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If you’re just tuning into this filmmaking article, this is part 2 of my 7 part filmmaker series on how How To Sell Your Movie On iTunes, Amazon and Netflix For Maximum Profit.
Find Your Target Audience.
Once you have refined your movie concept, you can use this as a springboard to further locate blogs, websites and publications already targeting your target audience. For example, when you Google “boxing” you will get over forty-nine million results. This is not surprising. Interests such as boxing, horror movies, martial arts and race car driving have prominence in our culture. But if your movie focuses on more obscure subjects, you will have to dig deeper.
Thankfully, even if your core audience is esoteric and comprised of a small population spread all over the globe, the internet provides a great tool for reaching them. Assuming you find websites and traditional publications targeting your audience, your next step is to reach out and request their demographic statistics. These stats will tell you how many people subscribe to the publication and will often provide details on age and gender.
Once you have a good understanding of your target audience, all future advertising, marketing language and your trailer should be created with your target audience in mind. Then later, when your movie enters the marketplace, this initial research will provide you a contact list full of organizations that may help you promote your movie.
About Jason Brubaker
Jason Brubaker is a Hollywood based Independent Motion Picture Producer and an expert in Video On Demand distribution. He is focused on helping YOU make, market and sell movies more easily by growing your fan base, building buzz and creating community around your title. He is also available for speaking engagements.
Yeah. I agree. Sourcing a target audience is often more expensive and time consuming than making the movie! But if we view our filmmaking careers as a long term game, then this process feels less overwhelming.
Egads, even with a marketing background, finding a target audience is difficult for the layman. It’s even difficult for large corporations! The tendency is to make “everyone” your target audience. That’s a market too large for anyone to market to. Believe it or not, the demographics for movies may be elusive, but TV shows, magazines, websites, newspapers, et al. all have either published or easily accessible marketing data. They want YOU to advertise with them and they want you to ask for their data! Check out http://www.quantcast.com/ for a great site on website marketing data. Also, the US Census provides great data and will help. Think of building marketing demo as a puzzle where you have to put the pieces together a piece at a time and then it forms a coherent picture. Remember to draw from multiple resources and get a better picture. It takes time and patience!