It's in the can. Now What?

Two years in the making. 3 months in editing. I have the web site. I have the finished DVD. We are actually direct marketing our video comming this monday with 60 sec. commercial spots.
It's the first Interactive Drinking Game On DVD.
Does anyone have any suggestions on web site promotions? It is daunting how many companies say they can do so much for you. Do I go with a publicist or have a press release. Pay tons of money for links ?Where am I going to get the most bang for my buck.
I thought this would be the easy part.

Love some advice
 
Publicity is free or cheap. Send the DVD to a few targeted folks of the media and get their reviews. Send out a press release, if you are real suave and know how to do it you can get it out to press outlets otherwise going through an agent is the right way. Make your website with proper keywords, meta tags, etc. Sorry, can't teach you how to do this but there are articles on the net. I hear Google ads are a good investment. TV ads, if you can get them, radio ads, newspaper ads. Maybe there's some targeted magazines you can figure?
 
Moved to Marketing and Advertising.

I might add, although it does usually cost a penny, you might want to look into a publicist after you find a little bit of success. They may be able to help you reach new audiences and target you dont know about yet.

Also, welcome to IT :hi:
 
Maybe try hitting up those tacky gift store chains, like "Spencers Gifts"?

They carry about a half-dozen drinking boardgames that get snapped up like crazy in collegetown cities.

(All the games have "Do not use alcoholic beverages with this game", or similar, on the packaging btw)
 
Thanks for the quick reply. We just got approved after two weeks of waiting, for our commercials to start airing on the 14th. Thank God. If anyone needs someone that finds great deals on getting alot of commercials for a great price. I will pass on her name. I don't see why it was so hard. The cable companies say that they have never seen anything like this product so they had to take it to the suits to see if it would be ok.

We considered Spencers and stores like them. But we would like to direct market it ourselves first.

It's the web site numbers that I need to boost. I have put in request with several Publicist to have some write ups.

Can anyone recamend one that they have used with good results?

Thanks
Cori
 
Maybe time for some pay-per-click advertising then?

My company uses Overture, Google & some other one for targeted search results.

You can get pretty selective with what kind of demographic you want to hit... in fact, you'll waste a lot of money if you make yourself as general as possible.

Lots of fun and possibilities, buying your ranking on the search engines. :cool:

PRweb.com also lets you post news releases that look similar to something coming through AP or Reuters... not very effective (for us, anyway) but it's something psuedo-official looking to add to your own site.
 
SEO (search engine optimization) is the holy grail of web design.. every time people think they've got it completely locked down the search engine people change the rules... but that's the key, getting yourself situated as high as possible on as many of the engines as you can.

Unlike the famous line from Field of Dreams "If You Build It, He Will Come" well, ok maybe not that one... as the kid said "People will come".. yeah, slowly. BUT, they'll come in droves once you're search engine optimized and ranking high on at least google and yahoo.

You also might want to look into ebay sales and amazon.com.. I'm not sure if Barnes & Noble does it too, but you can get some decent selling power with Amazon.

You can check out Overture or some of the pay-per-click sites, but none of that is free, at least the worthwhile ones aren't. Read up on SEO, and see what that does for you, it's the cheapest (probably free or mostly free) option available. Check out WebProNews or some of these Newsletters

Another option, though not exactly direct marketing, would be to get it into some college-area shops. I'm not sure what the reception would be of a game that promotes drinking, but who knows. Maybe you could work a deal with some college-town pubs to host it for a few nights, by supplying them with a complimentary copy, the only stipulation being that they agree to sell it at their bar for you (at least on those nights). Could be just the promotion some bar owner is looking for.

As a 10 year bar employee (a DJ) I know the owners are always looking for the next best promotional tool/idea that the other guys haven't gotten ahold of yet, or thought about. It may be a long shot, but I really think this option might generate some interest for you!

Good Luck! And :welcome:
 
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Will Vincent said:
Maybe you could work a deal with some college-town pubs to host it for a few nights, by supplying them with a complimentary copy, the only stipulation being that they agree to sell it at their bar for you (at least on those nights). Could be just the promotion some bar owner is looking for.

:eek:

No college bar in their right mind would go for that, given the potential liabilty involved from a single DWI defense. (This is also why the boardgames have a "no alcohol" disclaimer on them)

Collegetowns are indeed a strong market, though. Frats, dorms and communal houses have an abundance of them floating around. Even the kids that have moved off campus have something in this vein tucked away in a cupboard somewhere, for private parties.

This new interactive DVD mentioned above could make a killing in several of the areas you mentioned... but not in bars.
 
It's in the can. Now what

Looks like I have some major homework to do this weekend.. Thanks again for all the info..
Actualy we got feedback on our website that in Kalamazoo Mi. at a bar called The Corner Bar, close to Western Univercity played it three times between their band sets. I don't know how they pulled it off but they said their customers kept asking them to play it agian and even played it in the Spanish version.

Who knows. Hopefully it will catch on. Hopefully we have put enough discaimers on the video it self to protect us.

To tell you a little about ourselves. We are a team of three cameramen, a production manager and myself a makeup artist. All in the film and television industry for about 10 years each. We got a little tired of shooting and producing infomercials and television for everyone else to get rich. While all the freelance crew in our community are fighting for the next job.So we decided to take on our own project.

Thats why the whole web world is pretty new to this SFX makeup artist.

This web site is the best one I have come accross. Thanks again for all the advice. I will do the best with it I can.

Viva La Pork
Cori
 
Our commercials start airing in the mid west on the 14th of March. We are finishing our infomercial now.

If anyone wants to check out our Game/DVD you can at porktv.com.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks
 
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