For the small time independent film maker on a budget marketing is often a matter of being smarter with ones money rather then spending on traditional marketing. In such situations there is very little room for error. This means that indie filmmakers have to limit the amount that they utilize traditional advertising methods such as newspapers. Newspapers and other print media however can serve a purpose because they are trusted sources for many people to look and see what movies are out.
The important thing with newspaper marketing is to insure that your potential market reads the print media you are advertising in. One problem with small business marketing that I often see is the failure to take an ad mediums demographics into account when purchasing media. For example I have seen many groups pay for ads intended for high school students to appear in newspapers. Normally high school students read the paper in very small percentages. This mean that these businesses are paying for 10,000 readers but only want to reach 200 or less of those readers.
As an indie film maker you can’t afford to pay to have people see your ad who won’t watch your movie. For this reason you should determine what demographics your movie appeals to and then check for to see what demographics different newspapers, magazines, etc have, in order to determine the value of marketing in these mediums.
Also as an indie filmmaker you will not have the opportunity to run lots of large format ads in newspapers. Rather then having just a few large print ads however it is often times better when to have smaller ads show up continuously in the papers. For those who take this path you need to make certain that your ad stands out based on a strong graphical element. So for the indie filmmaker it might be worth while to come up with a graphical logo as well as the font to represent your movie. This way you can continually have that strong visual cue along with your lettering to draw reader attention and brand your movie into reader’s minds.
It’s also important to complement your print ad campaign with other ad campaigns. Internet campaigns can be especially useful for this because your print ad campaigns elements can be used in this as well. This will give you better coverage and increase the likelihood that people will pay attention to and notice your ad for a much lower cost.