| Understanding Your Target Audience |
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| Marguerite Pigott | |
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Page 1 of 2 No film is for everyone. Each film has a target audience. It’s your job to know – specifically – who they are. Your film can’t communicate effectively or succeed at the box office unless you know the group of people for whom you are making it.Independent Canadian films (and all indigenous Canadian films are independent), are selling freshness, vision and originality. They don’t compete with studio product but with the best of independent film worldwide. Identifying a target audience is not about selling out or being formulaic; it’s about being relevant and appealing to your audience without breaking the integrity of the film. How do you identify your target audience?You identify your target audience, frankly, by guessing. But you have to make an informed guess. Speaking on a panel, veteran distributor Tony Cianciotta once said that when he’s trying to figure out whether or not to buy a film he’ll ask himself, “Who would stand in a lineup outside, at night, in January to see this film?” Picture the lineup (if any!). That’s your target audience.Ideally, the people in the lineup are within a particular age range and watch or read similar media (which means the distributor can reach them with targeted advertising). Picture what other movies they’ve seen, what worked for them, what didn’t and why. You are educating yourself about the personality of your audience, knowing who you’re addressing, what they want and what you’re competing against. How is a target audience defined?A target audience is defined primarily by gender and age range. Additional elements include socioeconomic status, rural or urban, race, family status, theatre goers or not, and special interests. These interests can include anything from political leanings to religion or the particular subject matter of the film, such as running (Saint Ralph), visual art (Pollock) and human rights (Hotel Rwanda).Typically, age ranges break down as follows:
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Once you have established the age range, the next question is Why? Why are these people, and not other people, your target audience? What about your film will appeal uniquely to them? The answer is found in the film’s marketable elements. Continued... |
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