By Jay Webb
Previously: Indiestreet Post #5: Indieconomies of Scale: Distribution
Indieconomies of Scale, Part 4 (of 4): Marketing
The DIY marketing of an Independent film has always been an overwhelming, and somewhat foreign prospect for an artist. For me it’s one of those things that seems to be more of a “Where do I even start?” type of problem, especially in today’s fast paced environment. There are new free to use marketing/networking platforms that pop up everyday, but how do we know what will work? And even more importantly, what will work for our film specifically? While the internet, social networking, data mining, and targeted ad networks do make it possible for Indie filmmakers to market their own films more effectively, they surely do not make the marketing process any less complicated.
So let’s try to simplify the idea of transitioning from filmmaker to film-marketer, and then we will talk about why a group mentality can make all the difference in this transition.
1. Marketing = a cousin of storytelling
Sure storytelling is your born talent and passion; not commercial exploitation. Well the best marketers are the ones that can tell the story of their company in a brief, memorable and entertaining way. So before you run and hide during the marketing phase of your film, just realize that a filmmaker and a marketing professional are actually some type of bizarro storytelling cousins.
When considering how to apply business concepts like economies of scale to Independent film, in the case of production we have to reorganize our thought process a little. In this post, we start by treating a small group of Indie filmmakers as a story producing company with each member having both objective story telling capital (skillset, equipment, etc.) and subjective story-telling capital (interest in project, loyalty, emotional connection to material). The more story-telling capital that can be attained through cooperation, the more a group can benefit from production Indieconomies of scale.