Who is your audience?

In my post today, I want to address one of the biggest mistakes that new directors and producers make. Instead of thinking WHO is going to watch whatever I make, they assume that EVERYONE will watch whatever I make – that’s a big mistake. For example, let’s start with “Everybody”

As of this writing there are nearly 8 billion people in the world. That’s everyone and that’s a lot of people to market to. We’ll have to assume you don’t have a Coca-Cola sized marketing budget so let’s narrow that down to …? That’s what this guide is for. This article will help you to focus on who your perfect customer is and how to connect with them in a very general sense.

I Already Shot My Movie, Now What Do I Do?

Did you shoot your movie and now you are trying to figure out where it fits in the marketplace?

This is something that really should be decided before you finish your film, before you shoot, before … well, ideally you should know who your audience is when you are developing the project. As many have said before, “Begin with the end in mind.”

Here’s the thing, you are not the first filmmaker dealing with this and you certainly won’t be the last. Filmmakers, seemingly by their nature, tend to make the movie and then try to figure out who is going to watch it.

I’m going to give you a short course in figuring this out because if you haven’t up to this point then you really really need to.

Demographics

Okay, here we go:

Imagine yourself sitting in an empty room with a stool on the opposite side of the room. Now imagine a person sitting in that chair. That person is a generalization of who your perfect customer is (or in this case audience member is). Stereotype them! Yes, I know I just stepped on a hot button word but do it. It’s okay in marketing because you want to work from that perfect base. Imagine that person and then make note of the following things.

First we are going to go through demographics:
1) How old are they?
2) Race
3) Income level
4) Geographic location
5) Gender
6) Marital status
7) Educational level

Psychographics

Got it? Good (hopefully). Now you need to think of that person in action, that perfect customer, how do they respond to certain things, situations, beliefs, etc. These are called Psychographics (you can also delve into psychometrics if you want to go deeper down the rabbit hole):
1) What is their social status?
2) What are their values?
3) Beliefs?
4) Interests?
5) Personality?
6) Lifestyle

Got all of that? Great. Now take that information that you have gleaned: What these people do everyday, where they go, what they buy, what they listen to, etc. And now you have a marketing direction.

Use that to build your targeted marketing plan and make sure that you aren’t just looking where YOU would go but where your perfect customer would go to find your film.