HOW TO TELL THE PRESS ABOUT YOUR FILM AND WIN…
Two truths that filmmakers completely ignore: firstly, films are made to be seen, and secondly, no-one is going to ask to see your film unless you tell them about it. You’re either making or have made a film, but you need people to see it. Press and press-related publicity can do wonders for bringing attention to your film, but who are the press and how should you approach them?
Today, the definition of ‘press’ is thankfully blurred. Whereas once we had institutionalised, homogenised and fairly closeted newspapers and audio-visual media, we now have a huge selection of bloggers, websites, webseries, podcasts, free magazines and social media commentators all starving for content specifically tailored to them and their audience. You need these people to help you get your film noticed, not just when it is released – and here we need to draw the distinction between how to talk to the press and how to get your film reviewed – but also throughout any pre-release campaign. Fortunately, the press need you to provide them with a story. If you know your film’s target audience (and you should!), you can provide the relevant press outlets with something that interests their readership/viewership and promotes your film.
Let’s start with another truth: all publicity is good publicity, but nobody likes spam. You should NEVER send an email or letter or tweet to a press organisation begging for promotion. I’ve seen too many of these in my time from filmmakers and it needs to stop. Begging doesn’t work, it doesn’t build a relationship but destroys a potential one. Relationships and knowledge are key here. Research a press outlet before contacting them, discover what marketable elements of your film appeal to their content and subscribers. Find out if you know anyone on the staff – are they on Twitter, do you know a mutual acquaintance professionally or personally – who you can contact directly. You need to tailor an email just for them.
Here are three things you must do in your email:
1) Always offer a reward
I like getting something for free. Everyone does. I like it even better when someone gives me something that I know is going to benefit me professionally. So think of your email as offering an exchange: you give the press outlet something, they give you promotion for your film. Some of them just want a story (see below) whilst others will want a little extra. Tickets to your premier or a DVD are not good enough rewards for printing a story about you film, and are patronising at best – the outlet wants copy, and they want good copy. Can you give them an insight into their given subject? The opportunity for their readership or community to grow through debate? The promise of further content? Perhaps even cross-promotion? Here’s where you need to identify the ‘story’.
2) What are you giving them?
Often I receive communications that tell me about a certain project in a flat and uninspired manner. For a journalist, the statement ‘I’ve made a film and I’d like you to look at it’ isn’t a story. It’s garbage. You need to go back to your hooks and align them with what you’ve learnt about that press outlet. What do their subscribers want to read/hear/see? Can you give them that with any aspect of your film? Think about all stages of production, the unique content of your film, the people involved, the source material, the distribution method. Ask yourself, why would this outlet be interested in my product? If you can back your answer up withbona fide evidence (links, images, anecdotes), then you’ve got the right outlet.
3) Structure is everything
It would be too easy for me to offer you a copy-and-paste template of a good press-orientated email. It would also be very irresponsible. In this series of articles, I want you to understand that your independent film’s future lies in the work that your willing to put into it. Any email you send needs to be individually crafted for each press outlet. Obviously, you can use the same email for similar websites or magazines, but overall you need to structure any correspondence uniquely around the offer of the reward. Include some history of yourself and the production that is only relevant to the reward, and state the reward clearly and succinctly twice within the email – at least once, you should pitch it to them as a question (‘Are you or your readership of marine biologists interested in a documentary film about giant squid?’) to sell the lie that you don’t know your rewarding them.
(I will give you this for free: always sign off by suggesting you will be contacting them ‘later in the week to answer any questions’. It puts the fear of God into most journalists…)
Finally, most of you reading this will be shocked to realise that by ‘press’ I am not referring to film reviewers or film bloggers. Press are people who might be interested in passing on a certain aspect of your film, as you should be aware by now. They are not interested in your movie, only an element of it. It is your job to identify every element that you can exploit – and I talk about this at length in my article on identifying your target audience – and then to identify the press outlets (online, in print, etc) that will be interested. Throughout the entire stage of market research, you should be building up countless links and bookmarks of such outlets who you can approach.
But when is the earliest you can start contacting them? When you have a good story that will interest them. Contact the right people at the right time, and maintain contact when newer stories arrive. Even if they ignore you. (I’m of the opinion that you should only ever stop contacting a press outlet when they tell you to!). Remember, a lot of good publicity comes from relationships and knowledge. If you can offer a solid hook that appeals to an outlet’s market, you can build a relationship with that outlet throughout your filmmaking process and beyond into distribution. But you need to be consistently personal in your correspondence with them, concise in what you are offering the outlet and why they should run this story, and confident in the face of non-communication.
