Marketing

Film Marketing How Independent Film Makers Can Promote a Film Costing $15,000 or less!

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Online Film Marketing – and insiders guide!

First of all there are 2 main elements to the marketing of your movie:

1. Offline – major premieres, a film festival, electronic press kits, any real world publicity

2. Online – viral marketing via: email/social networking sites/PR newswires/newsletters/social bookmarking – anything that is an -internet’ based opportunity. Let’s examine how we can use social bookmarking and web2.0 to maximise these opportunities.

Introduction

It goes without saying that different films, types and genres require a different level of approach, however there are some general rules that you can follow to generate high traffic levels on the internet.

Where’s the best place to drive all this traffic? I would suggest perhaps your own movie website is the best place to start, but equally it could be a blog (especially during the early stages of your production and you don’t yet have any imagery) or a Facebook Page, or another website which I’ll talk about later.

Your Movie Website

A domain can be purchased relatively cheaply and it is worth building a site that fits the style of the movie – a horror – clearly must have a different style to a romantic comedy. When building your site you must optimize for search engines and there are some basic rules to remember – and your site must be optimized for what are known as -On-page factors’:

1. Put some written content on the page – Google and other search engines focus heavily on text based content so on your opening page make sure that this is there and available for google to see – it should not be image based, and if you do use images make sure you place your keywords in them! i.e. instead of 1234.jpg call it HorrorMovie.jpg. In this way it is visible to search engines.

2. Keywords – keywords drive traffic to your site and therefore your main keywords should be included in your: title, H1, H2, tags, meta description, (and if you can URL) – use different keywords for each page of your site. Use the keywords early in the description.

3. Do your keyword research – it is no use entering keywords that have a massive amount of competition since it is unlikely that unless you have a huge PR budget and lots of high quality sites linking to you that you will ever really be competitive for these keywords. It is best to use what are known as -long-tail keywords’. Typically this means instead of -Romatic Comedy’ as your keyword, you might choose -Action Flick for Girls’.Targeted and more likely to peak an interest.

4. The order of your keywords matters, make sure you are consistent.

Now these on-page elements, which you are able to control, account for a probably 1/3 of the traffic that will be driven to your site. The rest comes from ‘Off-Page’ elements and these are absolutely crucial to how to drive traffic to your website.

What are off-page factors? Off-page factors are things that are effectively beyond your control. Backlinks – i.e. links from other websites and pages which link directly to your website. Certain websites will have more -authority’ than others and therefore command greater respect from Google and backlinks from these sites will push you up the rankings. However there are ways of doing this yourself and having -influence’ over the search engines.

Here’s what I am going to suggest you do. It will be a pain, and take some time but believe me the benefits are really worth it. We should create accounts on the following websites and then aim to link through to your blog or website:

1. Digg

2. Propeller.com

3. Del.icio.us

4. Mister-wong.com

5. Hubpages – write articles about your film, what is involved in the making of the movie etc.

6. Squidoo – create a -lens’ to talk about your project

7. You Tube – use video to promote your film and drive traffic to your site

8. StumbleUpon

9. Mixx.com

There are of course, some sites which have been left off the list, quite deliberately, and these sites should be used to provide a major source of traffic and promotion to your production:

1. Facebook – the obvious choice since it is easy to invite your friends and get them onboard to follow you, as well as keep them updated with the latest developments on your movie project.

2. Twitter – an awesome way to generate interest in your film to thousands!

(For both of the above see the brilliant Mashable.com for great ways to effectively build a fan base on this platform and it would be impossible for me to add to it – its that good!)

3. One Fat Cigar – a new website for professional and up-and-coming film makers specifically to help them market and promote their productions. It’s good because as soon as you have the idea/script for your project you are able to really promote it from day one, and begin the marketing there and then so that by the time you are finished the production you already have a following. There’s a great networking tool too and it is also possible to cast and crew your project through the site.

So what can you do to build more followers and fans?

1. Content is king – without having a significant amount of high quality content no one will become a fan, and once you have people as fans, they need to be continually updated with new, and more importantly interesting content to keep them engaged.

2. What types of content work?-

a) You’re a film maker – use film content!!! Film the ‘makings of’ as it happens, conduct video blogs of your crew, interview the cast and crew (p.s. release forms!), where are you filming? why? what’s difficult about the next stunt you’re going to pull?

b) Stills photographs – very important! imagery and styling always help promote the movie and give the audience an insight into the production

3. Frequency – Updates 2 or 3 times a week are perfect, it could just be a piece to camera discussing where you are with the production and status updates can be done whenever there is something interesting to say, perhaps 2/3 times per day.

4. Interact – why not get involved with your fan base? ask them questions, talk to them and let them feel like they have direct access to you, the film maker. In this way the tie is an emotional one.

5. Share – recommend other high quality film projects you have been following – your fans will thank you for bringing another exciting production to their attention, which present you as a -cool’ authority and generates trust with your fan base.

6. Be Interesting – do things that are fun, and show the more interesting side of film making – the characters, the challenges, the difficulties in achieving certain shots.

Once you have a fan base you can then drive the fans to do what you want them to – buy your DVD, watch your film in the cinema, check it out at a festival, or even petition a distributor!

(In terms of One Fat Cigar, fans can sign up for free to the site, but you’ll need premium membership to be able to create projects but the membership charge isn’t significant and there are discount opportunities for launch to fans of their Facebook page and 500 free 1 year premium membership available. We think it will certainly be worth a punt!)

What to do once you have set-up your One Fat Cigar Project/Facebook Page/Website

While it is likely that you’re going to pick up a fair few fans by simply having your project up on the site, it is also important to promote your project to the search engines.

1. Use a number of the high authority sites (Digg.com/StumbleUpon etc.) listed above to link to your project on One Fat Cigar, Facebook and Website

2. Use Ping-o-matic.com to ping the address for your particular project

3. Link to your project through Twitter/Facebook and then do status updates every time you post something new on the One Fat Cigar site

4. Use anchor text which focuses on your keywords to link through to your page – i.e. if your keyword is -Psychological Thriller’ use this text to link through to your project page on the One Fat Cigar site, and not the name of your film or the One Fat Cigar site. This makes it easier for your keywords to appear in the search engine listings.

5.Put your One Fat Cigar link, links to your Facebook/Twitter and website out on any press releases you may have – that way the press have access to your material online for viewing.

6. Keep adding content – and don’t forget that your fans will immediately have the opportunity transfer over to your next project and so you’ll begin promotion of your second movie from a running start!

Conclusion

So hopefully that provides a solid basic introduction to film marketing and promoting your film online and will begin to generate interest about your project.So hopefully that provides a solid basic introduction to film marketing and promoting your film online and will begin to generate interest about your project.

Don’t forget you won’t get high in the Google rankings overnight, and you will need to track your progress. You’re not looking for the name of your movie, but you are looking for your competitive keywords. There are various rank tracking tools available to do this.

To search for the best keywords Google provides its own tool to help get you started:

http://www.google.com/sktool/#

Susie Tulllett (former head of DDA’s PR unit in Cannes for over 10 years) guide to Film PR can be found on the One Fat Cigar blog.

Ross Grayle Jones is co-founder of One Fat Cigar.com a movie website for people who love film.

Pieces Of Marketing Materials To Look For In An Affiliate Product

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Promoting affiliate products is not without its hassles, but if youre dedicated and have a strong plan you can make money month in and month out.

Selecting the right affiliate products is key in getting results from affiliate marketing. With the wrong product, you wont be able to make money no matter how much traffic you send through your affiliate link.

One of the hallmarks of a good affiliate program is the marketing materials that the publisher includes with their promotion package. If youre searching for an affiliate product to promote, look for the following marketing materials on their affiliates page. The more they offer, the better.

1.Product graphics

One of the best ways to show your market what youre promoting is to include a picture of the product on your website or on a pre-selling landing page. Product graphics help increase the perceived value of the affiliate product and will increase your conversion rates.

Look for an affiliate product that offers several different sizes of product graphics.

2.Banner ads

Although banner ads are less effective than they used to be in the first days of online marketing, they can still be an effective promotional tool.

Why create your own banners when you can use premade ones provided by the product creator? Banner ads from product creators are generally professional produced and are of high quality.

3.Block ads

Just like banner ads, block ads can be very helpful in your promotional efforts. This size is useful to display in the sidebars of your blog and in areas where you need a smaller size of ad than a banner ad.

4.Articles

Pre-written articles can be hit or miss. Make sure you read through the articles completely before using them. Give preference to products that offer articles that you can adjust to suit your needs.

This way you can get a base version of the article and make it unique so you can submit it to directories for backlinks. Even better are affiliate marketing programs that give you monthly articles that you can use in your promotions.

5.Email marketing messages

Although youll generally want to edit your email marketing messages so that they are unique and fit your style/voice, having a base email marketing message can help you save time and get a quality message out to your list in a shorter period of time.

6.Twitter messages

Twitter messages can help you save time and figure out exactly what to Tweet about when you are promoting the affiliate product. Its not a necessity, but this can be an affiliate program perk.

7.Rebrandable reports

This is one of the most helpful pieces of affiliate marketing materials available.

If an affiliate program has a high quality promotional report that you can rebrand with your own affiliate link, you can get on the track to making affiliate income really quickly.

Rebrandable report should be helpful and interesting. If they meet this criteria, then put it to use right away.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Facebook And Twitter

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Social media is a place where you can share and network with friends and now-a-days even businesses. It enables you to approach your potential customers, converse with various businesses from across the globe and get to learn a lot many new things. There are various social media platforms that offer these services like Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. But the most popular of all are Facebook and twitter. Facebook and twitter are mediums that have evolved a lot in time, with so many new businesses joining them and making profile in them. But still there are many people who are unaware about the advantages and disadvantages involved in using Facebook and twitter. Advantages: Facebook: 1.Facebook is very easy to join. The whole process of joining and then building a profile can be performed by any person new to the medium.

2.It enables you to easily find communities of groups that are related to your niche of business.

3.As a business you can search for your potential customers without much trouble.

4.Conversing can help you to augment your business to a very large extent.

5.You can create backlinks of your website for the customers to visit and increase your PageRank.

Twitter:

1.Creating an account is extremely trouble-free. Anyone can join twitter and the best part about it is that you don’t have to put in a lot of details about you; just the general information is more than enough.

2.The characters are limited to 140 words, which is a good thing as there will be no need to write or read a whole essay.

3.It contains many third-party services like HootSuite, with the help of which you can update your tweets automatically without signing in.

4.It also has many applications that can be used to augment the business.

Disadvantages:

Facebook:

1.Facebook addition is the main problem that is been faced by youngsters from around the world. This gives them no time to indulge in other activities.

2.Because of so many people joining Facebook the chances of fraud has increased tremendously. The odds of getting hacked have amplified which can be highly aggravating.

3.For businesses, it has become difficult to find who your genuine customers are and who are not.

Twitter:

1.There is no privacy, anyone can follow you even if you don’t know them and see all your updates.

2.With only 140 characters being allowed you cannot give the detailed information about your company, products or services.

3.Tweets are all over the place. It can be difficult to pick over the Twitter updates popping up around the web. With this material you can build your own result as to which social media medium, Facebook or twitter is most likely to give benefit to you and your business.

Make The Most Of The Marketing Mix

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Business administration involves the creation of a road map that outlines the specific goals that the business is working to achieve and targeted benchmarks for when those goals will be reached. By constructing a business and marketing plan companies develop strategies for reaching their goals in a timely manner. Experts in business recommend that ten percent of the budgeted operating expenses for the business be spent on marketing.

Because customers are the lifeblood of any business how the allocated dollars are spent on marketing can make a significant difference to the bottom line revenues that a company generates. Return on investment is essential for any business and finding marketing channels that will give returns above what is spent is the goal of the marketing department. The challenge for marketing directors comes in finding the right channel to put marketing dollars into and effectively creating a campaign for the selected channels that will give the highest returns.

The marketing mix is a term used to describe the combination of different channels that are to be used by the company to attract new business and increase customer retention. Within the marketing mix the director and his or her team divide the budget and make allocations for where, when and how the marketing dollars will be spent. Some channels may receive more money than others depending upon the cost of entry to the marketing channel and the effectiveness of that channel in returning dividends through sales to consumers.

A marketing mix might consist of print advertising in magazines and newspapers, direct mail, television commercials, radio spots and internet marketing. While traditional forms of media are dividing the budgets of big business smaller companies can also model a scaled version of a marketing mix down to fit their budget.

Where once the elements of traditional forms of media were incorporated into the marketing mix the online revolution has altered the perceptions and spending habits of many Americans. While some forms of media may still be included in the budget of a marketing mix directors of marketing departments are realizing that dollars spent on internet marketing are bringing the highest returns on investment.

While allocating a larger percentage of the budget to internet marketing on a macro level, executives are discovering that there are sub-channels within the internet marketing medium that require further study and division of the channels budget on a micro level. Search engine optimization, pay-per click campaigns and social network marketing are just a few of the options available to marketing departments that are focusing the core of their budgets on the cost effective and highly reachable consumers of their marketing dollars.

Methods For Marketing Android App Made Painless

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Software Marketing And Advertising And Marketing

Understanding App Advertisements

App promotion addresses the full approach to advertising a software. The system that an application creator executes for advertising and advertising their own software will depend on numerous things particularly their spending funds, the style of app also the competitors the software will deal with as soon as information technology was released in the software store. There are numerous strategies that you really should bring just before your own personal application is submitted, including a good quality media-kit, a blog to advertise the app and deciding a cost, marketing and monetisation system. There include over 500,000 applications available, extremely obtaining an app to stand over through the rivals requires plenty of efforts and a decent resources.

What exactly is my favorite options if I dont bring a huge budget

Instead of focusing on acquiring your own software directly into the very top 10 listings which will set you back some cash and could easily become a hit or neglect approach, large numbers of app developers become focusing on their application label and keywords to obtain their software rated. Existing study try displaying you that the app classification, brand-newer updates and product reviews have actually almost no influence on their apps rankings.

If youre wanting to bring right into the top 25 in their niche the competitors may differ substantially with video games representing one particular competitive market. Considering this, the fastest method of climbing upwards the ranks try through aiming for install rate (the speed of app downloads) also the amount of downloads. For any most part this really is determined by significant advertising across all regarding the the mobile app advertising and marketing and advertising systems together with providing a lower price regarding the software in its first start stage.

For market apps and indie designers ASO appears to be a most feasible option. It provides quick effects and is actually so much smoother (and inexpensive) to carry out. Make use of a means such as for instance for example for instance google adwords to shot to function over specifically keyword terms men might feel entering straight to the app store lookup area and analyze information technology against the opponents keyword keyword phrases. Look at words whenever the competition was not thus high and base their app name and keywords on this. Understand that for their entire app name to display, information technology is required to be lower than 32 people. As well as your own personal range of key phrases should never end up being more than 100 people. Also remember that the moment their application is actually within the shop application feedback, which have now been maybe not so relevant into the app rankings, being vitally important any time programs become being assessed by everyone who probably want to obtain them.

A few Tips for the Software Marketing Method

There were any amounts of organizations out there supplying to do your app advertisements for your own, as well as the prices and techniques differ. But if the budget are small, at the very minimum ensure that you carry out another to ensure that your application becomes the greatest coverage achievable.

Build a Great App
It doesnt have to put the entire globe alight, but ensure that that its properly debugged and that men like it. Examination out the information on household members and pals, and just before an individual launch the software ensure which they had a chance to get through information technology and recognize pests and feasible weak ares. Its maybe not fool-proof, but its complimentary and information technology can help.

Monetisation
Be positive youve received a plain concept of the way you are supposed to monetize your own software. Numerous software put up complimentary and full (paid model), other people provide a freemium app exactly where you obtain the app for free, but to unlock the complete function people require to upgrade.

Tips for App Cost
Efforts out what you need to cost for their app. Information technology had previously been that really couple of applications energized above 99 cents, but days become modifying and if exactly what you provide adds importance to the user, after that further usually than maybe not, they are usually eager to pay for information technology.

Marketing And Advertising
Incorporate PPI advertisements on your own app and enroll with Tapjoy or Revmob to publicize your software. Since these people provide a cover per download, an individual were guaranteed of getting straight back your own marketing spend through app store packages.
Become free visibility exactly where you could by regarding visitors your discover, doing click announcements and wondering app analysis internet to take a glance at your software.
Capture a videos clip on the software showcasing its services. Upload information technology to youtube or vimeo and utilize the videos to promote the app.
Publicize through social media sites information technology really does not cost money, just a while. And you’ll be able to provide promotion codes offers once anyone reveal your own changes.
Making Certain somebody can discover the software if they are lookin perform customer content, posses an application web site and render their self available on discussion boards.

Responses
Be certain youre hearing just exactly what your own consumers need to state. Frequently read the product reviews their unique app was obtaining into the app store and find out if there include improvements you may possibly make that will enhance their unique knowledge.

Monitoring
Create sure you are tracking the marketing and advertising investment, your own downloads as well as your positions.

There are certainly lots of people who stand to reap the benefits of Best Traffic App For Iphone so see to it that you know the ramifications of Marketing Your Iphone App, read more ideas here: app store rankings (App-Marketer.net).

And some tips about exactly specifically to avoid

The software store supplies you big opportunities for application creators, but information technology usually normally takes much further than just a great software to make it big. Ensuring that an individual maximize all on the the out there ventures will render your the greatest potential of starting and dealing with a successful app. It was in addition well worth thinking about some of the common errors developers render once approaching the advertising and advertising on the apps.
Releasing a cost-free software and planning on information technology to perform better because their complimentary. You’ll find 1000’s of higher top good programs no-cost readily available within the software shop and customers anticipate apps to create on their unique claims.

Underutilizing personal. whenever their application was great, consumers will be pleased to reveal about information technology. Question all of all of them to tweet or carry out a fb posting regarding the app. Generate it very simple to shre: do it inside the application, incentivize all of them (by presenting to discover a brand-brand new stage or making a brand-new feature offered).

Maybe not allocating an advertising budget. With solutions such as for example for example cover-every-apply (cover each apply) you’re going to be sure of getting a return when the cash your place when.

Focusing on which the software will as opposed to just what it provides you to users. In salesman phrases: sell the sizzle, maybe not the sausage. Folk would like to know how their software will benefit all of them as opposed to going through a number of capabilities that the software contains.