DIFF Sponsor Opening from Basik Films on Vimeo.

During the Dallas International Film Festival or #DIFF, I had the opportunity to work with Dallas-based Red Carpet Crash (owned by the cheer-inducing Devin Pike). Special thanks to them for getting me the link to this video.

The video above was created as an advertisement specifically for #DIFF and they played it before pretty much every movie playing through out the festival. But I was impressed every time I saw it. #DIFF truly understood their audience before making this. Its witty, well-filmed, it has indie-esque background music and shows something the audience can relate to even if its over-exaggerated. The only problem I had with this commercial was the fact that I didn't see it before I got to the festival.

Often times we don't bother thinking about what our audience wants to see from us. This is a mistake. A short commercial like this truly connected with people watching. Here are a few quick ways to market directly to your audience.

1. Find your Target: Obviously you need to know who you want to reach before anything else. Find your target market and then research the heck out of them.
2. Find common interests: Learn about your audience. Discover what else they enjoy besides your product: adventure sports? cooking? gaming? Try to relate those other interests to your product.
3. Find the medium they prefer: Is it video? Texting? Mobile? Web? Facebook? Go to where your audience is.
4. Pay attention to details: With the #DIFF example, the videography is really sharp. They knew their film festival audience wouldn't put up with grainy image and bad sound, so they made it look professional. What kind of details would turn your audience off?
5. Create the warm fuzzy feeling: What makes your audience go "awwww". Don't assume everyone likes babies or kittens. Figure out what makes your audience smitten then feel free to use it.
6. Learn the Language: Every generation has their own pattern of speech. People who play sports use different slang than those who play jazz. Find out the little words that will make you in-the-know. (Don't over-do the colloquialisms though, too much is a bad thing.)
7. Make your message clear: For any audience you need to keep your message simple and easy to understand. If people don't know what you're selling all your efforts are wasted.
8. ASK: Want to know if your efforts work? Find your target market (online, in the grocery store, wherever) and ask them

How would you want to be marketed to?

This entry was posted on Monday, June 21st, 2010 at 8:11 am and is filed under Business Suggestions, Veribatim. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.