Film festivals need a lot of promotions & marketing to be successful. Want a full house? You need to use traditional and digital media. Word of mouth, sponsor engagement and mobile are as important. This post has my favorite ways to engage your film festival audience. These are great for other events and festivals, too!

1. KEYS TO BUILDING FILM FESTIVAL AUDIENCES!
Posted on March 2, 2015 by admin
How to build film festival audiences!
Keys to building film festival audiences! Film festivals need a lot of
promotions & marketing to be successful!
Here are my favorite keys to building film festival audiences:
 Email: Email is one of the most important marketing tools you
have to promote your film festival. According to a
recent McKinsey & Company study, email is still 40 times
more effective at acquiring customers than Facebook and
Twitter combined. The Austin Film Festival uses email for
direct communication to their audience. They see most of their
returns from dedicated email subscribers, and use an email
marketing platform to compare and report email performance.
 Social Media: Visual storytelling comes to us
naturally. Humans process visuals faster than they
process text. Considering our attention span is about 3.9
seconds long, presenting information as visuals just makes
sense.
1. Facebook and Twitter are the two most useful social media
channels for growing your audience. Facebook is more

2. conducive to marketing with information, whereas Twitter is
best for shoutouts, retweets and community engagement.
2. Instagram is good for brand building and photo sharing, but
it’s still a relatively small platform.
3. YouTube is great to post behind-the-scenes video content on
festival events throughout the year to keep people engaged.
4. Pinterest drives more traffic than Google+, YouTube &
LinkedIn combined. Mainly, the site now attracts women in the
age range 25-44 who love fashion, home decorating and
family related products. As it gains more of a following, this is
bound to change.
 Sponsorships and Partnerships: Sponsorships can be a
huge gateway to growing recognition and audience.
Partnerships with institutions, brands, and businesses can
bring additional value to your festival through in-kind donations
and exposure. Getting businesses and influencers to back
your festival where there’s a mutual exchange will build the
momentum and your reputation. Use this social currency to
expand your reach.
 One-on-one promotions: We’re bombarded by messages
every day. Community Engagement Committees are a
great way to engage with people directly, and bring your value
to them.
 Press-kits: I’m a big fan of press-kits. They ensure that
reporters, bloggers your audience and sponsors have what
they need. Key to success is an easy-to-find contact link and
phone number.
 Off-line promotions: Don’t forget newspapers, flyers, flags,
posters, presentations at community meetings and events,
cross-promotions with other festivals, etc.
I’d love to hear your suggestions for building film festival
audiences! If you’re interested in our CS&I Film Festival
PR/Marketing Template? Contact deborah@creative-si.com.

3. PS – Great for building special event and other festival audiences,
too!
This entry was posted in Marketing Communications, Social
Media, sponsorships and tagged email,Facebook, film
festivals, Instagram, local newspapers, Pinterest, press-
kits, social media,sponsorships, Twitter, YouTube by admin.
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