Film Marketing and Distribution Seminar

Internet Film Marketing & Distribution

Ralphie Boy Studios, NYC

Allen ChouPresident

Passion River Films416 Main Street, Metuchen, NJ 08840

[email protected]

03-19-09

Session Goals

• Understand how consumers use the internet for product and service discoveries

• Optimize your website for search engines• Social networking via internet• Viral marketing• Spend less money on “traditional” advertising

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Challenge

What are your customers looking for?

• Specific subject • Screening• Talent• Anything related to your project• You or your film?

Test your “search” visibility

Can you be found using your keywords?

What if no one knows your:

• Name?• Film?• Talent?

Solution

Get FoundUsing

Search Engine Marketing Strategies

“Advertising is a wasted pool of resources”

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly (Hardcover)

by David Meerman Scott (Author)

Traditional Marketing

• Direct Response

• Mail Marketing

• Off-Line Publicity (print, radio, & tv)

• Yellow Pages - Phone Books

• Promotions

Non-Traditional Marketing

• Internet Marketing Strategies

• Social Networking

• Social Media Marketing

• Search Engine Optimization

Terms we’ll be using:• SEO – search engine optimization• SEM- search engine marketing• SMO- social media optimization• SMM- social media marketer• SES – search engine strategies• SERP – search engines results page• Organic Search – natural listings on the SERP (non

paid)• Links- hyperlinks to your site• Anchor Text – words used in the hyperlink• Title Text- the words at the very top of the web page• Keywords - relevant words you want to rank in SERP

Social Media Marketing will generate traffic from:

• Networking sites• Social bookmarks• Video Communities• Photo Communities• Blogs• Content Creation Sites• Wiki’s

Outrageous!

Major Benefits of SEM

• Traffic to your site• Links to your site• Page rank lift• SERP lift• Develop relationships• Create Buzz• Make sales

Choose the right path

No Black Hat Techniques:

• Spam

• Keyword Stuffing & Cloaking

• Link Farms

• Illegal Activity

• Using Bots

Who’s your customer?

Understand your customer

• Where do they work, live, play?

• What are their needs?

• Married? Children? • What social class

are they in?

• How old? • Gender? • Religion?• What languages do

they speak & read?• Interests?• What films do they

rent, buy?

Once you ID your customer

• Target their groups• Participate with their

communities• Become part of their

community of “friends”



Getting Started

Content is King!

Keyword Research

• What is user intent?• Building a keyword list that will help get your “content” found

(website, video, & images)• Start with your basic keyword list• Use a keyword tool (keyword discovery, google adwords,

wordtracker)• Generate new related keywords and long tail keywords• Divide complete list into groups• Prioritize groups and select top 10 keyword phrase for your site

(2 words or more)• Create new content

Word Tracker Keyword Tool

Google keyword tool

Keyword Discovery - keyword tool

Laser Hair popular

Facial area

New York

Men

Hair Removal

Cost

Equipment

Pictures & Video

Specific Location

Gay Men

Long Tail Keywords

Hair Removal Keyword List

• Laser Hair Removal• Facial laser Hair

removal• Permanent Hair

Removal• Laser Hair Removal

Pictures• Laser Hair Removal

Equipment

• Mens Hair Removal• Gay Mens Hair

Removal• Laser Hair Removal

Manhattan• Laser Hair Removal

NY

Create Content

• 3 U’s – Useful, Updated, Unique (Seth Godin)

• Place content on your site, blog, & everywhere else applicable

• Content is KING!

Define Silos (Groups)

- Create a marketing plan for each silo - Target silos based on keywords- If silo is competitive or has a lot of “noise”, try tier 2 keywords- Incorporate keywords onto website and content developed

Hair Removal Silos

• Beauty

• Spa

• NYC Community

• Women, Men, Gay Men

• Medical

Summary of keyword research strategies

• ID customers and their search patterns

• Develop keyword list and long tail phrases

• ID silos and groups

• Develop content creation strategies

Next- get your content into website



Content must be placed on a site with a clear strategy

IT NEEDS OPTIMIZATION!























Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it "ranks," the more searchers will visit that site.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

Definition by Wikipedia.

SEO- my simple explanation

• Content placed on your site will affect SERP

• Having good relevant content is the baseline for getting traffic to your site

• Good content is not enough- you must engage in SEM

Title Tags

• Create unique title tags for each page using your keyword phrases

• Position is weighted for importance and relevance

• 65 characters max

• Should accurately reflect page content

• Contain main keywords

Title Text Very

Important!

Title Text

Page Content

• Use keywords in bold headlines

• Use keywords in anchor text (hyperlinks)

• Write paragraphs

• Surround images and video with content

• Create & add new content- constantly!

Placing keywords on your page

Keywords

Keywords withAnchor Text

Image only sites are difficult to get indexed in search engines

• Don’t create a site or page entirely on Flash or images

• Search Engines can’t see images

• Difficult to show up on SERP, because there’s no “content”

Link Building

• Link Building (get links from sites read by your audience)

• Links affect your page rank & position on SERP

• Search traffic comes mostly from: Google, Yahoo, then MSN

Video & Image Optimization

• Optimize video & images• Title, description, & keywords are key• Use keywords in filenames• Place relevant keywords around image &

video on page• Add meta data• Avoid Flash & pop players

Google search for “Basketball Video”

Anchor Text

Content

Video SurroundedBy Text

More Anchor Text

SEO - Summary

• Unique title tags for each page using keywords• Increase keyword density on pages• Create new content– constantly • Optimize video & images• Anchor text with keywords & cross link• Don’t create a site entirely on Flash or images• Incorporate a link building campaign

Local Search

• Google Local• Yahoo Local• Internet Yellow Pages (IYP)• True Local• Data Aggregators• More…

Google Local

Google search results for “medical spa cherry hill, nj”

*Note Reviews Available

Yahoo Local

Note:Reviews Avail

Local search for: Medical Spa, Cherry Hill, NJ

“True Local” (local search engine)

Data Aggregator

Local Search Summary

• Add your company to local search engines

• Add to all IYP’s• Add to data aggregators • Find above by searching “local search

tips” in SEO websites• Include your full address on bottom of

website

Social Media Marketing Social Networking

SMM Goals

• Branding• Traffic• Generate links• New contacts (not just clients, but people that

can help with indirect sales)• Generate sales• Authority building• Identify influencers & authorities for your

targets

SMM success based on:Creativity and Quality of Content!

Where will the traffic

come from?

Content Creation Sites

• Wikipedia, Wikihow, etc…

• Squidoo

• Blogs

• Yahoo Answers,

• Article Directories

• And there’s more…

Wikipedia

External links

KeywordContent

Author credit available at bottom

Squidoo

• Create unique “lens” (pages)• Can drive a lot of traffic• Add images onto your lens• Need to update lens for effectiveness

Squidoo

You write content

Popularity User Driven

Blogs

• Use WordPress & optimize with SEO plugin

• Blogger is good, but you can’t port site

• Establish RSS feed

• Set up social bookmarks (digg, delicious, etc...)

Yahoo Answers

• Is anybody asking any questions about your topic?

• Ask your own questions to create a dialog about your topic

• Questions and Answers can be indexed for over 1 year

• Great opportunity to ‘gently’ leave your “signature”

Article Marketing

• Create keyword rich articles for distribution to article directories

• Bookmark “published” articles

• Enjoy traffic & links from your articles that have propagated to other sites!

Can Yahoo Answers help you?

See any opportunities?

Free Website Hosting

• Create different content sites to drive traffic to your main site

• Freeservers.com

• Tripod.com

• Angelfire.com

• Geocities.com

Social Bookmarking

• Users save a page via a bookmarking site

• Notes & tags are added to each site

• Now people can discover sites by tags, keywords, network, & popularity

Digg

• User driven popularity

• Massive traffic to your site

• Greatest benefit is new links, not necessarily immediate sales

• Favors larger, trusted sites

• Tough to get your submission HOT

Digg

Voting

topics

Delicious & Furl (Diigo)

• Social bookmarking site for yourself & for others to discover

• Must spend time to create a great post or site to get popular

• Can generate some nice links and traffic• Research tags to find related sites that can

help cross promote your site• Your friends, family, and co-workers should

bookmark your site (use keywords)

# of users bookmarking this site

tags

User’s bookmarks

Can see user’s bookmarks & tags

StumbleUpon

• User driven popularity

• Users vote thumbs up or down

• Can drive large volumes of traffic, even more than Digg & Reddit

• Videos and images work very well

• Set up account & stumble your site

voting

See next

comments

Other Social Bookmark Sites

• Reddit (similar to Digg, but on a lesser scale)• Mixx (similar to Reddit, but on a lesser scale)• Propeller (easier to “win” vs. Digg & Redditt)• Learn what posts are successful• Make the right relationships to help “seed” the

posts

Twitter

• The latest rage

• A form of micro-blogging

• Ability to connect with a lot of people

• Can drive large traffic to your site

• Can be used for promotions

followers

message

Bio & Url

YouTube

• Ability to generate massive awareness• Video should include beginning and ending slates with cta• Optimize descriptions and content• Include url in description• Use target keywords• Choose target keywords in Tags• Label clip using target keywords• Upload other clips and change keywords• Optimize profile• Ratings and votes are important socially, as well with SERP• Participate with comments & responses, including Bad reviews

Massive Views

Content NotOptimized

Massive Ratings

Deep comments

Other Video Sites:

• Metacafe

• Google video

• MySpace TV

Video Site Marketing Goals:

• SERP listing• Re-direct viewers to your target URL• Clear call-to-actions (on video and text)• Create response videos• Participate in responses for your video upload

and related videos• Get high views AND ratings• Get links to your upload on video site

Flickr

• Get found in image search• Optimize images with target keyword

descriptions• Use keywords for file name & tags• Find related discussion groups &

participate• Search by topic, location

tags

discuss

Social Networking

• LinkedIn

• MySpace

• FaceBook

• Ning

• Groups, Forums & Mailing Lists

LinkedIn

• Set up a profile & start introducing yourself• Optimize your profile• Connect with people with like interests• People will also find you• Create a group• Can generate nice traffic to your site• Participate in Q&A section

MySpace

• Set up page

• Get friends

• Create call-to-action to your website

• Distribute viral campaigns to your friends

• Participate in forums

• Set up page

• Get friends

• Join Groups

• Create Events

• Private Message influencers & authorities

FaceBook

Ning.com

• Create a social network

• Find a social network to participate in (location, industry, interests, etc…)

Groups, Forums, & Mailing Lists

• Newspaper Forums • Craig’s List (community, discussion, etc…)• Yahoo! Groups• Google Groups• Freecycle.org• Meetup.com• Industry specific sites • Newsletter blasts from industry sites (some

organizations have 100,000’s of subscribers)

Social User Reviews• Join the community & participate• Write reviews & add friends• Build a solid reputation• Be careful if “self-reviewing” – be honest • Amazon.com (review similar products & include link to

your product)• Yelp.com• Yahoo Answers• Google Answers• YouTube• Fickr

On-Line Publicity Strategies

• Journalists are bombarded with hundreds of press releases per day

• On-line Press releases are often read by consumers

• Press releases are distributed via RSS • Getting your story “picked up” & re-written onto

a site is best• Indexed as “News” on search engines, so date

& time sensitive• Don’t send releases at the end of the week

Submitting a Press Release via Wire Service

• Releases distributed on the internet should be SEO

• Use wire services: PRweb, PRNewsire, & dozens of free wire services

• Some services are expensive

• Writing services available

Make Your Press ReleasesInteresting and Unique

• Integrate traditional & non-traditonal promotions

• Contests

• Give-aways

• Exclusive interviews

• Don’t forget to focus on your keywords!

Blogs

• Measure Chatter (Blog Pulse, Technorati, Google Blog Search)

• Contact target bloggers- influencial writers• Offer to ‘contribute’ to their blog & their

readers• Remember posts on a highly ranked blog can

potentially RSS to 10,000’s of readers per day

Google Alerts

• Sign up & monitor your keywords, including your name, film, & competitors

• Participate immediately if your name shows up in a forum, review, or other social site– especially for damage control

Website Analytics

• Track your progress.

• Where is your traffic coming from?

• What keywords were you found with?

• Long Tail & 80/20 rule

• Create content based on your entry point keywords & “search box” info

Viral Marketing

• Not easy- Most ideas or campaigns fail• Need a variety of campaigns• Widgets• Flash Games• Animation• Select clips from movie• Sneak previews to influencial bloggers• Ideas need to incorporate “Friend

Forwarding” messages

Viral Marketing Campaigns

• The Ramp (BMW)

• Saw II (Valentines Flash Video)

• Cloverfield (film release)

• The Office (ring tones)

• Brokeback Mountain (postcard message)

Recommend websites:

• www.SearchEngineWatch.com

• http://searchengineland.com/

http://www.SearchEngineWatch.com/



Hope is not a strategy



A Special Thank You to our Host:

If you need help with post production & color correction services, call Dino at: 917-338-7806

Thanks to my co-teacher:

If you need help marketing, distributing, or selling your film, call Josh Levin today at: 212-300-6086

For more tips on marketing & distribution your film, join our newsletter at:

www.MarketMyMovie.com

Need Distribution?

• DVD distribution to retailers• Netflix & Blockbuster Video sales• Public and Academic Library sales• Broadcast Licensing• Foreign Licensing and sales• Access to affordable DVD replication, packaging, and

fulfillment services

Passion River Films can help you with:

For more info, call or click today at: 732-321-0711 - www.PassionRiver.com

Thank You!

Film Marketing and Distribution Seminar

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