand of the filmmaker who’s making them.  Luckily, this can make them ideal for giveaways behind an email capture.  You’re giving the consumer a taste of you style, as well as developing your relationship with them for the future. 

It’s important to note that these shouldn’t be your film school exercises or camera tests.  This should be thesis-level work if it’s going to have any value whatsoever.   If it did the festival circuit and racked up some awards then it’s likely to be a good giveaway that actually provides a decent amount of value. 

2.  A concept piece for the film you’re currently working on.

If you made a short film as a proof of concept for the feature, this can be a great giveaway once you get closer to the release.  That is, unless you have spoilers for the feature in the concept film.  If you do, you might need to re-edit the piece slightly. 

Timing this can be difficult.  I would make sure that the film is at least about to hit the first window of release before offering the concept video as a giveaway. 

3. Behind the Scenes featurettes.

With the DVD market in decline, its become much harder to get the old DVD extras than it used to be.  But even if you’re planning on having a full film distributed via transactional video on demand, (TVOD) that doesn’t mean you can’t make more content available on your website for those interested enough to seek it out.  If they are that interested, they’re exactly the sort of person you want on your email list, and they’re probably happy to join it. 

4. A copy of a script for a feature film you’ve already distributed.

This one skirts the line of being more for filmmakers than the general public.  However, if you have a film that’s already 2-3 years old, giving away the script as a value add can be quite valuable.  While most filmmakers are aware of the Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) but most of the general public is not.  This seems like something that could be novel to your ardent fans, and costs you very little to generate. 

​All of that being said, don’t post this as an email giveaway if it’s not already distributed. 

5. Concept art and Character Bios from the film.

The people you want on your email list are your community and your early adopters.  The rabid fans who can’t get enough of your work.  These are the sorts of people who would also love to see your concept art, behind-the-scenes photos, and more detail about the process of making the film.  Character bios can be great for this.  If you can make these little things into a behind-the-scenes featurette, then all the better.

Thanks SO much for reading!  I practice what I preach, and since my target demographic is primarily filmmakers, I give away a free resource package.  Join my email list and check it out! The package has an e-book with exclusive content, a whitepaper, a template collection, tons of research links, and money-saving resources, plus a monthly blog digest for continued education that fits your schedule.

5 Steps to Grow Your Filmmaking Email List

At least as of right now, if you’re going to sell anything on the internet, you need to build your email list.  Since most filmmakers aren’t really marketers, here’s a basic guide to building your email list of potential customers so that you’ll have an easier time selling your film once it’s time to distribute it.

1. Provide Value in the form of content.

Marketing is telling people how great you are.  Content marketing is SHOWING people how great you are.  You need to provide a steady stream of content to your followers to really build your following and your brand.  This content can be something as simple as behind-the-scenes photos, bits about how the film production is going, or even quick little live streams talking about how everything is going on set.  You can also blog using your own site, or share your blogs on ProductionNext.com.

2. Offer an Exclusive Value Add in exchange for signing up for an email address.

If you want to sell something on the internet, you need to provide value before you do.  The product itself can’t be the value add, no matter how awesome you think your content is.  You need to build a relationship with your customer, and giving them a simple gift is a great way to start that relationship off on the right foot.  It’s good to think of this as a sample of your future value, similar to a Pink Spoon and a Sample at Baskin Robbins. 

​For ideas on what sort of giveaway to use, check back for next week’s blog.

3. Drive traffic to a form built using Mailchimp or another platform.​

Once you make the offer of the free giveaway, you have to capture their email.  Generally, it’s good to categorize people to help get them on the right list as well.  I use checkboxes on my list to sort by event location, and associations with film schools or bookstores.  I’d recommend that you do something similar, but be careful not to go beyond 3 sets of questions.  If you do, your rate of return is going to drop significantly. 

4. Have the confirmation email automatically deliver the Exclusive Giveaway.

The less work you have to do on this the better.  I recommend you have your email list automatically deliver a link to the final giveaway.  A setting on mail chimp will let your final opt-in take the new subscriber to a hidden page on your site where you can set up a download or viewing link for whatever you decide to use as a giveaway. 

5. Provide valuable content in the form of emails, as well as the occasional sales hook.

Finally, the work isn’t done after you get the email. You need to provide valuable content to each new member of your mailing list, as well as make the occasional sales hook. The way I strike a balance is by using simple Mailing Automation provided for free by Mailchimp. I use the automated mailings to send out blog digests to each new member on a monthly basis based on when they signed up. I keep adding to this automation when I have time, and I try not to include sales hooks in the first automated emails.

Anyway, Thanks so much for reading. If you like this content, you should check out my email list! As I said above, it gives your free blog digests organized by topic, as well as access to a free film market resource package and a whole lot more! You’ll also stay up to date on new releases and events from Guerrilla Rep Media.

Check the tags below for more free content!

Everything you need in an Electronic Press Kit (EPK)

Last week I shared a few different types of printed materials to use at film festivals.  This week, I thought I’d follow up with a post on the essential components of the Indiefilm Electronic Press Kit.    I will say that this is one thing where reasonable people can disagree, so if you think there’s something I missed, comment below and I might change the post to include it.

How people should access your press kit

Your press kit is not the same as the press tab on your website.  The press tab on your website is primarily to promote your film to consumers and assemble the press that you’ve gotten for both your company and your film.  The EPK is a kit to give potential reporters and reviewers of your film so that they have most of everything they need to do an article on you, or a report on you.  Here’s what you’ll generally need to provide them.  (Often, this will be behind a password firewall, that you’ll include on your printed materials.)​

Synopsis

You’ll want to include a catchy summary of your film.  This will be in lots of places on your site, but you want to make it easy to reference for the press. 

A Running Festival Acceptance/Award List

This section will be on the press tab as well, but you should keep everything on a single page for your film.  It’s essentially just a list of any and all film festivals you’ve been accepted to, as well as any and all awards you’ve won. 

Trailer/Clips from the film

You should include your trailer and maybe a scene or two from your film to give those who are writing an article on your film the ability to do their job both easily and well.  I’d also include a direct link to wherever the videos are hosted. 

Full Bio of Cast/Crew/Production Company With Social Media/IMDb links.

Your regular site will have a lot of this information, but you’ll want to make sure you include the names, bios, previous credits, and links to public-facing social media profiles of all your key cast and crew.  These would be the producers, directors, leads, and strong supporting characters.

Photo Gallery/Downloadable Zip File

Articles tend to come with a few photos, so I’d include around 10-15 photos including stills from your movie and headshots of key personnel.  Make sure they’re high-res, but not Raw.

A Password Protected Screener

You should definitely include a password-protected screener for your film. In this instance, it’s acceptable to have something akin to an email for a password below it. Normally this isn’t something you’ll want to do to people reviewing your movie, but since you’ll probably hand the other password out as part of your printed materials that may end up in the wrong hands this one might be wise to include.

If you’ve got too much to do and wish you had templates for your printed materials, I’ve got your back. My resource pack is chock-full of templates including festival brochures, investment decks, contact tracking, form letters, and exclusive educational content to help you grow your filmmaking career. Click the link below to grab it.

Click the tags below of related content.

The Printed Materials you Need for Film Festivals and Markets

Most filmmakers only think about festivals when they’re getting ready to market their film.  There are lots of reasons that this line of thinking is flawed, however, it would take far more than a 600-800 word blog to even begin to touch on them.  However, if you’re going to have ANY level of success from your festival run, you’re going to need some really snazzy printed materials.  This blog outlines a couple of examples I’ve used personally and had success with.

Why you need Good Printed Materials

Just getting into a festival is no guarantee people will see your movie.  Generally, you have to spend a good amount of time and energy driving people to your screening.  One of the most effective ways to do that is by having them a tangible piece of paper that has all the information they’ll need on it. 

Generally, the cheapest thing you can hand them is a postcard, however, for festivals, I strongly prefer a Tri-Fold Brochure.  The Tri-Fold Brochure has more space for everything a reporter or reviewer may need to know about your project, all put into a piece of paper that can be easily turned and segmented to group relevant pieces of information. 

The point of getting into a film festival is less about getting people to see your movie, and more about validating your film and giving it a chance to get meaningful press coverage.  Both of these things are significantly more likely to happen if you can make a reporter’s job easier by giving them all the information they need in one compact piece of paper. 

Postcard Outline

Generally, you’ll want the promotional art for your project to take up the front of your postcard.  If you don’t want it to take up the entire front of your film, you could leave a space for screening times towards the bottom.  If you want to get more use out of these cards, you could also leave a space that can be covered with a return address mailing label on the bottom where you can put the time and locations of screenings at this festival.

On the back, I’d put a synopsis, information about the director, and maybe a little bit about how the film was shot.  You probably won’t have space for much else.

Brochure Outline

I’ve added a template for this in my resources section, but I’ll outline what I mean here.
​
On the front panel, you’ll want to put the key art, where the film is screening (The mailing address label works well here too), and maybe your social media links or where they can purchase the film.

When they open the brochure, on one of the two panels you reveal you’ll want to put some stills from the film to add visual interest. On the other panel, they’ll see when they open your brochure, you’ll want to outline your production company, including your creed/mission statement and other projects you’ve made.

Then they open the other panel, you’ll want them to see photos and bios of your key cast and crew.

On the back panel, you’ll want a bit more art, a bit about what you’re working on next, the next steps for the film, and then a press contact and a link to download your EPK. If your film is available for sale anywhere, you’ll also want to include that there.

I actually a template of this format for MSWord and Apple Pages. You can find it in my FREE Resource package alongside other templates.

Click the tags below for more free content

13 Things you NEED on your Production Company Website

One of the things that most filmmakers tend to struggle with tends to be creating a website for their projects.  Given that it’s nearly 2019, your business needs a website, and it needs to be good.  However, many filmmakers’ websites tend to be hard to navigate, overly complicated, or focus more on the photos from the shoot than the subject of the project.  So, I thought I would create a post outlining some of the best practices in creating a website that I’ve come across.

Domains and Subdomains

So one of the first things you need to consider when creating a website is the domain.  Generally, I’ve found that creating a master domain for your production company and subdomains for your project is a very effective tactic.  As an example, this would look like www.myawesomeproductioncompany.com for the main domain and myawesomeproject.myawesomeproductioncompany.com for the subdomain.  Obviously, you wouldn’t want something as long as your subdomain, but that’s more to illustrate a point than a practical example. 

The exception to this would be to give a custom domain for the first year or two of release and then have that page redirect to a subdomain listed above.

There are a couple of reasons that I favor the subdomain layout.  One is that you don’t have to maintain as many domains.  Another is that it simply feels cleaner.  There are a few drawbacks to this approach though.  A lot of WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) design platforms like Weebly, Wix, and Squarespace don’t have great support for it.  As such, you may have to use a platform like WordPress or Drupal to build your site, and doing that requires at least a basic understanding of web design.  I used to use Weebly but I switched over to Squarespace.

Tabs and What they contain

The rest of the blog is an outline of what tabs your production company site as well as your project subdomains should include.  To start, I’ll list the tab on the page, then I’ll list major features on that tab, and then I’ll explain a little bit about why each of those features needs to be there.  But before we dive in…

Every Tab gives you the ability to join the mailing list

Developing your mailing list as a filmmaker is a really important piece that you absolutely NEED to do.  Your mailing list is a vital part of your community, and it’s one of the most effective ways to actually sell your products.  In general, you’ll give something of value away for free, I use my resource package.

The basics of your funnel should be that you move people from social media to your website, then from your website they join your list, then over time, you turn them from prospects into customers and from customers to repeat customers.  But in order to make that funnel work, you need to make it easy to join your email list.​

Homepage

Trailer
Sales/availability Links for the most recent project
Sales/availability links for your most popular project
Links to all your social media

For those of you who are very far from fluent in Webspeak, the homepage is where you land when you first visit a website.  As such, you want the most important information there.   Given this is the homepage for the company, you’ll want the trailer for your most recent and upcoming projects, and the sales/preorder link if it’s available.  If you’re running a crowdfunding campaign, this should be front and center on this page.  You’ll also want to make sure you include prominent links to your social media, just to make sure that you can get as much repeated contact with the people who visit your website as possible. 
​
You may also want to include logos of all the places your company has been featured in the press. ​

About Tab

The About tab is where your key personnel get their bios and photos posted.  There are a lot of ways you can do this.  If you have a large staff, then you can do click-throughs for each of them.  If you’re like most startup production companies, you probably have 3-5 staffers at most. If that’s the case you can just do it all in one page.  

You may want to consider adding a mailto link, or you may not.  If you include a mailto link, you run the risk of being contacted by spammers.  But you also never know what may come of those links.  I’ve gotten hourly consulting clients just from the mailto links on this site.  If you want to split the difference, use something like Fname (at) Domain (Dot) com or use a captcha plugin.

Projects Tab

Includes links to all your project subdomains
​
This is a listing of all your projects.  I’d recommend having poster images of each as well as loglines, synopsis, and the number one sales link that you want to emphasize. 

Press Tab

This is where you keep all the press coverage your company and your projects have gotten.  I think some of this should be a feed with links to all your press, but you should also have a graphical representation of logos where you or your company has been featured. 

Blog feed for what’s going on with your projects.

I’m (rather obviously) a big fan of using blogs and content marketing to support your business.  If you’re reading this, it’s clearly been somewhat effective.  I think blogging about your journey as a filmmaker is a good way to keep engaged with your community.  They don’t need to be as long or involved as the sorts of blogs I do, but they can be a really effective way to grow your fan base. 

Contact Tab

Make yourself available for contact through your site.  Even if all you’re doing is putting a mailto: contact form.  You’d be surprised what can come of this.  I know at least a few sales agents use them to get the films they really want. 

Project Specific Site(s)

As I stated at the top, you should have a base website for your production company and subdomains for your projects.  Here’s what goes on for your projects.

Homepage

Trailers
Social Media Information.
Sales Links
Festival laurels/Awards

Just as with the Production Company page, you’re going to want to list everywhere that you can find the film online.  You’ll also want to show where you can find the film online.  In general, it’s better to link to the company pages rather than give each individual film its own social media account.  After a while, that just becomes incredibly tedious and cumbersome to maintain.  For more information on that, check out the blog linked below.

Related: Facebook Page Management for Filmmakers. ​

About page for key cast and crew.

This page goes into a lot more detail about the top-level crew on the film.  You’ll basically want all your department heads listed, with pointers to their IMDb, their chosen social media outlet, and maybe a brief bio. 

Contact page for distribution inquiries

Most of the better sales agents I know go after really good films. Make it easy for them to reach out to you. In your contact dropdown, list distribution inquiry as an option. Make sure that one goes to the relevant person, distributors do look for content regularly.

I hope this was a good resource for you. If you want more resources, I’ve got a free package for exactly that. It’s got an e-book, monthly content digests, a whitepaper, templates for Decks, promotional festival brochures, Sales agent contact tracking templates and form letters, and a whole lot more. Oh, did I mention it’s free? Grab it with the button below.

Check the tags below for more content.

The HOT and NOT Film Genres of 2019

If you’re a filmmaker, you’ve probably heard that making genre pictures is generally the best way to get your start.  They can be a good way for you to start developing a community, and building a brand around yourself, your company, and your work.  But the popular genres change on something of a regular basis.  So to start the new year off right, I’m writing this blog to share the hot genres of 2019.

Oh, if you’re not convinced as to why Genre is so important, I encourage you to read the blog below.

Related: Why Genre is VITAL to Indiefilm Marketing Success

1. - Hot - Family

I know, you were probably expecting me to say horror or action.  Well, while some of those might be on the list, Family is at the top of it.  There’s a huge demand for family films right now, and it’s not being adequately filled.  That said, it’s kind of hard to make a family film well on the cheap due to child labor laws and safety concerns.  If you can, great, it will be easy to find distribution.  If not, then you might want to move on down to #3 on the hot list. 

Generally, family adventure content is also something you can pre-sell if you get the right package.  Animated sells the best, but live-action works as well.  Mixing it with animals or international holidays is also good for trying to attach a presale.  All of that being said, you’re going to need a really strong script and a strong package to get that presale. ​

2. - Hot - Action

Surprise surprise.  If you want to make a film that’s easy to sell, make an action movie.  As we all know the problem with that is that action movies tend to be expensive.  Even with that, you’ll probably need a name in it to really get the sales price up where you need it to be.

If you’ve already made a few projects, Action films can get some level of resale financing.  However, you’ll be much better off if you focus on a popular subgenre as well.  As of right now adventure or sci-fi looks like the best bet. 

3. - Hot - Thriller

Psychological thrillers tend to be one of the best options for first time filmmakers as the film is easy to sell, there’s a built in audience, and they can be shot on the cheap.  Just keep in mind to make sure that the film is suspenseful, otherwise, you’re just rebranding a genre.

Note from the future - This was and remains more warm than hot (as of mid 2023)

Now for the Not so Hot Genres.

1. - Not - Drama

But Ben!  I read that dramas have the most breakout potential!  All the Oscars winners are dramas!  Yeah, but from those articles written by Bruce Nash and Stephen Follows also go into great detail to say that most of these films were budgeted between 1 and 3.5 million dollars, generally went through something like Sundance Labs on the Nichols Fellowships, and had some REALLY strong cast involved.  If that sounds like your project, great.  Make a drama.  If it doesn’t, make a thriller.

The sad fact of the matter is that in order to make any real money, a drama has to be EXCEEDINGLY good.  As in, 9 or above on IMDb.  Also, dramas tend not to export well unless they have A-list talent in all the major roles.  I believe for most of my readers that’s not really in the cards.  However, if this does sound like you, an extra big thanks for reading, I’d like to remind you I have a submissions portal.

2. - Not - Comedy

Unfortunately, comedy is very difficult to sell internationally due to the cultural intricacies involved in making any situation funny.  As with drama, you’ll need to make something with strong, recognizable name talent at the helm to be able to make any significant amount of money from it. 

The Mixed: Horror

The future of horror is somewhat uncertain. It made a strong showing at AFM 2018, but in 2017 it was dead. If you can make a horror film better than you could make anything else, then you should consider it. If you can’t, I’d say focus on making a well-made horror film.

Note From the Future: Horror bounced back more than I expected, but the rest was right.

Also, you should join my email list for blog digests segmented by topic, and A FREE Film Market Resource package, plus everything on the button below.

Check out the tags below for related content

Why Every Filmmaker Needs a Strong Personal Brand

Most filmmakers want to make movies.  However, few think about establishing themselves a brand as a filmmaker.  In the immortal words of Alex Ferrari of Indie Film Hustle: “If you don’t think you need a brand as a filmmaker, you’re wrong.”  As wonderful as I personally find that quote, I think it needs a little elaboration. What follows are 5 reasons you NEED a brand as a filmmaker.

1. It helps to further relationships with your customer

A brand is essentially the cumulative interactions any potential business partner or customer has with an entity or organization.  So in a sense, saying a brand helps you further your relationships with your customer is a bit redundant.  However, the idea of you your brand, is essentially the personification of your company.  Having this personified image of your company makes it much easier for your clientele to establish a relationship with your company.

2. It helps people better identify with the creators behind the content.

At least when a brand is starting out in the film industry, the brand will be heavily associated with the filmmakers themselves.  As such, for the first couple of films your company makes, the brand you’re developing will also be furthering the personal brands of the key crew.  If your key crew tends to put out similar films time and time again under your production company’s brand, then eventually the brand itself will develop a following of its own.  After a time, it creates a feedback loop.

3. It gives your audience something to you and your work with beyond a single film.

​If you develop your brand correctly, then consumers will come to know what films you make that they like.  Giving your customers a brand to rally behind can really help them to develop a relationship with the creators.  Instead of being able to say I really Liked Paranormal Activity, customers can say I really like the movies Blumhouse puts out.

4. It helps you develop a community around yourself.

People can have a really deep association with brands.  Look at what happened when Coca-Cola Released New Coke.  Even though taste test after taste test proved that consumers strongly preferred New Coke to Coca-Cola, the brand eventually experienced a tsunami of customer complaints for getting rid of the old flavor of Coca-Cola.  Essentially, the brand had built such a large community that were so attached to their original product, when they took it away a small but extremely vocal part of their community couldn’t handle it. Even though many of those parts of the community were shown they liked New Coke Better in blind taste tests. 

Branding and Community building can be so powerful that even when a customer prefers an alternative product, they’ll keep coming back to yours for that warm fuzzy feeling they get when they use your product. Don’t forget, that can be a double-edged sword if you ever want to pivot to somehting new.

5. It turns you from a person to an icon.

Most of the people reading this already know that JJ Abrams is the head of Bad Robot Productions. However, there are a lot more people involved in Bad Robot than just JJ Abrams. The bumper of the robot running through the field gives sets the scene for an exciting time at the movies since you associate it with other times you saw great movies that were preceded by that bad robot bumper. You remember that bumper, it’s iconic. Such associations are how JJ has become an icon that will likely outlast him.

If you want help building your brand, you should check out my FREE indiefilm business resource package. It’s got an e-book, a whitepaper, lots of templates, and a monthly blog digest to help you grow your knowledge base so you can build a filmmaking career.

Check out the tags below for related content

5 Essential Elements of a Filmmaker’s Personal Brand.

Last week we outlined why your brand is so important to your career as a filmmaker. This week, we’re going to dive into how you begin to define your brand.  Your brand is the cumulative outcome of all the interactions anyone has with you or your company.  As such, this list is far from complete, however, these things are quite important when you’re getting down to defining your brand.​

1. What Genres you do primarily work in? 

If you start working primarily on thrillers, then it can be hard to effectively transition to something like family.  Generally, filmmakers and film companies will have certain genres that are heavily associated with their brand, even if that’s not all they work on.  An excellent example of this is Blumhouse, which primarily focuses on the thriller and horror genres.  After you’ve got more of an established brand, you can begin to expand into other genres, ideally with some level of stylistic relation to the ones you built your brand on.   

Your ideal audience is more important than any specific project or genre, but your audience will have a lot to do with your genre.

2. What elements of your style are similar or the same across your projects?

This is probably more important to keep consistent for your brand than genre is.  There are certain stylistic elements that remain largely the same across a director or even a high-level producer’s work. 

For Stephen Spielberg, there’s a certain wondrous quality that often feels very clean and expensive.  For Quinten Tarantino, his films generally have a pretty strong 70s vibe to them, even when they’re set far outside that time frame.  For Jerry Bruckheimer, most of his films are bombastic, with lots of special effects and explosions, and often feature a glorified music video in the film itself to boost soundtrack sales. 

3. What unifying themes or motifs do your movies have?

Generally, directors have recurring themes and/or motifs that occur throughout their work.  Hitchcock had a long-standing fascination with birds, eyeballs, and Freudian Psychology.  All of Kevin Smith’s movies seem to take place in the same extended universe and almost always feature Jay and Silent Bob.  Quentin Tarantino’s work almost always features lengthy banter that’s largely disconnected from the plot of the film but serves to flesh out the characters and is almost always incredibly entertaining and enlightening.

4.  What is your creed? (Mission statement)

Most business books call this a mission statement, but I personally prefer the tact that’s taken by Primal Branding in looking at your mission statement as a creed.  A creed is what you live by.  It’s why you exist.  It’s a deeply personal thing, and it informs every piece of content your company will ever make. 

Film companies don’t have these as much, so we’ll look for other examples to illustrate my point.  Apple’s mission statement is “Think Different” Google’s mission statement is to “Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”  Google used to have a similar sort of tagline that was “Don’t Be Evil,” But they took that down recently.  For my other venture ProductionNext, the creed is “You do the Creative Part, we do the rest.” For Guerrilla Rep Media, the creed is to make that I don’t make movies, I help filmmakers MAKE MONEY with theirs.

5.  How do you engage with your audience?

As stated at the top of this article, a brand is the culmination of all interactions any potential customer or business partner has with a company or individual. In this day and age, it’s absolutely VITAL that any entrepreneur finds a way to effectively manage their interactions with their community and their customers. For most of us, that will rely heavily on our social media presence. You’ll need a strategy of what content you share when you share it, and how it both provides value to your potential customers and fits within your mission statement.

Thanks so much for reading!  If you like this sort of content, you should sign up for my resource package, it’s got an e-book, a whitepaper, and an evergrowing list of templates and resources. Plus, you’ll get a monthly digest of content just like this blog organized by topic, and a recommended reading list including an entire section on branding. Click the button below to sign up, and let me know what you think of this blog in the comments.  Also, if you liked it, share it!  It helps a lot.

Check the tags for related content

Top 4 Reasons to Crowdfund your Independent Film

Most filmmakers hate the idea of crowdfunding.  While nobody likes constantly having their hands out and asking their friends for money for a whole month straight, it’s something that most filmmakers are going to have to do early in their careers.  It’s very possible that most filmmakers will have to do it more than once.  But the reason you crowdfund isn’t just about the money.  There are lots of other reasons crowdfunding can be a boon for a filmmaker’s career.  Here are 4 of them.

1. It’s one of the Most Viable Ways to get First Money in.

The first money in is always the hardest.  In the past, the most common way to get the money was from friends and family.  More recently, this has been replaced with crowdfunding, although in practice it’s still primarily a friends and family round, it’s just a scaled-up version of it that handles taking in the payments for you. It’s also something you can do even if you don’t have a rich uncle. 

​But keep in mind, nothing worth having is free.  While this is one of the most viable ways to get first money in, it’s far from easy.

Related: Top 5 indiefilm Crowdfunding Techniques

2. It’s one of the Quickest Ways to get Money you don’t have to Pay Back.

But wait, Ben, haven’t you said in the past that a crowdfunding campaign’s preparation starts a whole year in advance?  Like in this blog linked right below this sentence?

Related: Indiefilm Crowdfunding timeline

Well incredulous voice in my head that sometimes comes out in the form of content on my website, I did indeed say that.  Not only did I say that, but I stand by it.  I stand by it due to the fact that the real, hardcore prep only starts about 3 months prior to the campaign, and the work before that is primarily engaging your community (which you should be doing anyway.) 

Generally, grant money isn’t very fast, tax incentives both tend to be rather slow and come with a lot of strings, and product placement tends to not pay out until the film is completed, and often isn’t even money that’s directly given to you.  Pretty much every other form of financing are things you have to pay back. 

Although it should be noted that you do have some pretty big responsibilities to your backers.  You need to fulfill the rewards you promised them, and you need to keep them up to date on your progress as you move through the various stages of development. ​

3. It’s a way to Engage with your Community at an Early Stage

One of the biggest things that set successful filmmakers apart from hobbyists in the current landscape is the ability to cultivate community around themselves and their work.  Crowdfunding can be a really powerful means to support this end.  Crowdfunding is a great way to identify and engage your early adopters and the core of your community.  It’s a great way to stay involved with them and make them feel like they’re an important part of your project.  In actuality, they are important parts of your project. 
​​
But engaging with your community is about far more than getting crowdfunding backers. Your core community of backers can become your most vocal advocates from the earliest stage.  If your work comes out well, they’re likely to share it with their friends and start your word-of-mouth marketing when it comes time to distribute your project.  They’re a lot more likely to do this than the average person since they’ll have been around since the beginning.  Their friends might even join your community the next time you crowdfund. ​

4. It’s Validation for your Project

One of the biggest things investors look for in a project is also one of the things that’s the hardest for filmmakers to provide.  Especially in the early stages of their career.  Having a successful crowdfunding campaign proves to investors that not only is there a market for this project, but that you know how to reach them.  This is a huge hurdle to overcome when approaching angel investors.

That being said, it’s important to keep in mind that the reverse is also true.  If a project fails its crowdfunding campaign, it’s incredibly difficult to convince an investor that there is an addressable target market.  Or, at least that you have the ability to address said target market.  So with that in mind, you should only try to raise what you know you can get via crowdfunding, and then plan to get the remaining sources via other financing methods. 

Thanks so much for reading!  If you liked this content, you grab my film business resource package. You’ll get an ever-growing list of templates, money-saving resources, and even an e-book or two.  You’ll also get monthly digests of blogs segmented by topic.

When should you Contact a Sales Agent/Producer’s Rep about your Film?

Seeing as how a majority of my business still comes from representing filmmakers to sales agents and distributors, it’s unsurprising that a question I get at my events and in my inbox quite often is when is the best time to approach a producer’s rep, sales agent, or distributor.  Well, as with many things I tend to blog about, there’s a short, true, and mostly unhelpful answer to that question. There’s also a longer, more nuanced, and more correct answer.  This blog attempts to answer both in under 800 words.

The Short Answer: As soon as you realistically can

Marketing a film on a budget isn’t something you can do overnight.  It takes a while to build a social media presence, as well as to build up a base to market your film to.  It’s not something that can be done efficiently overnight, so you’ll want to get some marketing support on your project as soon as possible.  That’s why you hire either a producer’s rep or a Producer of Marketing and Distribution (PMD). 

The Long(er) Answer: When you can afford them, and they’re willing to come on your project.

Most people tend to approach Producer’s Reps and PMDs only when their film is completed, or even after the initial festival run of the film.  This can shut a surprising amount of doors for you. I had one client who submitted to Sundance and was rejected outright.  The next year, after I connected him to US Distribution, the distributor talked to a programmer at Sundance who said that they would have accepted the film and programmed had it been brought to his attention. Unfortunately, they’d given premier status to another, smaller festival so it was too late.

PMDs and Distributors often have connections to help get you past the initial round of screening at major festivals, which can be all you need to actually get into the festival.  99 films out of every 100 submitted to Sundance don’t get in.  90 out of 100 of those are declined by extremely low-paid (or unpaid) staffers who look for any possible reason to decline so that the submission queue is more manageable for the actual festival programmers.  If you have the right rep, PMD, or distributors they can help you bypass that first layer of screening, giving you a huge leg up. ​

How much will this cost you?

Producer’s reps tend to get a bad rap for charging up front.  If all they’re doing is brokering your film to sales agents, and they’re taking a commission, then they really shouldn’t need to.  I don’t.  However, if I’m writing a business plan, deck, pro formas, or developing a financing, festival, marketing, or distribution strategy, I do charge upfront. We all have bills to pay, and just as you should always pay all other members of your crew, you should pay your producers too. My services are packaged based on need, more information on my services page.
​
Generally, it’s wise to allot some money for marketing as soon as you create the initial budget for your film.  You should do this even if you plan on raising it at a later date, say after completion of principal photography. It may be wise to keep this budget separate given a distributor will most often foot some of the bill and sometimes it can bump you into a higher guild tier.

Related: The 4 Stages of Film Financing

If you’re raising money for prints and advertising, then you should allocate some of that money to a Producer of Marketing and Distribution (PMD) or Producer’s Rep to help you execute your marketing plans efficiently. 

Essentially, if you’re looking for a rep to do anything other than broker a completed film, you had best expect them to charge you some money upfront.  Unless the Sales agent pays you a minimum guarantee, it’s unlikely that the film or the filmmaker will get paid anything for about a year after the initial signing.  You can’t expect a Service provider to wait even longer than that to make any money, especially when there’s a significant amount of work involved in the creation and execution of the work you’re asking them to do. 

If you want more resources to help you distribute your film, you should grab my free film business resource pack. It’s got an e-book, a whitepaper, a deck template, a film festival promotional brochure template, and a whole bunch of money and time-saving resources. Also, if you need a producer’s rep, check out my services page.

Check out the tags below for related content

5 Takeaways from AFM 2018

I’ve been going to the American Film Market® for 9 years now, and I’ve been chronicling what’s going on with the market in many ways from podcasts to blogs and even a book or two.  So given that AFM® 2018 wrapped up yesterday, I thought I would do something of a post-mortem.  While I’ll outline my feelings on the whole thing in this blog, the long and short of it is that the state of the American Film Market is mixed

But before I dive into it too deeply, I’d like to say this.  My vantage point on this is purely my own, and subject to the flaws that one would expect from experiences of someone only attending the market for a few days this year.  I went on an industry badge because I simply needed to take a few meetings to check in on things I’ve already placed with Sales Agents, as well as shop a couple of my newer projects to the people I prefer to do business with.

I considered exhibiting this year but decided against it after hearing how slow Cannes was in May, as well as the massive drop in buyers AFM Experienced last year.  We’ll see how that changes next year.   One last note, I wrote this blog in traffic in LA, while my wife drove.  I normally don't publish first drafts, but it's time-sensitive, so apologies for any typos. 

So without Further Adieu, let’s get into the post-game.

1.  Buyer numbers appear to be up, and they’re buying

Word in the corridors last year was that AFM went from around 1800 buyers in 2017 to around 1200 buyers in 2017.  After talking to a few sales agents who shall remain nameless, it appears that the total buyer count at this year’s AFM is somewhere in the vicinity of 1325.  While walking the corridors I definitely saw a lot more green badges than last year. 
​
Not only were there more buyers there.  It appears that they’re actually buying films.  I heard several sales agents remarking that they had closed multiple sales at the market, and the buyers were sticking around much longer than they have in years previous.  Overall, this is good for the market, especially given that for many years almost all of the business was done in follow-up not actually during the market, especially for smaller-budget films. ​​

2.  Exhibitor numbers appeared to be down

In previous years, both the second and third floors of AFM were packed with smaller sales agencies,  This year, only the third floor was booked and even then it seemed as though fewer offices were booked.  Also, it appeared that many of the offices on the 8th floor seemed to be vacant. 
​
After talking with a few exhibitors, it appears likely that this trend is going to continue next year.  Several I talked to were unsure of whether or not they would continue to exhibit at AFM.  Although we’ll see if new names come up to take their places.

3. The Entirety of the Loews required a badge to access

This made a lot of headlines prior to the market.  I was hesitant to believe that this would be a good thing for the market, particularly for the high priced film commission exhibitors on the 5th floor.  I only showed up to the market on Saturday, but apparently it was extremely quiet for the days preceding it.  The market seemed somewhat slow to me, but mildly busier than I expected it to be on Saturday, and, but began steadily dropping off on Sunday and Monday, and Tuesday was VERY slow, even by the generally slow standards of what is functionally the last day of the market.  

Word on the street is that many of the regular exhibitors on the 5th floor were not too happy with it, especially for the first few days.  Although I’ll keep my sources on that anonymous.  One notably missing 5th-floor exhibitor was Cinando.  It’s possible they moved, but the spot that they normally occupied was vacant.  This could be due in part to the growing prominence of MyAFM. 

In some ways, it was nice, though.  It was never too hard to find a seat, and once you got into the building there were no additional security checks.  Not sure if that makes up for the drawbacks though. 

4. The Location Expo on the 5th floor was fantastically useful, but under-attended

AFM opened one of the Loews Hotel Ballrooms for use by film commissions and specialty service providers starting on Saturday.  It was really useful to be able to talk to various commissions and compare incentives.  However, there very few times I saw more than a handful of people there, and I dropped by at least 8 or 9 times because of various sorts of business I had to do with some of the vendors in the rooms.  (More soon)
​
Overall I hope to see it again, but I can’t help but think it would be more useful to all involved if it were in an area that did not require a badge to check out. 

5. Early Stage Money exists there (For the Right Projects

I was surprised to see how much traction my team got for an early stage project, despite the fact it has a first time feature director.  Admittedly, we came in with a good amount of money already in place, and it’s a good genre for this sort of thing but the fact that there might be a decent amount to come out and report in blogs early next year.
​
Thanks so much for reading!  If you haven’t already, check out the first book on film markets, written by yours truly.  Also, join my mailing list for free film market resources so you’re ready for future film markets.

GET THE BOOK ON AMAZON

JOIN MY MAILNG LIST!

All opinions my own. AFM and the American Film Market are registered trademarks of the Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA) This article has not in any way beed endorsed by the IFTA, AFM, or any of its affiliates.

How to Write an Independent Film Business Plan - 4/7 Marketing Section

In this installment of my 7 part blog series on business planning, we’re going to take a look at the marketing section of the plan.  This section is likely to be the longest section, as it encompasses an overview of the industry, as well as both marketing and distribution planning.  Generally, this section will encompass 3-5 pages of the plan, all single-spaced.  This is among the most important sections of the plan, as it is a real breakdown of how the money will come back to the film

Industry

In this subsection, you’ll want to define some key metrics of the film industry.  You’ll want to include its size, how much revenue it brings in, and ideally an estimate of how many films are made in a year, as well s the size of the independent part of the film industry vs the overall film industry.  If you want help with some of those figures, you should look at the white paper I did with ProductionNext, IndieWire, Stage32, and Fandor a few years back.  To the best of my knowledge, it’s still among the most reliable data on the film industry.

The fact that the film industry is considered a mature industry that is not growing by significant margins is also something you’ll also want to mention.  You’ll also want to talk about the sectors of growth within the film industry, as well as where the money tends to come from for independent producers, and a whole lot of other data you’re going to have to find and reference.  As mentioned above, the State of the Film Industry book linked in the banner below has much of this information for you.
​
Overall, this section should be about a page long.  The best sources for Metrics are the MPA THEME report and the State of The Film Industry Report. You can find links or downloads of both of those in my free resource pack.

Marketing

The marketing subsection of the plan goes into detail about both the target demographics and target market of your film, as well as how you plan on accessing them.  To quote an old friend and long-time silicon valley strategist Sheridan Tatsuno, Finding your target market is like placing the target, and marketing is like shooting an arrow.  For more detail on how to go about finding your target market, I encourage you to check out the blog below, as my word count restrictions will not let me go too deeply into it here

Related: How do I figure out who to sell my movie to?

Figuring out how you’re going to market the film can be a challenge for many filmmakers.  Generally, I’d advise putting something more detailed than “smart social media strategy.”  I tell most of my clients to focus on getting press, appearing on podcasts, and getting reviews.  Marketing stunts can be great, but timing them is difficult to pull off. 
​
All of this being said, you’ll need more to your marketing strategy than simply going to festivals to build buzz. The marketing category at the top of this blog, as well as the audience, community, and marketing, tags at the bottom of the page, are a good place to start.

Distribution

This section talks about how you intend to get your film to the end user.  This section should be an actionable plan on how you intend to attract a distributor.  This section should not be “We’ll get into sundance and then have distributors chasing us!” I hate to break it to you, but you’re probably not going to get into Sundance.  Fewer than 1% of submissions do. 
​
The biggest thing you need to answer is whether you plan on attaching a distributor/sales agent or whether you intend to self-distribute.  if you’re not sure, this blog might help you decide. There’s lots more to it, I’d recommend checking the distribution category or the international sales tag on this site to learn more of what you need to write this section.

Related: 6 questions to ask yourself BEFORE self distributing your indiefilm

Somewhere between a quarter and a third of all the blogs on this site are devoted to distribution, so there’s lots of stuff here for you to use when developing this plan.  If you want to develop more of a plan than distributing it yourself, it’s also something I’d be happy to talk to you about it.  Check out my services page for more.

If that’s a bit too much for you but you still want more information about the film business, check out my film business resource package. You’ll get a free e-book, monthly digests segmented by topic, and a packet of film market resources including templates and money-saving resources.

This is part of a 7 part series.  I’ll be updating the various sections as they drop.  So check back and if you see a ling below, it will take you to whatever section you most want to read. 
​

Executive Summary
The Company
The Projects
Marketing (This post)
Risk Statement/SWOT Analysis
Financials Section (Text)
Pro-forma Financial Statements.

Check the tags for more content!

6 Questions to Ask yourself BEFORE Self Distributing your Film

In a follow-up to last week’s blog on self-distribution platforms, I thought we would step back for a minute and try to understand what filmmakers should consider before they decide whether or not to self-distribute their movie.  This blog is a list of potential parameters you might want to go by.  It’s not the only things you should take into account, but they are some factors you’ll need to consider

1.  Do you have money for promotion and aggregation?

While you get to keep 100% of the money you make when you use someone like Distribbr, you also have to pay them upfront to get you on those platforms.  If you use traditional distribution, generally the distributor will take on that risk for you.  Also, they’ll generally pay less than distribbr would charge you in aggregation fees, so they can put more money into marketing the film.

NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: If you need aggregation services, use FilmHub or IndieRights. The model is better than pay for placement even if you give up an extra 20%.

Further, with traditional distribution there tend to be some notable economies of scale.  One of these factors is the fact that most good distributors and sales agents will have a publicist on retainer so your film will get better press, and further reach.
​

2. How your social media following.

If you don’t have a pretty decent social media following, then you really should consider traditional distribution.  If the equation below works out to more than 1, then perhaps you should consider selling your film yourself, especially since this doesn’t factor for your personal press contacts, etc.  If it doesn’t, then maybe you should look into traditional distribution.

I know I'm asking you to do algebra, but if I get asked in the comments I may create a calculator that runs the math for you.

((TF*0.01+FF*0.05+IF*0.05+OFX*0.03+EL*.1)*(SP-PF))/OLF+5000

TF = Number of Twitter Followers 
FF = Number of Facebook Fans
IF = Number of Instagram followers
OFX=Number of other social media followings(Can repeat multiple times)
EL = Number of people on your relevant email list * 0.2)*
SP = Sales Price
PF=Platform fees
OLF=Outstanding Liabilities of the film (I.E. how much do you need to pay back investment and deferments)

The 5,000 represents money you’ll have to spend to get your film out there between marketing assets like posters and trailers, publicity, and limited social media boosts.

NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: This is a simplification of your marketing reach, and does not account for including how underserved your niche is as well as how much access you have to said niche. Given these calculations really only account for Transactional distribuion, it undercounts potential spread via AVOD and international sales if you seek them. I might remake this algotithm if I get enough requests.

3. What was the Budget of your film?

While I’m a big fan of traditional distribution (I am, after all, a distributor) I will say that in many cases it doesn’t make sense to try to sell a film made for less than 10k unless it came out REALLY well.  Generally, that equation above will also look favorably on you if your budget is that low.  There are, however, cases where this is not true.

4. Do you have press contacts?

Press is the most cost-effective way to market your movie.  If you have a list of close contacts in the press, it can be a huge difference in your effectiveness at selling your film without help from a traditional distributor.  If you don’t have them, the equation above had better result in something closer to 1.5.

5. Do you have the ability to create awesome marketing material?

Can you cut a great trailer?  What about make a great poster?  Your distributor will have contacts for that, but you may not, and that will make a huge difference in whether or not you should self-distribute.

6.  Would you rather market this movie than make the next one?

This point is subjective. If you’d rather continue to market your film than make the next one, then by all means, self-distribute. If you’d rather put your energy into making the next one, then it probably makes more sense to work with some partners like sales agents and distributors. If you’re looking for those partners, I might be able to help. Just click the submit button below.

For more tools and information on film distribution, you should grab my free film resource package. You’ll get a FREE e-book on the business of indiefilm, digests on the film business segmented by topic, as well as free templates to streamline financing, marketing, and distribution. Plus, you’ll get all the latest on Guerrilla Rep Media releases and occasional special offers and discounts.  Check it out below!