What Movie Previews can teach us about Social Marketing tactics

Remember how I said earlier that life is a classroom; well, movie theaters are no different. In fact, if you pay close attention, you can learn a lot about life, love and marketing at the local multiplex.

Case in point: Have you ever noticed that you’ll only see trailers for comedies before a comedy? Or previews for scary movies in front of a scary movie? That’s because like breeds like; an audience for the latest zombie offering is more likely to remember – and look forward to seeing – another zombie movie than, say, a light romantic comedy.
I’ve found that this is a great way to think about how YOU target your customers. If your product or service is the payoff after all those previews, the movie itself, then what kind of preview would be playing in front of it? Comedy? Buddy picture? Family film? Action? Adventure? Thriller?
Horror?!?

I want you to take this seriously. We often think in terms of “mission statement,” “purpose” or “elevator pitches,” but those are more company-oriented. Thinking in terms of movie trailers to describe your product or service – and, in turn, your audience – is much more customer-oriented. Your sales pitch shouldn’t be general. You need to zoom in to the core of that audience of one. Figure out the appeal of your product or service to this specific individual. In other words, “tailor your trailer.”
Movies come in genres – comedy, romance, thriller; companies come in niches – just as businesses do; for example, retail, B2B, automotive. Seeing your target audience in simpler terms is better for both of you. Be direct. Be clear. Be exciting. Learn from the movie previews. They entice the audience with clips that will appeal to their individual movie preferences.
Many movie trailers are so specific they don’t just cater to one broad genre, such as horror, sci-fi or chick-flick, they cater to one specific sub-set of one particular genre. One such example is the latest trend of adapting bestselling video games into blockbuster movies, aka Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Doom, House of the Dead and the latest entry, Hit Man.

Have you ever seen a preview for one of these movies? You can tell just who in the audience has played the game before by their almost instant, immediate response to the teaser-trailer; there is almost an electric feel to the theater as these audience members – typically young men or women in their late teens to early twenties – literally leap to their feet and cheer on their latest gaming hero.

Now, you might think that being so selective with their marketing efforts to one sub-set of the genre might alienate the rest of the audience, but the opposite is the case; the rest of us earmark the phenomenon and think to ourselves, “Well, there must be something to this if these young people are so enthusiastic about it. maybe I’ll check it out when it gets released…”
Remember: Like breeds like; find out who would like you and pitch to them. So, in other words, don’t pitch your zombie flick to an audience that’s hungry for comedy. First you have to know what you’ve got on your hands; a comedy or a scary movie.
Knowing what type of product or service you provide should seem like second nature by now, but if it really was so easy, you wouldn’t be here reading this right now because I wouldn’t have had to write it in the first place.
Let’s say you’re a shoe company. So far, so good. What kind of shoes do you sell? Dress shoes? Flip-flops? Women’s? Men’s? Sneakers? What? Athletic shoes; great. Does that tell you your audience? Hardly. I’ll grant you, nowadays pretty much everybody uses athletic shoes, but that doesn’t mean they’ll use yours.

Taking the athletic shoe analogy a little farther, ask yourself a few questions to narrow the audience:

•    Are your athletic shoes edgy enough to appeal to the teen/tween market?
•    Are they too edgy to appeal to the senior market?
•    Are they cool enough for the college crowd?
•    Are they affordable enough to cry out to urban hipsters on a budget?
•    Are they sensible enough for upscale women?
•    Are they rugged enough for working men?

Pretty confusing, isn’t it? Rejoice! There is freedom in simplicity; there is profit in specifics. For instance, let’s pick any target audience up there – seniors, career women on-the-go, weekend hikers, pick one – and you can see how focusing on that audience, and only that audience (the bull’s eye), means less time spent worrying about the other audiences (the rings around the bull’s eye).

For instance, if you pick the fairly robust target segment of weekend hikers, you can play strictly to them. With design issues, with ad copy, with graphics, with seasonal campaigns, with colors, with treads, with laces, with – well, you get the picture.
It’s all bull’s eye; all the time. Now you can finally picture the genre your product or service is in and create a “preview” that’s appropriate for fans of the genre. And remember, it’s not about recreating the blockbuster formula that works for every movie, every time.

Don’t research the top-five selling boots for weekend hikers and simply replicate their ad copy and TV spots; what works for them might not work for you, and vice versa. It’s not about copying the other guy just because it worked for them; it’s about targeting YOUR audience with YOUR message touting YOUR product.

Don’t forget our audience of one. When you can ignore all the other sub-markets for athletic shoes and visually pinpoint your genre – weekend hikers – you can now picture your audience of one; that single weekend hiker.
Now real communication can happen – and prospects can become customers. You’ve found your bull’s eye and you’re ready to take aim at it. Let the box office pour in!

TRY THIS…

Imagine your product or service is the focus of a new movie. Instead of a commercial, make a movie trailer. How will you get the audience excited enough to come back and see it?