A preface: I've worked on several webseries and work with people deeply involved in the webseries and transmedia community. The advice below comes from my own success and failures as well as those of others in the field.
Marketing is a big thing you will have to do for a webseries. Probably more so than a film. More about that later. Marketing is the one thing that few creators really think about. It is also sadly one field where professionals are reluctant to help out.
First some webseries general tips:
- Know your genre and play to the strengths of that genre. This will also help you know how to link the episodes.
- Do NOT try to just cut of a movie script into 5min chunks.
- Unless it is a comedy or episodes are loosely connected, each episode should end on a button. You need to have a little something to entice people to tune in next episode.
- Don't waste time. Every shot, scene, everything needs to keep the story moving. 5 min is not a lot of time.
- Don't be afraid to have longer episodes. This is especially true if your show isn't a pure comedy. As more people transition to online media they are willing to sit through longer episodes, provided the quality is high. I have no doubt yours will be.
- Make friends with other series creators and network. Cross promotion can do wonders for your shows & help you meet some very talented people.
- Listen to your audience! Let me say that again: Listen to your audience! They will let you know what is and isn't working. Don't just throw your show against the web and hope it sticks. Listen to and engage with your audience.
- Know it will take time to build a sizable audience. Many webseries take years to build an audience & some don't get a sizable number of viewers until after the show is over.
- Depending on the goal of your series, you may not want to limit yourself to a single distribution option.
- Look at joining organizations such as the International Academy of Web Television (http://www.iawtv.org/)
- Really Engage with the Audience. Simply saying thanks or a casual reply isn't enough. Ask questions. Answer questions. Lead discussions. And above all respect your audience & treat them well. Even if they are trolls be polite and move on.
Marketing your series:
You need to start NOW!
That doesn't mean you just throw up a webpage & jump on facebook. It means you start developing your marketing plan.
Below is a basic breakdown of the way you build a marketing plan. You can build the plan in a day or two. Implementing the plan will take longer depending on your resources, goals, & life-cycle of your product (show).
Step 1 - Where are You Now?
Identify the product or service offering
-What is the product/service?
-5 words to describe the product
-What is unique and meaningful about product?
Evaluate the Resources at Hand
-Who is involved in project?
-Who can get involved?
-Skills sets brought to table?
-Other Resources (equipment, contacts, etc.)
Determine SWTO: Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats and Opportunities for product
-Strengths: what good about product/what does if have to offer or going for it
-Weaknesses: what bad about product/what is it lacking or have going against it
-Threats: what outside forces can negatively impact product
-Opportunities: Areas for growth/improvement, ways to minimize threats and weaknesses.
Step 2 - Where are You Going?
Your Vision for Product
-What do you want people to think & feel about the product?
-How do you want people to interact with the product?
Business Objective
-What is the objective of the business?
-How does the product fit into that objective?
-What is the goal for the product?
-How do you tell when your product reached the goal?
Time line
-Create rough time line breaking it into pre-production, production, post-production, & release window.
Step 3 - How do You Get There?
Review
-Restate what the product is
-Restate where you want the product to go
-Identify if there are any new thoughts about the product
Identify the Target Audience for your product
-Who do you Want to view the product?
-Who do you think Will view the product?
-Who is your Ideal Viewer?
-What behavior do you expect from our Ideal Viewer?
-What does your Ideal Viewer like?
-What does your Ideal Viewer do online/where do they go online?
-What does your Ideal Viewer do offline/where do they go?
Identify the Target Markets
-In what markets would you find your Ideal Viewer?
-What markets can you reach?
Build the Brand
-What are you to the consumer?
-What are you compared to the competition?
-How should the product make people feel?
-What aspects of the product matter to our Ideal Viewer?
-What aspects of product do you want to push?
-What is the message?
- Combine information above to create brand.
Paths to Market
-How will the product itself reach the target audience?
-What distribution channels and methods will work?
Promotional tools
-Go over list of potential promo tools
-Identify the tools you like/want to use.
-Identify the tools most likely to engage your Ideal Viewer
-Cross reference the tools you like against those that will engage your Ideal Viewer.
-Evaluate which of these tools fit within your brand, goals, vision and budget.
-Determine market and distribution for each tool.
Product Time Line
-Begin to fill in the dates for pre-production
-Begin to fill in dates for production
-Begin to fill in dates for post-production
-Begin to fill in dates for product release
Promotion Time Line
-Create a secondary time line that shows when each promotional tool should be developed, produced and deployed.
-Work out the order for deployment of promotional tools that best reaches target audience.
Responsibility and Resources
-Identify who is responsible for developing each promotional tool.
-Identify who is responsible for producing each promotional tool.
-Identify who is responsible for deploying each promotional tool.
-Designate who will review promotional tools to ensure fit within brand.
Finally Review, Recap and Revamp as needed
The above will give you a guide to build your marketing plan. Most major marketing firms follow some variation of the above when creating a marketing strategy for a client. Starting your plan before shooting will allow you to identify ways to promote the product as you film and allow you to identify things within the product that while cool or interesting, may not really "fit"
Make sure in every bit of marketing and advertising you do you:
- Get Attention!
- Arouse interest and emotion.
- Tell an interesting story in a believable way.
- Offer an incentive to take action right away.
- Ask for action, and make it easy for people to do it. This is often referred to as a "Call to Action"
It is also important in marketing to remember that people are totally self-absorbed and selfish. The one question your audience is going to ask, out loud or subconsciously, when they see your advertising is: "What's in it for me?" If your advertising and marketing can answer that you will get their attention. Once you have their attention you want to ask them to do something and do it right away before their attention fades. This call to action needs to be simple, clear, and concise. If you want them to go to your video, then send them straight to your video. Don't send them to a page where they have to look for your video.
It also helps if you can are aware of the ad spiral and where your product fits within it. The three stages are Pioneering, Competitive, and Retentive. Exactly what stage or stages your product falls into depends on the individual consumer. Products tend to move from Pioneering to Competitive to Retentive to Pioneering and so on until the product fizzles or the market dies up.
The Pioneering Stage
Pioneering advertising usually involves showing the product, establish a need in the consumer's mind and then illustrate how the product will solve that need. Here the adverting will stress what the product can do, offer, or provide that could not have been done, offered, or provided by any product before. The purpose of advertising in the pioneering stage of a product's life cycle is to educate consumers about the new product.
You cannot assume consumers will change their habits and view your product simply because it exist. Advertising in this stage must implant:
-A new custom
-Change habits
-Develop new usage
-Cultivate a new standard of living
Most people do not create products consumers do not instantly want. This is especially true of online entertainment. They don't start out wanting your show. It is also important to understand that a product is usually not profitable in the pioneering stage. If you are successful, competitors will jump into the market and try to take market share. Usually the main advantage to being a "pioneer" is that you become the leader with a substantial head start over others.
The Competitive Stage
As the name implies, the Competitive stage is when there are other similar products on the market. adverting in the stage is used to showing how your product is better than your competitors. Your advertising here should:
-Communicate the product's position
-Differentiate the product from the competition
Basically you are telling the consumer why they should watch your show vs the hundreds of millions of other options they have.
The Retentive/Reminder Stage
Here the product as reached maturity and you are simply reminding consumers that you exist. The objective is to keep the brand name in front of the customer. Think most Coke or Pepsi commercials. In the Retentive stage very little information about the product is conveyed. Adverting in this stage tends to be highly visual. Note that very few advertisers ever consider a product solely in this stage.
For the most part you will be focusing on the Pioneering and Competitive stages, with more focus on the Competitive unless your show and format are truly unique (few shows are).
You will not want to introduce Retentive advertising until you have a few episodes out. Then it will be simple ads like "Check out the next episode of SHOW Tuesday at 10pm"
Retentive advertising should run along with Pioneering and Competitive advertising. An example of this would be posting a reminder to the show's Facebook page while posting a video trailer with show description here on Indietalk.
It also helps to know the main types of Marketing and how to utilize them.
The first is Direct Response Marketing
This is a form of marketing designed to solicit a direct response. The response should be specific and quantifiable. The response is directly between the customer and marketer. Typically this would be where a company has the customer call or visit (physical store or website) for the company. The most common use for film or series is to have the viewer go to the product's site or directly to a link to purchase the product.
Next is Branded Marketing
Branded Marketing is what most people think of when they think advertising. Branded advertising is largely a visual media. A branded advertisement contains either a company image, company logo, company colors, tag line, or a combinations of these The message should be easily recognizable and reinforce the company brand. Companies spend a large portion of their marketing funds to have easily recognizable brands and logos. For a film or series you will usually be reinforcing the name of the product or the production company (if it has any kind of brand recognition).
Next is Affinity Marketing
Affinity Marketing is basically cross promotion. The idea is that by linking complementary brands, both see a benefit. This is one area where more indie creators could capitalize on.
Last we have Guerrilla Marketing
Guerrilla marketing is much like Guerrilla film making. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are cheap, unique, engaging and thought-provoking. The idea is to to generate buzz using low cost creative strategies of marketing. Basic requirements are time, energy, and imagination and not money. Guerrilla marketing typically does little to draw new customers, but is good for retaining existing customers and those on a limited budget.
You may mix and match the various types of marketing mentioned above. They are not mutually exclusive. For filmmakers and series creators, you will want to do a lot of branded direct marketing. Lots of calls to action to visit your site, watch your show, etc.
Types of Advertising
What often comes up when talking advertising and marketing is the question of where and how to advertise.
Print Ads
- Newspapers - In the right market can be useful.
- Magazines - some genre specific ones can give good ROI
- etc.
Radio Ads
- Over the Air
- Satellite
- Internet
Television Ads - probably cannot afford it
- Commercials
- PSA
- Infomercials
- etc.
Direct Mailer
- Circulars
- Letters
- Postcards - cheap and easy way to let dedicated fans you care
- etc.
Outdoor Ads
- Billboards
- bus stops
- Benches
- Posters
- etc.
Point of Purchase Displays - if you have physical media to sell it is worth looking into
Sales Promotions
- Discounted price on DVD - good chance to move multiple films or cross promote with "buy my movie + hers & save 20%"
- BOGO
- etc.
Podcasting - an online show can help build an audience in your niche and let you hawk your wares
Vcasting - an online show can help build an audience in your niche and let you hawk your wares
Blogs - Not just for teenage girls or emo kids
- Internally generated (you write it)
- Internally hosted (Its on your site)
- Externally generated (someone else write it)
- Externally hosted (its not on your site, but you may have written it)
Mobile Messaging
Kiosks
- Interactive - requires some interaction from passer by
- Informative - people can just read it as they pass by
Trade Shows/Conventions/Festivals - very useful
- Submission - submit project to be shown
- Booth - pay for a booth and promote your brand
- Panels - get on a panel at a con and remember to plug your project
- General Attendance - show up and network and plug your stuff
Electronic Signage
- LCD displays
- Neon Lights
- etc.
Community Sites/Forums (hey we're on one now)
- Link posting
- Content generation
- Active Participation - the most useful as being a real contributing member gets more response than the one post "Hey Look at me" stuff
Social Networking Sites
- Advertising on social sites
- Product page/profile - yay show page
- Audience Engagement - talk with your audience in a meaningful way
- Announcements - use social media to push announcements about the product
Web Advertising
- Banner ads
- Ad words
- Site Backgrounds
- etc.
Videos - promoting moving pictures with moving pictures
- Teasers & Trailers
- Interviews - interview cast, crew, etc.
- Commercials - Like a trailer but where ask to buy the DVD or go see the movie
- Ancillary Video Productions - anything video wise from a viral type video to behind the scenes and making of videos
- etc.
Video Sites - posting content on sites and promoting the content on the site Some video sites will let you pay to be a promoted/featured video. Decent distribution method for promotional content
- Youtube - don't forget you can put a link to a show inside a video
- Vimeo
- Blip
- etc.
Image sharing sites - there are a lot of places to share your images from apps/sites like Instagram to myconfinedspace and more. The idea is to get images of your work out there for people to stumble upon
- Posters
- Screen caps
- Original Art
- Etc.
Web Sites - creating a site to promote the product
- Product Site - a site just for the product. Integrate a blog for better SEO
- Company Site - a site for the company behind the product, may link to product site or have subpage for product
- Lead Generation Site - a site not part of the company or product site, that delivers content that draws in people who may be interested in your product. For example a food company may create a recipe of the day site then list their products by brand name in the ingredients or use the sign up info for a direct email campaign.
Give-aways - people like free stuff
Press Releases - This is very important for getting free advertising by getting others to write about you for you.
Man on Street - such as a Person with sign on street or handing out fliers
Review Sites - get reviewed
Signature Advertising - this is when you advertise your product in your signature, usually via Email & Forum signatures
Email - collect the email of fans (willingly) and send them updates & reminders
News letters - doing a periodic newletter about a topic or your product can have a similar effect as blogging
- leave behind - physical news letter left at shops & restaurants
- mail - newsletter sent via post
- email - newsletter sent via email
Selective Product Give-aways - this is where you send Media Outlets, Celebrities, Reviewers, etc. stuff related to your product or a copy of the product itself.
Coupons - offer $5 off the dvd or digital download
Sponsorships - usually done on a local level, good if your customer base is local or you are sponsoring a big event
Philanthropy - Get company or product listed as a donor for a charity. You get advertising & get to help a good cause
- Breast Cancer walks - good if your project involves women's issues
- Animal Shelters - good if your project involves animals or the environment
- etc.
Events - hold an event in the name of your product
- Dinner and Dancing
- Premiere Party
- Fundraiser
- etc.
Ancillary Products - all things that you can sell or give away that complement your product
- Phone App
- Games
- Companion series
- Books
- Clothing & Apparel
- etc.
Vehicle Decoration
Guest Appearances
- Radio shows - many local shows like to feature local talent
- Talks shows - many local shows like to feature local talent
- Web Series
- etc.
Leave Behinds - these are things you leave places for people to see and take. Common ones are Business Cards, Pamphlets, Coaster...
People Placement - Think when "Borat" shows up at the red carpet or a guy wearing a shirt with your product name stands near a reporter during a live broadcast.
Word of Mouth - very important, not much you can do but be nice and offer a good product
Sorry for the long post. Hope the above helps.
: What are your marketing plans at this point?
