The A-B-C of Marketing a Low Budget Film in India

Current Market Scenario: India’s M&E industry is one of the fastest-developing in the country, driven by changing consumption patterns, increasing middle-income households. Making the most out of a film released in India is seen as a challenge due to a variety of reasons – “Lesser number of screens, low frequency of film viewing, and even too many films released“. Small-budget niche films with high-quality scripts have recently gained acceptability among mainstream audiences. Strong content and word-of-mouth marketing have helped studios to generate high returns. Competitor Analysis: 1.    Strengths

- The growing middle class with higher disposable income.
- Change in the lifestyle and spending patterns of the Indian masses on entertainment.
- Technological innovations like online distribution channels, web-stores, multiplexes.

2.    Weaknesses

- The Media and Entertainment sector in India is highly fragmented.
- Lack of cohesive production & distribution infrastructure, especially in the case of music industry
- The lack of efforts for media penetration in lower socio-economic classes.

3.    Opportunities

- Rise in the viewership and the advertising expenditure.
- The nascent stage of the new distribution channels offers an opportunity for development.

4.    Threats

- Piracy, violation of intellectual property rights poses a major treat to the Media and Entertainment companies.
- Lack of quality content has emerged as a major concern because of the ‘Quick- buck’ route being followed in the industry.

6P’s of Film marketing

1)   Product: A well-researched script with a well-woven screenplay
is where the core of the film-marketing strategy for a
film should be invested.

2)   Placement: There is a complete media-mix that should be put into
place usually 15% to 25% of the production cost of the
film is invested into the marketing of the film.

3)   Positioning: The time-consuming and highly complex ordeal of pin-pointing the target- audience is something that a good film marketer should take care of in the conceptualization stage.

4)   People: The build-up should be such that there should be enough
flurry of activity that will catapult the audiences into the character of the film even before they see the film.

5)   Public relation: There should be a strategic focus on public relations for the film, both media and non-media public relations play an important role in the success of the film. 6)   Partner brands: The successful integration of product placement within the film’s storyline has a long history: the first example being the yellow Rajdoot bike used in Raj Kapoor’s Bobby. Channel Mix and suitable promotion campaign Create a buzz using social media

- Set up specific Facebook, Twitter and YouTube sites for the film.
- Update followers of the latest news, developments and teaser clips
- Get friends and family to support the sites and ask them to ask their friends to promote.
- Sites like Twitter make it easier to network and to contact people who may be able to create a wider awareness.
- Spread the word and be responsive to any emails or messages that come your way.

Create a buzz via the film’s website

- Creating a website for the film.
- Upload a teaser video and do a series of short snippets uploaded at regular intervals to give visitors to a feel of film.
- All the relevant information about the film, i.e. : release date, how people can see it, biographies about the people involved and contact details.
- A mailing list that can reach the people who want to see it and so contact details on a database to be stored.

Promotion In TV serial and ads

- Daily television serials nowadays have gone a step further by playing host to movie stars who are promoting their movies by incorporating.
- Film integrations in many ways benefit both, the film and the television show as it also provides an opportunity for television shows to create a special event increasing TRP.
- As a part of the promotional activities for movie, public debates can be organized in five cities on the burning issue of the film. This can be aired in news channel. The cast of the movie can also be part of the debates"I keenly follow the strategy and the constant innovation of companies in the Marketing, Information Technology sector "- Raghavender Sridhar, PGPM -MDI,Gurgaon

Read other stories by Raghvendra at http://strategymarketing.insideiim.com/ His Stories include- Digital Marketing of a Product-5 Trends Nokia's New X series without Windows- What does it mean?