How do you use publicity to promote your film? Ep68

Publicity & public relations for your film.  The week I'm talking to you about 

When to engage your publicist or PR person?
How do you attract media to promote your film?  
How do you attach a publicist or PR person?  
Do you need a PR person or can you do it yourself in-house?

Ultimately what I'm talking about here is -

How do you get your film the publicity it needs to cut through the noise and the over-saturated media landscape so that you get the visibility you need to get people to see your film?

So many questions - listen in and I'll answer them all.

Head over to www.moonshinecommunicationsacademy.com to find the Define Your Ideal Audience Course and many more resources for filmmakers. 

📩 Want to stay up to date with the latest? Head to www.thedocumentaryfilmmaker.com to join our weekly newsletter and get all resources to make you the best impact filmmaker in the business. 

Find & Follow The Documentary Filmmaker on social:
Website: www.thedocumentaryfilmmaker.com
Facebook:
Instagram: @TheDocumentaryFilmmakerPodcast
LinkedIn: Sue Collins [Host] || The Documentary Filmmaker [ Company Page]

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello fellow creatives. Welcome to the Moonshine Moonshot episode number 68 on making movies that matter. Today I am talking about something that is very important for the successful release of your film. It's something that you might think should happen right near the end, right when you finish post-production. But in actual fact, it needs your attention while you're still in production or in the beginning of post-production. Which is why I'm discussing it today because we are nearing the end of this part of the series where for the last month or so, probably two, maybe even three months, I have been talking all things production and production for documentary film. Today, the topic that you need to be thinking about is publicity. Yes, that's right, publicity, which is sometimes called PR. And let's just cover off first and foremost, what is the difference between publicity and PR? Because they're often spoken hand in hand, and it can seem like they are in fact the same thing. So think about it this way: publicity concerns presence in the media. It creates public awareness, it's promotion, it's used to attract the public's attention. Think radio, TV, print media, all your traditional forms of media. It's media coverage for your film to try and get people's attention so that they'll come and see your film. Whereas public relations, it sort of more involves a range of strategies that are trying to accomplish more organizational goals, say, for example, by sending messages to appropriate audiences. And it can happen over a much more extended period of time. And it involves things like digital marketing, press releases, media kits, media monitoring, event organizations, social media engagement, etc. etc. It's the whole kit and caboodle. So really publicity kind of sits within public relations as opposed to being the same thing. But for the purpose of this podcast, I am not going to get hung up on the difference between publicity versus PR. I simply am saying this so that you know that these two things work in the same area, but they are not the same thing. So that'll avoid your confusion if you ever get to the point where you're hiring a publicist or a PR person. When it comes to film release, you really need a combination of PR and publicity, in my experience, because you need to grow your audience many, many months in advance through things like social media, digital marketing, building email lists, creating your website, releasing teasers and trailers, perhaps some early press to help get stories started. And this to me feels more like a traditional PR type role based on those definitions that I explained. But when it comes to the actual release, you need publicity and you need lots of publicity. You need as much publicity as you can possibly get. So how do you do that? How do you attract media to promote your film? And how do you attach a publicist or a PR person? Ultimately, what we're talking about here is how do you get your film to cut through all of the noise and get over all the saturated media landscape that surrounds us every single day so that your film gets the visibility needed to get people to engage with your film and go and see your film. So let's start with why do you need to get into this during production? Now, if you've been following along with this podcast for a while, you'll probably recall, and if you don't, you can jump back to episode 52 where I talked all about building your film's website and social media platforms. Now, if you haven't done it yet, it is not too late, and that's why I raise it again, because all that work to start building your audience on social media and email is an absolute goldmine for you for when you get to the part where you want to market your film when it's released, when you really want to activate that network, those audiences, and get them along to see your film. So even though you're probably thinking, oh my gosh, building a website and all the social media platforms, building those, it is such a time-consuming thing. And you're not wrong, it is definitely time consuming, but so worth it. So, so worth it. You know, I've released about 10 films, you know, in the past 10 years. And the better the social media has been, the better the outcomes the film has had. So I can't stress to you enough how important it is to really figure out who your audience is and start nurturing them as early as possible. And if you need some extra help with that, don't forget I did create the whole course over on the Moonshine Communications Academy called Define Your Ideal Audience. And in that, it goes really in depth, not just on how to figure out who your audience are, but figuring out, you know, well beyond the, you know, the typical kind of demographics of age and jobs and all of that kind of stuff, but it goes way deeper into teaching you how to actually figure out what they think and how they feel, their worldview, and how you can really engage and connect with them to really nurture them so that by the time you get to release your film, they're gonna want to see it. So, from a publicity perspective, why would you need to be doing this so early, either in production or early in post-production? Well, a big part of it is that you've got to find a good PR person or publicist. We recently launched a new film, Live the Life You Please, across Australia, and our usual publicist wasn't available. Luckily, we figured this out quite a few months in advance, so we still had time to recruit a new PR person to the campaign, and we were able to do that. It wasn't easy, I've got to say, it wasn't easy to find someone, not just because good publicists are few and far between, but also because the topic for that film, which was about end-of-life care in Australia, so it's a tough topic. And a lot of the PR people just fufooed it before they even thought about it. So it was even more challenging than you would normally think to find a PR person because we actually had to find someone who genuinely believed in the content of the film. And so once we'd actually overcome that hurdle and found somebody suitable, they needed time because publicists or PR people, they will always want a day and date release to pin all of the publicity around. So thinking about things like the day your film goes out into a cinema, you know, that's a day and date launch. So that's good. But you can also tie your launch, and you've probably thought about this way back in your planning, so that, you know, you've got time to figure out all of these campaign elements. But for example, we've released films on World Cancer Day, which is a topical day, and Live the Life You Please, which I just mentioned, that went out during Palliative Care Week, National Palliative Care Week here in Australia. So it was topical, it was giving the media something to latch on to, day and date really, really help drive the campaign around your launch. So once you've kind of figured that bit out, the day and date that you're going to launch, your publicist is going to work backwards. And for things like your traditional print magazines, they need a lot of long lead time. They can often need three to four months and sometimes even six months for some publications. So if you want to get your story into, you know, Women's A Weekly, or, you know, it depends on the topic of your film, obviously, what's going to be suitable, but they need lots of lead time. So you need to be able to engage your publicist really early so that they've got time to pitch to all these publications. And that's another thing, too. When it comes to pitching, there's a whole lot of materials that you're going to need, and you need time to get those prepped well in advance of your release. But radio and TV, especially the news, they generally only need a couple of weeks or even just a few days to get a story up and on air. So, you know, even though some things are really long laid times, some things only need a week. So if you're right at the end and you're about to release and you haven't done any of this pre-marketing, don't stress too much because you will still be able to pick up some forms of media. Now, you may also have a broader approach, and I would definitely encourage this. So I would think of loads of different angles for your film and for the pitch that you can make. Because you also want to think about this when you're actually getting your recruitment done for your PR person. Are they someone who can think out of the box a little bit? Because, you know, for the one that I was talking about before, it was around palliative care, end-of-life care in Australia. So that was the lead sort of angle and story. But there were so many other stories that linked off of that. Things like, you know, local production company has film on end-of-life care launching in 55 cinemas nationally. Now that's that's a pretty big story for film magazines in Australia because that's unusual. That's not something that happens all the time. Documentaries, firstly, don't often go out for theatrical release. That it was on end of life care and it was going out theatrically, there's a story. So, do you see what I mean? You've got to think of lots of different angles because different publications and different um magazines, different radio stations, different podcasts, they're gonna have different audiences and different interests. So you've got to think about how you can get them engaged in the topics that relate to your film to get that foot in the door to get them talking about your project. So when you're speaking to your PR people, your potentials, make sure you kind of quiz them in a way where you can get a sense of how good they are at coming up with different angles, different pitches, and being quite creative with the way they approach actually talking about your film. You could be doing podcasts as a guest, for an example. You could be doing that for months ahead of the lead up to the release of your film. You can be talking about your project behind the scenes, you could be talking about, you know, all kinds of things to do with your film. Podcasts are a really great way to get news of your project out there and build buzz, particularly in when it's coming up for release and getting the word out as much as you can. And they're also great ways to get people onto your mailing list. So, for example, if you did a podcast and you said to everyone, hey, we haven't quite figured out our release date yet, but if you're really excited about this project, come and jump on the mailing list so that we can tell you about it as we come up for release. And then they jump over to your website, stick their name in a box, and then you've got them. And then when your film's, you know, nearly ready to release, you've got an audience to send an email newsletter and tell them, hey, you can go and buy tickets now. So that's a really simple way of building an audience ahead of release. Now, one of the earlier questions that we talked about was how do you attract media? Well, frankly, with a good story and lots of visuals. Now, I mentioned this before, but you're gonna need lots of assets to provide to the media. So your press kit becomes incredibly important. So you need a really good press kit with lots of quality images. You want bios in there, you want links to videos, you want anything that makes it easy to publish your story because you know everything online's super visual. So if you can give them really beautiful production stills to go with your story, they're already interested because the you've done a lot of the hard work for them. You know, other other publications they might want to come and do a photo shoot shoot and have unique images and all the rest of them. That's fine, but you need to have a really, really good press kit, and that's going to help you a lot when it comes to pitching to the media. Our team here at Moonshine Agency actually had a really successful run with our release of uh Live the Life You Please that I was mentioning, because the team here were incredible. They reached out to all the regional media in the areas where we had screenings. So if there was a cinema running the film, we'd look at it and we'd say, okay, what radio stations, what newspaper are in this regional area? Uh, where's the film playing? How do we reach all those networks, all those audiences that might be interested? So beyond your traditional, you know, Facebook advertising, we just went direct. We went to all the organizations who might have an interest in the film topic, and we shared easy-to-post details with them on the upcoming screening. They published newsletters, they put it in staff lunchrooms from our poster with a flyer, local bowling clubs did that, libraries, public notice boards. We got onto every possible what's on e-news for every municipality in Australia, pretty much. Anywhere you can think of, in it generated in traditional media, over 140 pieces of published media, and the countless social posts and e-newsletters and things that went out as well. And that just fanned the flames for a really successful theatrical release for us. So that's I highly recommend you just do that real grassroots work because it is just going to fan the flames and get your film in front of the audiences you're trying to reach. So the I guess the last question is how do you find a good publicist or PR person? You know, honestly, ask around. Get recommendations from other filmmakers you know who've worked with publicists, get their opinions, talk to them about the things that worked and didn't work. You know, hire another option, actually, not just hiring an outsourced publicist, but if you've got the budget, you could hire someone to work in-house with you, which is what I was just talking about with our team here at Moonshine Agency doing all of that direct groundwork, which made a massive difference. If you get someone with good skills on the phone and that can write a good email, if you've got a good press kit, you've given them all the materials they need, they can just get out there and just be your own little in-house publicist right from the get-go. So, you know, I'd highly recommend you think about that. I hope that's got you thinking about PR and publicity for your film. And perhaps now you understand why it's important to get into this during the production phase and not leave it right to the end. And if you start doing it now, you're gonna have time to build a really solid audience base and create that network while your film is still in post-production. You can get people super excited about the fact that it's coming soon. And then when you hit go on your release, you're gonna have a warm audience out there ready to jump in and go to the cinema and see your film. So get into it. Start promoting the heck out of your film right away in any way that you can. Get people excited, build the online followings, and when you do go down to release that film, you are gonna be so surprised by how many people are really wanting to see your film. So I hope that's helped. I hope that's got the creative juices flowing when it comes to publicity and PR. I will be back next week, and I think next week I might talk a little bit more about how to nurture your audience in the lead up to releasing your film. So don't hesitate to hit subscribe on whatever platform you are on. And I strongly recommend you go back and listen to a few of the other podcasts that I've done, like episode 52 on how to get your website going. These things are super important and they will really help get your film out into the world and be a huge success. So get out there, make your movies that matter, and I will speak to you again next week.