Most effective movie promotion strategies

Hello all!

I work for an independent movie company, and I was just wondering if any of you guys / gals knew of any specific marketing strategies that work best for films / TV series and the websites that come with them.

Thanks in advance!

Okay, step one, slide five million dollars onto the table.

What works with big productions isn’t available for independents. Except coherence. You have no margin for disjointed scattershot marketing.

First off, understand what you want to accomplish. People could suggest a half dozen strategies that just don’t work for whatever you’re trying to accomplish.

Films, TV series, what is it. Specifically. Who is your audience?

Let’s say you have a limited release and you want to drive people back into the theater. Okay, let’s say your first week does okay, and it’s a good film where people who see it want to find out more.

What you could do is have director’s notes as podcast on the site supporting the movie. You have people download this, tell them (and build in) a trigger point for starting the audio, then people can get a new experience with the directors notes – but still in the theater.

Also, there are ways to use the site to promote the movie beforehand. There might be merchandising opportunities, and then again there might not be. No way to tell without a lot more information.

There are all manor of things you could do. A few of them might be the right things to do. The iron law of strategic thinking is, the less information about your budget, the actual whatever-it-is, the audience, the worse advice about strategy you’re going to get. There is no universal magic trick stretching across light comedy, horror, romance, drama, cartoons, sci-fi and documentaries.

You’re asking for the answer from the back of the book. There isn’t one, unless you get highly specific.

TVDuck and other websites are best.

TVDuck and other websites are best.

Who could go wrong following advice like that.

reviews would be one of the best thing to do…:slight_smile:

More looking for something to promote pre-release. ;]

We usually post our reviews a couple days before the movie hits. Found that worked quite well.