Marketing Tips for Short Films

Hello! In this blog post, I decided to get ahead and research on the marketing aspect of our project. Along with our short film, we are required to create a postcard and a website. Thus, I began to research important tips when advertising short films. In the article, "8 Incredible Ways of Promoting Your Short Films," it explained the importance of advertising projects effectively and efficiently in order for the audiences to want to view them. Thus, I chose three tips from the article that really stood out to me and would be helpful when creating our advertisements:

Tip #1 - The article mentioned that creating a website is one of the best ways to promote any project. Today, most films have their own websites in order for audiences to get updates about the film, behind-the-scenes footage of the actors, and be able to sign up as a member.

Below is an example of a website for a short film called “Curfew:”  

I liked how the homepage included an image from the short film along with the awards it has won. Furthermore, the website has various tabs that allow their audiences to view the cast and crew, current news about their film, and a trailer. I also noticed that they included their social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. They even offered access to IMDB and iTunes to purchase the short film. Thus, by looking at this example, it has helped me further understand what my group and I need to include in our website.

Tip #2 - Another important tip for advertising our short film is social networking. The article says that “social networking is the buzzword in promotion right now.” Thus, we should create a Twitter account and a Facebook page to keep our audiences up to date with anything that has to do with our short film. The article also mentioned that we could use the social media platforms to include milestone checks or countdowns to the launch day of our video. This will allow our audiences to feel involved with our production. Evidently, my group and I should create a few social media sites in addition, as it would be highly beneficial to promoting our short film. We will most likely use Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as our main platforms which can all be accessed through our website.

Tip #3 - Lastly, our postcard is most likely going to be handed out during film festivals. Thus, the article mentioned that film festivals is another great way to promote short films. There are dozen of film festivals that happen throughout the year, so we have the opportunity to register at whichever one. If our short film was registered, the next step would be researching on the movie critics and bloggers that will attend the festival. Then, we would email them a press release of our movie or a link to our website for the short film in order for them to learn more about it.

Overall, it has helped me greatly reading this article and going over the main promotional tools for short films. My group and I will definitely use this information to help us create an effective postcard and an interactive website that will be used to update our audiences with more information about our short film.  

Citations:

CHRISTENSEN, SHAWN. “Curfew (Short Film) - Official Website.” Curfew (Short Film) - Official Site, curfewfilm.com/.

Corteza, Jenny. “8 Incredible Ways of Promoting Your Short Films.” Raindance, 10 Mar. 2015, www.raindance.org/8-incredible-ways-of-promoting-your-short-films/.