Producing : Lets discuss some marketing strategies by Elmare Hendricks

Hi, Elmare Hendricks. Some people are drawn to controversial topics, so a producer could make promo material that'll let people know their film explores a controversial topic.

How does one promote ANY short film?

Press kit, trailer, social media posts, behind the scenes photos.

Tie-in articles about your subject matter. Social media collabs with others in that topic or field.

Reviews or interviews on websites or podcasts for you genre or topic.

YouTube?

Perhaps think about the end result and see what the requirements are to get there. If it is controversial, you should be able to create some attention-grabbing graphics.

Depends on the topic. But one thing remains true. in order to garner views, all films need some type of marketing.

Well, I only ever made one short film. I used Instagram and it got over 28,000 views and I think around 100 comments. At the time, I was younger, and this project has since been completely re-developed. Still, I got a lot of eyes, and I will give basic marketing advice on how that worked, especially considering that 90% of that 28,000 audience didn't follow me at all. Half of them made funny of me for acting as a crazy character, some people were blown away and said it was incredible, and most just shared with their friends and had convos I'll never know about. Still, it was very clear I knew how to get people's attention with only a $1,000 budget. That was all that mattered.

First, my film explored a controversial topic, too: mental illness. With a controversial topic, you have a marketing cheat code. Controversy stirs up people; it gets their attention very easily whether they like it or not. And all you need to be a good marketer is the ability to get people's attention.

Second, once you have that controversial topic, you really need to be all in. I'm talking you need to have your own opinions on it and state it very boldly. It will make people uncomfortable because they don't like singular people who think they have big opinions and ideas, but people being stirred up and uncomfortable creates conversation, which creates community engagement, which drives views. And all you care about is people watching your film.

I could talk about it all day but the simple marketing advice and especially for something small is that it needs to be really loud and it needs to make good points for good people along with having some of your own, bold points that will get people upset. Yes, I said people need to be upset. Because, when they're upset, they're talking and they're doing it loudly, which is the whole point of promotion.

I'll give you a statistic: this country has 330 million or so people. If I sold something to 1 million people for 10 dollars, I made $10 MILLION!!! I'm good to go. But I also created something 1 out of 33 people like, which clearly means most people don't like my product. I'm a millionaire with 1 out of 33 though, so who gives a shit.

So, to sum it up, it's a numbers game, and you are being loud, explosive, memorable and you ignore the people who don't like it, but ALWAYS respond to them as the argument is your engagement and works even better than the people you are agreeing with. Just takes some time to get comfortable with so many random people coming at you.

Now next time you see me in an argument on here, you will understand why! lol I'm not mad in any sense, I am simply responding as every time I do, more people see my name and my opinions and that means there's a better chance somebody connected sees me too.

Be loud, put yourself out there (relentlessly), and when you get any sort of attention, talk to them, or argue, engage, just drive that engagement up. Your work will continue to be seen as long as people are talking.

Oh yeah and don't spend money on social media marketing unless you have thousands of dollars to spare. If you can buy attention, so can people with a lot more money than you, and they buy it much more of it, so you'd be wasting your money unless you're already rich.

All the points are very insightful and it will most definitely be something that is closed to the creators heart in order to navigate the storm of the controversy

One thing I hear a lot about controversial topics in shorts is to team up with a charity or foundation of some kind. My buddy did a short film about suicide and partnered up with a national suicide awareness campaign. That made it WAY easier to promote. I had another buddy do a short about police brutality, same thing, he teamed up with a charity fighting against systemic injustice and it made getting into fests WAY easier. It gives it an air of legitimacy.

Aaron Mirtes ^^^^^^ what he said is a fantastic idea. If it's mental illness and you need a foundation, I suggest NAMI, an organization I was a volunteer and speaker for about ten years ago. They have offices around the country and are very open to stories, especially from minorities. It's mostly minority represented in the company. But they took me, so they take everybody, too.

This is such a clever idea, Aaron Mirtes

Loving the insights being shared by everyone!