Independent filmmaking is a creative passion I love. Nothing beat the rush I get writing scripts and directing movies. I am a filmmaking junkie. When one movie wraps I’m looking for my next creative high. I head out looking for a money tree I can shake to produce my next movie. In tough financial times it’s very difficult to find money to make a indie movie.
Many indie filmmakers can relate to the story I am about to share. A few deals fell through for film funding leaving me without the backing to produce my next movie. Life is strange when it comes full circle. Before signing a distribution deal with Maverick Entertainment Group for Consignment co-producer Tim Beachum had a insane idea. At least it was insane to me. He made it possible to stream the first 10 minutes of Consignment online for free. A Virginia Beach based newspaper posted an article online about it. Seems there were not many indie filmmakers doing what we did. It worked out good, but it still took time for what Tim told me about SEO marketing for it to sink in and share with you.
Independent filmmaking success can be reached with SEO marketing. When I started producing movies I had a hard time looking at them as a product when they were done. My thinking has since changed. After a movie is done it needs to be handled like a well packaged and promoted product. I am not taking away from the creative art of making a movie. As a screenwriter and director I dig deep to put all I have into making movies.
It’s now crystal clear in mind that movies need to be marketed to viewers or they do not exist. The major brick walls facing many indie filmmakers is they lack a big marketing budget, the distributor they signed with can only do so much, or they are that sure how to use SEO marketing to promote their movie. I sure as hell didn’t coming out of the gate with my first movie. I thought Maverick Entertainment Group as the distributor releasing the movie would make a marketing push, so I laid back waiting for them to spread the word Consignment was a hot urban action movie people had to see.
It was a fast lesson that a movie distributor releasing hundreds of titles has only so many resources it can put into marketing. With staff salaries and overhead to meet they have to be fiscal. Bottom-line is they need to earn the most profit, so they dedicate as much of their marketing budget to hype movies that they feel have name actors or that “IT” factor. That’s just good old fasion business sense in motion. Maverick Entertainment Group has a platinum label to showcase their high profile releases. El Presidente Doug Schwab has earned his respect in the indie filmmaking community and has be kind enough to share a lot of solid insight on the business side of movie distribution with me. I see him as a cool older brother.
I started to pay attention to SEO marketing tools. Consignment Co-producer Tim Beachum has been involved in Internet marketing for over ten years strong. As for me I never gave SEO marketing a second thought because I was consumed with writing, producing, and directing indie movies. I regret coming out the gate I did not think about marketing them. Being an amigo Timbo shared with me what he learned from SEO kingpin Frank Kern. Marketing really started to make sense to me. I saw the boost SEO marketing could give indie filmmakers on how to promote their movies online without spending crazy cash. With people searching for so many different topics online it’s easy for your movie to go undiscovered. Unless you start using keywords and phrases to reach out to viewers about your movie. On YouTube the Consignment trailer has 15,000 views to date. That’s cool because being a grounded filmmaker it’s hard to imagine those people set out looking for the Consignment.
I was able to use the SEO advice Tim Beachum and Frank Kern (salud to these two guys). When uploading videos to hype your movie use keywords and phrases. That sounds like common sense, but when I first started uploading videos to promote my movie I only used the title of the movie as a keyword phrase. Not to savvy considering how often the word consignment is typed into a search engine.
When indie filmmakers use the core idea of SEO marketing they will have a better chance of success. The whole idea of making movies to have people watch them. SEO marketing can go a long away to helping reach that goal. Posting trailers using different keyword phrases will drawn in more viewers. Use your movie plot to help you come up with keywords and phrases that relate to viewers. You can’t rely on viewers finding your movie out of nowhere.