PPC text Marketing for Independent Films

             Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising is a form of internet advertising which can be very effective. There are three major advantages to PPC advertising for independent films.

            First PPC as the name implies are a form of marketing which only charge money for every time someone clicks on the ad and goes to the films website. In many ways then this is a pay for referral form of marketing, that can be lower in cost then postcard marketing. Yet rather then exposing consumers to a single postcard you are exposing them to your website which should contains your trailer and more information on your film.

            Pay per click advertising also exposes lots of viewers to your ad, for your ad will likely be seen by 300 or so people for every click that is made, yet you only pay for the click not for the showing of the ad. This constant exposure has been shown to help with product and brand recognition and so is very helpful to marketing your film.

            Pay Per Click Marketing can be a local form of marketing because you can target people by region if you want to; Google’s ad network is particularly good at targeting consumers by region because it can market to people even within small cities. If you are targeting a larger metropolitan region such as the City of Seattle then Yahoo, adBright, and Microsoft Search Marketing are also recommended as these will likely cost less per click. This lower cost on lesser known networks is due to the fact that the advertising functions on a biding bases, the less people bidding the lower the cost per click. For this reason those with a lower budget should begin with one of these ad networks rather then with Google, Because Google merely delivers larger numbers, but if you can’t pay for them this is a negative.

            If you have never joined an online ad network before then search the terms search marketing and internet advertising. In the sponsored results off to the right you will see offers, sometimes for free coupons for $50 dollars or so worth of free marketing to sign up. This will be a big boost to indie films on a very tight budget.

            Once you have signed up for some ad networks (again Yahoo, Microsoft adCenter, Google, and adBright have worked best in my experience) you can begin advertising by choosing keywords. For many indie films keywords may be limited, or very competitive. Keywords like movies, movie theaters, etc are very competitive. And it costs a lot of money to use keywords not mentioned on your website. For this reason it might be advantageous to build special landing pages based on your movie. If your movie for example would make a good date movie then you can create a landing page discuss using taking a date to your movie, with your trailer and information about your movie as well. Then you would be able to win over certain dating keywords which could be a lower cost per click and be more effective in targeting. (If your movie is not a good date movie don’t try this you don’t want to lure people who won’t buy tickets.)

 Pay Per Click Clip Advertising

             Google has a new form of online marketing available, video marketing. With it you can show people your films trailer on a large network of websites. What’s more these ads cost you nothing unless the person likes what they see enough to go to your website.

Visual Marketing for Indie Films

From Posters to Web Banners

             Print marketing has always been an important part of indie film marketing because it is one of the most affordable forms of marketing on a low budget. This method of marketing has a certain amount of impact however its exact impact is difficult to measure and knowing if you are using the right images and copy for your film can be difficult. There is however a low cost way to complement this form of visual marketing which will make it much more effective.

            Online Banner Marketing can be a highly targeted form of marketing allowing you to specify specific metro regions, people of different age categories etc, for a very low cost of just a dollar per thousand impressions or less.

            With its low cost and your ability to track it instantly visual marketing on the internet is a great way to test your visuals and copy. With visual marketing on the internet you can determine which forms of visuals have the most appeal for your campaign.

            Once you know what types of visuals have the most appeal you can begin the process of creating your print campaign with confidence. A print campaign which will complement your online campaign, and your trailer to help insure that you get the largest audience possible.

            Designing Print materials for film advertising.

It has been shown that people who’s first language is English will tend to view a poster or other print material by scanning with a backwards S, starting at the top left and moving down to the bottom right. This is important to understand because it gives you some idea of how people will naturally search your visual ad once it has caught their interest. The important thing is to catch peoples interest however. Again this is why it is so important to begin by running a visual campaign online, so that you know what imagery will cut through the clutter and be seen by people.

            Online campaigns also have the advantage of being fairly low cost to run; it is quite possible to run an online visual campaign seen by thousands of people for only $100 dollars. It is also possible to set up methods for selling tickets on your site at a low cost. Most major theatres will have a selling method through Fandango, or you could set up a deal with the theatre yourself to provide them with a list of customers which paid for tickets on your site (as will as the money from such tickets). For smaller indie theaters this second alternative might work very well as their more intimate