Here are the ways you can maximise on marketing and advertise your next film

 Artists and filmmakers, we can be honest with ourselves here. Marketing and sales is not our strong suit by default. Even with our producers there’s always seems to be this ick about promoting our short films for a lot of reasons. The main reasons I can pick out are to potentially coming off as a shill or a sellout, fearing that doing so can turn off our potential audience and people that surrounds us, thinking that word of mouth alone is enough and that by some miracle that doesn’t involve the actors or the director or the cinematographer that our short film will be most popular around the world amongst the rest . Another big potential reason is this air of cynicism that no one would be interested in seeing our films except fo other filmmakers or these small, niche groups of people who tend to go to film festivals; that your film has no place in a commercial sphere. This is especially true for filmmakers with their short films.

However, the reality is that without some form of marketing budget or plan in place with your short film, with the exception of applying to “insert film festival name here” then your short film will only be known by a few people at best and will get lost within this ever expanding pool of other short films being produced around the world. Now I’ll also give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you’re a first time indie filmmaker that is actually enthusiastic about getting your short film seen and known across the globe but not sure or confident in how to effectively do it or what the best methods are due to not being well informed in films school or whatever. In these cases, not to worry. I had the same concerns before I started on filming my first short film FULL CIRCLE. A majority of what I learned was from Alex Ferrari’s book “rise of the filmtrepeneur” as well as being an avid listener to his “Indie Film Hustle Podcast”, along with first hand anecdotal accounts of implementing these techniques you’ll know later on in this blog.

Here are the essential ways to maximise your marketing for your short film(s);

Know Your Audience

This is an imperative to know and learn for your productions here on out as every film and every genre caters to some sort of niches or even a group of niches. Trying to cater to most amount of people possible that is limited to a specific genre or two is only applicable to big budget features that already are already popular like the marvel cinematic universe or Disney due to having million and millions available in their advertising budgets and for being in the game for nearly a century. The trick for short films to have a fighting chance to get seen by people is to answer this question “Who is this film for?” It’s not enough to just say yourself. What would help is to analyse your script and uncover what key identifying features are present in your script, genre and plot, then correspond to existing or emerging niches that exist in this world. Here’s a personal example. For my short film FULL CIRCLE is about an assassin on the job who only realises something’s wrong when it’s too late. It was colour graded into black and white and the genres it fits into are noir, action and drama. My audience from my analysis were people who are interested in the following;

• Noir films
• Black and white videography
• Hitman/assassin lore (from Hitman game series to Assassin’s creed series)
• Femme fatale characters
• Australian short films
• Bloody scenes
• Experimental and artistic
• Short films
• Guns
• Action
• Drama
• Spies

That’s 12 niches I identified that I also marketed my short film to. Doing this will give a clearer direction in who are the right audiences for your short film and will be most receptive/loyal to your future productions.

Have a budget for social media ads

This may sound obvious but I stress this as it’s essential for any project, for any production no matter the scale or type of film. Think about it. How else is anyone going to know outside elf your cast + crew that your short film exists. In any other project in any other business in any other industry, there are marketing budgets for brand awareness, otherwise they would go bankrupt or they would be rejected by every single investor before they could pitch their start up. For all films, including short films it’s no different. Luckily, more than ever before we have a wider reach of people to promote your short films thanks to the vast internet and social media where instead of the olden days you were limited to word of mouth, local film festivals and marketing firms that are out price range for the average indie filmmaker. Nowadays you can set the budget to virtually any capacity affordable in your budget. Here are the social medias you can place paid ads onto or to boost posts for wider promotion;

1. Facebook 

• Posts =  min: $2 per day - max: $500 per day 
• Ads = min: $2 per day - max: $200 per day 
• Stories = min: $2 per day - max: $500 per day 

Days = min: 4 - max: 36

2. Instagram

• Posts = min:$2 - max:$1000 per day
• Reels= min:$2 - max:$1000 per day
• Stories = min:$2 - max:$1000 per day

Days = min: 4 - max: 36

3. Linkedin = min: $350

Days = min: 4 - max: 31

4. X/Twitter = min:$20 - max:$8000 per day

Days = min: 1 - max: 30

5. Tiktok = min:$20 - max:$74,000 per day

Days = min: 1 - max: 7

6. Tiktok Ads manager = min:$50 - max:$10,000,000 

Days = min: 1 - max: 364

7. Google ads =  min:$2 - max:$1000 per day

Days = min: 1 - max: 364

8. Reddit = $20-$10,000 per day

Days = min: 1 - max: 364

Create a marketing plan within your production at the start

It’s essential to maximise the marketing and economic advantages early on in your filmmaking progress, as boring and icky it night sound to creatives. Let’s make an analogy here. If we view a film production akin to a startup venture, then any businessman worth their salt would do their research and planning on how to sell and showcase their product/services in the most efficient way possible. It would be a display of great ignorance to skip this step or overwrite it due to lack of interest based in its antithetically practical nature compared to creativity that naturally comes to filmmakers. It’s all well and good to come up with a great and cool narrative, setting and maybe even a message underlying your film idea; after all, it’s the whole basis to filmmaking. However, marketing despite its recent lazy and borderline cynical, sleazy undertones in modern examples at its very core is just a way to tell the masses “Hey! This cool thing exists, this can benefit your life in this way, you like it?, here it is available for $X amount”. Marketing if done right and ethically is not a dirty word in my opinion.

Create Behind the scenes Content

You know how common this is right know growing with indie fans bug budget productions showcase what went on into making their films. This can garner interest and some educational insight for your audience to see the journey through and through your short film production. You can also in tandem release it onto your social media platforms across the board for maximum exposure as well as help you identify your potential audience for your short film at a deeper level.

Create unique content related to your short film

One interesting route is to create a certain type of content that’s related to your primary short film or production. One example is a short documentary of mine about a middle aged bodybuilder that’s also a stay at home mom. We created a cooking video detailing and cooking recipes in her book containing dishes she ate during her training period. This in tandem will help drive traffic to the short documentary once both are finished and uploaded for my audience.

Use indirect or unconventional methods to promote your short film

There are many, many ways to promote or showcase your film than ever before and it never hurts to think outside the box when it comes to getting the word out. Her are some ideas if you’re struggling to come up with examples;

. Podcasts = They have been booming in popularity since 2017 and have exponentially been listened to around the world since the global lockdowns during 2020-2022. There are ever-growing amount of podcasts existing around the world with each one fitting into multiple interests/genres, from filmmaking to medical podcasts. It would be wise to not just research and contact on filmmaking podcasts, but also podcasts who entire theme aligns with any niches/genres your short film fall under. My suggestion would be to listen to a few podcasts you’re interested to feature in, then try to contact them via insta DM or even better, email if you can, then see which ones are interested in interviewing you about your short and go from there. For filmmaking podcasts, I’ve developed a list here to save you the trouble and time. For other themed podcasts, Feedspot is a good source. Happy hunting.

. PR Firms/Radio stations = Just like in big budget films, there are PR firms around the world that specialise in promoting and exposing independent films, no matter the project and budget level.  I’m also currently compiling a list of PR firms and radio stations around the world that specialise in film marketing and PR. Stick around for that soon.

. Merch = Yeah, you heard me. Indie filmmakers reading this might be turned off on this prospect due to uncertainty, no knowledge on how to make Merch online or may think it maybe a tacky and unfit decision to associate with your genre of short film production. Those can be understandable reasons but almost any film production, whether is a feature, short or even a documentary can attach a type of appropriate Merch such as the universal tactic of putting a films poster on a T-shirt and further spread the word by selling online or even in person. I did this with my first short “FULL CIRCLE”. Some good drop shipping sites like Printful, Printify or shopify are good Print on demand sites to use if you want to have a crack at it with a wide range of customisable apparel/accessories.

. Blogs/Articles = I know I sort of covered blogs and articles in my short film monetisation blog but they’re also a great way to further spread the word about your short film in text form to your audiences. Many filmmakers I personally know kinda sleep on blogs since they think its reserved for awkward fan fiction you’d find on Tumblr or were a passing online trend sometime in the 2010’s but died out. Rest assured people still like to read and potentially hear about your short film with would further grow and funnel your personal audience for your shorts in the near future. These are the blog sites I’d recommend;

• Medium
• Substack
• Wour own blog form on your own website
• Patreon
• Buy me a coffee
• Blogger
• Tumblr

I hope these ideas help you in your next short film productions. Any feedback ,no matter how positive or negative are most welcomed.