Search Engine Optimization and Independent Films: Mixing Technology with Art

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/02/how-digital-marketing-helped-avatar-break-the-box-office039.html

Film publicity has had many faces over the last century from posters lining busy streets, large glowing marquees in front of theaters, illustrated newspaper advertisements, and elaborate movie trailers. The advance of the Internet led to full trailers with extra features posted online and the utilization of social media to promote films. Filmmakers have taken digital marketing one step further by incorporating Search Engine Optimization or SEO into their marketing campaigns. A practice once reserved for products and businesses, SEO has enabled a film’s website to appear in relevant searches, and in an age where everything is online, it is vital that filmmakers master this discipline.

Independent films famously operate on limited budgets, often times inhibiting artistic expression. When filming is concluded, there is usually very little money left over to put towards marketing and advertising. If used properly, SEO allows a film’s website to rank high on relevant searches and effectively gain attention, virtually free of charge. According to Zach Coffman from the Sundance Film Festival, it also tells potential moviegoers that a site is trustworthy and legitimate by Google (or Yahoo and Bing) giving it their “priceless stamp of approval”.

In a separate interview with Marketing Pilgrim, Zack Coffman relays that the most important feature in using SEO to market a film is to fully understand whom the target audience will be and therefore what keywords they would input into a search. The nature of independent film involves a very focused audience and it is imperative that a site grabs and holds the attention of the viewer. If it fails to do this, the competitor’s website might. 

Finding the appropriate keywords that will grab the audience can be generated by a keyword tool such as Google AdPlanner or be purely instinctual. Knowing the audience and their searching habits is key and the rest, according to Brick Top Productions, is ensuring the words are evenly spread throughout the site and remain relatively masked so as not to confuse or overwhelm the reader.

The independent film industry is built on raising awareness and creating communities around a film based primarily on word of mouth or “buzz”. With more and more individuals choosing the Internet to view films, it is only natural they use the same medium to research, find interesting projects and talk about them as well. Staying creative and experimenting with new ideas and techniques is important for filmmakers to do when making their films and their marketing techniques should be no different. What makes this pairing special is that the freedom and creativity of online marketing tie closely with the spirit of the independent filmmaker.