One Cool Free Idea

Yesterday I realized I’ve been perched right on the edge of a trend and I have some insight of potential value to my indie filmmaking friends.  It’s from my  year working as a Producer of Marketing and Distribution for an indie documentary film - though I didn’t have that title (and still don’t) when it all began.  (Director Jon Reiss coined this PMD title at his site and in his book Think Outside the Box Office, and says it’s the new key crew role for indie filmmakers.)

It began with an invite from my brilliant then-business partner asking if I was interested in teaming up with her to help bring a full-length feature documentary film to market. And by that they meant - promote the hell out of it and help sell as many as we can BY OURSELVES.  The story was truly unique.  The chemistry between all of us was right.  I said yes. I believed in the film, I knew I could talk it up with passion, and we figured it would be a great case study in indie-marketing. (Hey we were former PR guys who loved social media.) I also figured (correctly as it turns out) that I could borrow a few tricks from the indie music-marketing industry I knew well. So we dug in.

Perhaps by luck, we got on board relatively early on - the film was still in final edit and part of our early compensation deal was we’d get a credit - I think it said “communications” - my first;)

We had no advertising budget to speak of and no distribution at first.  There was no festival circuit planned.  And I was working on the opposite coast from the rest of the film’s crew.  The director and producer were near San Francisco; I was on the East coast in Rhode Island.  The executive producer was in London.

We began brainstorming an all-out marketing campaign that would rely heavily on web 2.0 tools to spread the word and attract fans.  Some of the key tools we built into our strategy (and it was truly an evolutionary, ever-changing plan) included:

1. Setting up Facebook accounts and starting to build our fanbase there by posting great, engaging content
2. Developing press materials with a keyword-rich strategy to boost our online SEO and move the film’s title up the search rankings
3. Setting up a Twitter account, seeding our name across Twitter and building a following there
4. Cross-integrating Twitter outreach with Facebook
5. Coordinating worldwide publicity as the film screened in London and throughout venues in the US
6. Coordinating media and online outreach with the experts featured in the film; so their outreach expanded our efforts
7. Developing and deploying edited video assets across online platforms, focusing mainly on YouTube
8. Devising leave-behinds at local screenings to drive fans back online to our sites
9. Integrating social media buttons and feeds into the film’s main website
10. Seeding new and relevant content to our social networks and responding to our fans online
11. Building our e-mail list by developing special promo offers and discounts on the film by opting in
12. Brainstorming new video assets shot at screening Q & As and special events- and devising a plan to re-purpose those assets online as freebies and for-pay content that would interest our fans.
13. An ongoing, daily effort to “actively listen” to what our fans were saying about us and to each other about the film.
14. Working with a worldwide distributor who signed on about 5 months into the campaign - impressed by the size and growth of our online fan base and visibility
15. Devising a strategy of “bonus content” packages that could be sold along with the film.  This included devising special codes for Facebook and Twitter fans to use, so we could drive and track traffic while rewarding loyal film followers.  Eventually we offered “from the cutting room floor” interviews; music/soundtrack material from the film and bundled these with the actual DVD to spur sales.
16. Setting up home screening programs and using our online fan base to attract hosts - who became affiliate partners with the film
17. Supervising publicists who were brought in at key points - though we worked as copywriters/content producers for press materials
18. Managing outside videographers and content producers who were brought in to produce video news assets we used to promote really big screenings

We tweaked, we listened, refined and shape-shifted as our online audiences grew and grew (today there are over 6,500 people actively participating in our Facebook page), screenings sold out again and again, bloggers blogged, and DVDs sold and sold.

So Next Up - I’ll tell you why I think we met with a fairly high level of success online as a DIY operation - though it should be called a do-it OURselves job.  And as importantly, I’ll talk about what I learned in my year as the virtual host of a year-long party online.

Tip: You had better know what to DO with people once you get them at your “party.”  And you better understand what MOTIVATES them to be in the room with you….hint: like all great relationships, it’s not all about you;)