Filmmakers are already reaping the rewards of data-driven target marketing.

But what exactly is this relatively new form of marketing and how is it able to benefit moviemakers?

In this article, we are going to explain how data-driven movie marketing works and show how it can benefit movie productions of all sizes.

Let’s get started.

Big Data

We live in an ear of ‘big data’.

In effect, this means that we each produce massive amounts of digital data on a daily basis.

Thanks to the advent of devices such as smartphones, tablets, PC’s, and ‘wearables’ such as the smartwatch, each of us is essentially a mass data creator.

There are now in excess of 2.5 billion smartphones in the world. This works out as roughly 1 in 3 people globally. Even more have access to PCs, ‘dumb’ phones and someone else’s computer device.

All this has led to an incredible amount of data being generated per day.

“There are 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day at our current pace. Over the last two years alone 90 percent of the data in the world was generated.”  – How Much Data Do We Create Every Day? The Mind-Blowing Stats Everyone Should Read.

The power of this data is enormous.

By developing sophisticated big data analytics tools, companies were able to start using this data to identify user’s trends and preferences.

Companies such as Netflix and Sofy.tv actually made their names off the back of understanding what their users wanted. Both developed sophisticated movie recommendation tools that took all the hard work out of finding films to watch.

Such systems only improved in accuracy as more and more data was collected. This highlighted one of the huge strengths of big data, the more you have, the more accurate you can make your predictions.

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What is Data-driven targeted marketing?

Targeted marketing using big data operates in much the same way as any data analytics.

A bid data company will set about obtaining large pools of relevant data.

In regards to movie marketing, this could be anything from movie theater ticket sales for specific countries to feedback scores off sites such as IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. Other data pools might be movie scripts, film breakdowns, and marketing strategies, etc.

Once a company has all this lucrative data, it must develop a set of algorithms that can be used to identify trends.

These trends can be literally anything.

One example could be comparing the number of stars in the movie vs. gross. Another could be identifying parts of movies where viewers had switched off and comparing this data with feedback to establish what is ‘undesirable’ content so far as certain audiences are concerned.

Provided a company has the data, literally any variables can be analyzed in an attempt to identify trends.

The Steps:

  1. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of a movie is always the first step. These variables could be anything from the star power of the lead actors, the commercial appeal of the genre/script, etc. Provided that the film does not have any weaknesses so far as the target audience is concerned, then it is ready to be marketed.
  2. Identifying the target audience allows marketers to use their data pools to establish the best ways to market the movie to them. This will include everything from how the trailer is put together to identifying the best ways (social media pages etc.) to target ads/trailers at them.
  3. Getting the audience onboard simply involves assuring that the targeted ads have hit the mark. By monitoring things such as page impassions and even sending targeted questionnaires, marketers can now be sure whether their campaigns are working
  4. Making real-time adjustments is another massive bonus of using big data. Since companies are able to analyze data so quickly, they are able to see almost instantaneously what strategies are working and what are not.

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How data-driven targeted marketing benefits moviemakers

It is important to dispel a common myth when it comes to data-driven filmmaking, namely that it is too expensive for independent movie productions.

Filmmaker Eli Roth was one of the first to dispel this myth when he used targeted marketing for his film The Green Inferno. Roth was able to massively increase the effectiveness of his small marketing budget and boost the movie gross simply by targeting his ads.

Soon, other moviemakers were scrambling to follow his lead.

The problem for filmmakers was a lack of specialist companies that dealt in data-driven marketing.

Fortunately, in the last few years, this has changed. Dedicated companies such as Largo Films now offer extremely reasonably priced rates to turn their big data analytics to movies.

While such a service is still not cheap, the potential boost to the final gross often more than covers any initial expense. In fact, it often dwarfs it, as data on Largo Films’ website attests too.

By allowing movie production companies to accurately predict their movie’s gross, even at the script phase, this allows them to budget the production accordingly.

Such an accurate guideline will prevent companies from losing money by over investing in the production side of things. This means that with safe profit margins, companies are able to better plan every single aspect of the production.

Also, by making recommended changes, moviemakers will be able to boost profits even further by releasing movies that will give their viewers the best possible viewing satisfaction.

In this way, data-driven moviemaking is a win-win for moviemakers.

If you are interested in having your film analyzed then contact Largo Films for more information.