Whether it’s Key Art, Trailers, Film Websites, Sell Sheets, Producing, or Social Media Outreach, we have you covered for all your Film and Entertainment Marketing needs.

Key Art

Circle Marketing retains a few of the top Key Art producers in the major studio Film & Entertainment world. With decades of combined experience, we can take any budget film, or sales materials and give you an A+ top-tier quality piece of Key Art…with or without photographic and on-set assets. If you’re looking to secure distribution, funding, or sales, then you’ll need to show your scope and vision very clearly and on-budget.

Trailers

Having cut and directed major Theatrical Trailers, TV/Radio spots, and Internet Advertisements, Circle Marketing employs the best in the business when it comes to delivering that major studio quality on an small indie budget. The most important parts of marketing any film is the trailer and the key art. Here at Circle Marketing, we can easily handle both needs for you, and give your film that major studio quality.

Social Media Marketing

The third must-have these days for any Film or Entertainment release is a strategic, efficient, and potentially viral Social Media Campaign. Our staff has launched major releases in the past, and obviously stay up-to-speed on the latest and most efficient Social Media Marketing strategies, trends and tactics. When you want to build buzz, then call Circle Marketing to help you!

Online Monitization

We can also help you figure out how to monetize your film. You might be able to find a film sales partner and/or connection who might be interested in representing your film or entertainment product. However, should nothing come of their efforts, you might be left with a very expensive piece of expression which no one will see, or which your investors might not be able to make their money back.

Circle Marketing can help figure out ways to monetize your film or entertainment product, so that you can start recouping that money, and get more fans and eyeballs to see what you spent so much time and energy on. You made the film, now get it in front of people and start getting paid back for your hard work and efforts!

Independent Film Package:

This is where we pride ourselves in being able to effectively service the independent film market. With over five years in the major studio system, we will take that expertise and apply the big studio creative marketing expertise on the independent budget you can afford. This mix of studio experience and budgetary considerations simply is not seen anywhere at this level. Our exclusive Independent Film Package features:

• Key Art: Let our Key Art experts take a break from the blockbusters to give your film the polished look it needs to get sold and distributed.  Even if you only have a script, we’re experts at creating great sales materials with little to no assets.
• Sell Sheet: We’ll take the Key Art you’ll love, and we create professional industry-standard Sell Sheets for you to take around the festival circuit.
• Trailer: Here is where the rubber meets the road. You need to tell your story on the level that the buyers are expecting and used to working with. Here is where that major studio experience comes in to benefit you most where it counts. Creating a professional trailer on your budget with all the techniques, script-writing, and effects of the “big guys.”
• Website: Circle Marketing has custom-themed a special WordPress template especially for Independent Films and filmmakers. You cannot find a template like this anywhere, and it was designed with the on-a-budget independent film in mind.
• Social Media Marketing: As an optional add-on, you can also receive on-going Social Media Marketing services strategized and tooled to your specific needs and goals.

NOT ALL SOCIAL NETWORKS ARE CREATED EQUAL
Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google Plus, and LinkedIn are all social networks, but that’s pretty much where the similarity ends. Most small businesses don’t have the time to invest in varying their messages to effectively communicate with each very different social network audience. So, some small business owners resort to using programs which duplicate the same content across all the networks to save time and effort, but that is not an effectively strategy. It should be a relief for you to know you don’t have to use all of the networks. You don’t need to utilize all the networks, especially as you’re getting started.

Now a quick disclaimer, the following suggestions may or may not be right for your exact business. These are just general rules of thumb for the average businesses. If you’re a B2C brick-and-mortar small business, then you probably wouldn’t need to worry about LinkedIn, Pinterest, or maybe even Twitter depending on how you use it. On the contrary, if you’re a B2B business, Pinterest or Facebook might not be a benefit. If you are an online-only business, and sell product directly from your website only, then Pinterest would be a great place for you, but Twitter maybe not work for you that well anymore. Finally, if you’re a comedian, then you will definitely want to focus on Twitter and YouTube, for example, because those networks will suit your brand and style best.

WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA IS…AND ISN’T
Social Media is a place to make connections with potential customers, and build relationships with them. Develop a strong connection and give-and-take. Listen to what your customers want, and give them what they’re asking for. Communicate with them as they want to be communicated with, and live in their world with them.

Social Media is not your billion person automatic storefront where you can expect to just post a few cat pictures then a sales link and expect the masses to come flocking to your website. The realistic expectation is that it will take some time and constant effort to build a strong following, then longer to build a strong relationship, then just a little bit longer to expect the steady stream of sales to begin.

MOST EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES
All that being said, there are ways to reap the benefits of social media before the long efforts come to fruition for your small business. The most effective strategies for more immediate ROI are below:

• FACEBOOK: Use highly targeted Facebook Ads to grow your following, and to direct interested customers to pages which can offer your product or service for sale (aka “landing pages”). You can target by age, gender, interests, or any other demographics which help you reach your exact audience. Don’t worry about clicks. Worry about conversions (aka did people buy something). Getting a lot of traffic to click isn’t as important as get interested people to click, because you’re paying for each click. Make it count.

• GOOGLE PLUS: Google Plus (as of right now) is great for SEO, and local businesses. Google says that links on their social network don’t contribute to positive search engine ranking improvements, but the evidence we have seen suggests otherwise. Either way, it can’t hurt, right?

• PINTEREST: If you are selling direct from your website, make sure you “pin” each and every item for sale on your Pinterest account. In the description, put in the dollar sign, because products Pinned with dollar amounts get clicked at a much higher percentage than those without dollar amounts. Pinterest also puts a snipe graphic displaying the price. Pinterest is very e-commerce friendly.

• TWITTER: Depending on your business, Twitter is wide open. There are a million and one ways to use the 140 characters-only micro-blogging network. Use relevant hashtags (#ThisIsAHashtag) to allow other Twitter users to find your Tweets and increase your followers. Twitter has a great deal of noise, so build decent connections by following those users who you can partner with and utilize each other’s followers.

• LINKEDIN: Make business partnerships and connections via LinkedIn. Also, if you’re a B2B company, then LinkedIn is your best friend. Get a paid account where you can message and interact with anyone directly, even if you’re not connected to the, and insist your salespeople do the same. For B2B, you need to constantly build new relationships, network, and get out there to build strong relationships and partnerships. Cold calling is working less and less, so jump on LinkedIn, take out some ads, and start making connections with the business owners and influencers who will end up being your best customers.

EMBRACE LOCAL (Bonus Tip): If you’re a brick-and-mortar small business, then make sure you’re signed up with Google Places (now called Google Local), Bing Local, FourSquare, and Yelp. Sign up with the largest location-based networks, and encourage your customers to “check in” when they’re at your business. This is free advertising. Also, search engines are becoming more and more localized, so making sure you’re signed up with all the location-based networks will help you get found easier even if your normal SEO efforts are taking a little bit to kick in.

Following these best practices will definitely get you headed in the right direction. Contact Us to help you create the most efficient and effective social media marketing campaign possible. We look forward to helping you grow your influence across social media!

ALL YOU NEED IS JUST ANY WEBSITE, RIGHT?

Wrong. This is what we hear a lot from clients either just starting out, or those who don’t understand the value of a website. Your website is the most important part of your business these days. Why? Because your website, when created correctly, can generate leads for you, provide information 24/7, direct visitors to specific information, sell your products and/or services, get you listed highly on search engines, help you get your money back (and then some) from any Pay-Per-Click advertising, help your website visitors know how to follow you on Social Media and stay connected with you, and also be the main hub for all of your content which you can share across the Internet. Those are just the basics.

Getting just any ole website will only do a couple or a few of those things at most. Also, designing a website for a professional is understanding how to deliver the message of your company to earn the trust and approval of visitors, convince them to input their contact information, and convince them to buy your products and/or services. The professional also understands how to build your website to maximize rankings on search engines. Is a free or cheap website going to do all that? Will the average $350 website “designer” understand your design, marketing, and technical needs all at the same time?

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Cheap websites are exactly like trying to open a business in a remote part of town and a building which badly needs repairs, is off the main road and up a hill, and has no sign…but the rent is dirt cheap!

Likewise, only caring about the aesthetics of your website is just as bad. One of our clients had an attractive website before coming to us. However, it wasn’t working to sell their products, because while it looked pretty it wasn’t designed with the end goal in mind…to sell the products they had in their Shop. This would be like renting out space in the best looking building in town, but forgetting to tell people how to park or where to walk in, then once they found their way inside, you hid the product on them.

Finally, the best solution. You have to design a website which looks professional and attractive, is simple enough to not confuse people, but robust enough to help them get all the information they’re looking for, and grab either a sale or at least their contact information before they leave. This is the equivalent of having a nice storefront on a main street, with an attractive sign out front and a beautiful window display.

Which of these businesses whould you like to own and operate?

THE COSTS
Now that we’ve identified the different kinds of website design philosophies which are out there, and gave you real-world analogies to help you with a frame of reference, let’s talk turkey…or…numbers.

What would be a good ROI on any investment you make? Double your money back? 5x? 10x return? Sure, we’d very much like to have a 100x or even 1,000x return on our investments, but how realistic do we think that actually is? Most would be happy between the 2-10x range, correct?

Well, let’s take the $350 website. A 10x return on that would be $3,500. Not much to live off of, is it? Any you know what? For a $350 website you could probably expect to get about $3,500 back for your efforts, that’s not unrealistic. However, that ain’t gonna put the kiddies through college.

The average Small Business website should cost between $3,000 and $7,500 these days. That is a fair range. Let’s look at our 10x return there…that’s $30k-75k in return. That’s looking better, now isn’t it? Sure, it’s still not going to buy you a yacht, but look at the investment vs the return. With a modest, but serious, investment, you can realistically build a business from these efforts and afford to grow. If you want to open a brick-and-mortar store, you have leasing costs, legal, renevations, staff, inventory, etc. You’re probably spending about $75-100k before you even have the door open for 6 months. So, why would $5,000 be unrealistic to hope to invest on a website which will help you get found on search engines, capture leads for new and interested customers, and help you sell your products and services?

Last point…you usually won’t have to spend all that money up-front if you don’t have it. Many companies will help you break up the payments or divide them out over months, even. This way, by the time you’re on your last payments, the increased revenue from your new and effective website should start paying for themselves.

Now, to be fair and realistic, not every business is guaranteed to make money, and your product may be undesirable. One never knows. However, you believe in your business which is why you’re in business. Why not give it a serious effort and give yourself the best possible chance of making a living off of your business? When you have a good product or service, and you have an effective strategy and build the right kind of website, you can easily expect to make a very solid return on your investment…and then some!

WHAT IS MARKETING FOR A SMALL BUSINESS?
Marketing is essentially anything you do to promote your business, or make money. Whether it’s just gathering awareness and interest via PR and Social Media, Getting more salespeople out there to acquire more clients directly, or using any of the standard online strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising, or growing and cultivating an E-Mail List, all of these are different forms of marketing. So, basically, marketing is anything you’re doing to get more awareness and attention for your business, get more clients and customers, and ultimately make more money.

HOW MUCH DOES MARKETING COST?
Knowing that, we have to establish what should be a good marketing budget. On average, you should expect to allocate anywhere from 1-5% of your total annual revenue to marketing efforts. When you’re first starting out, you’ll have to allocate obviously a lot more. If you’re largely successful, however, you can stick to this range and even the lower end of this range.

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOUR MARKETING IS WORKING?
How do you know sales aren’t just going up temporarily? You have to be able to track your efforts. Every single thing you do should have a way of tracking results, or don’t do it these days. For example, it’s better to do online advertising with Pay-Per-Click Ads than it is to do a magazine advertisement, because each view, click, and subsequent action can be tracked and analyzed.

Likewise, building an e-mail list through an e-mail marketing service like MailChimp, Constant Contact, or AWeber enables you to see who opened your e-mails, who clicked on the links, and which of your customers consume more of your information than others.

Putting Google Analytics on every page of your website will help you track your visitors, where they come from, how long they stay, what their actions are, and what page they leave from…just to name the basics of Google Analytics. Make sure you put the Google Analytics code on every single page of your website, including all pages throughout the entire shopping cart and check-out process if you sell products on your website, so you can see if there are any “drop off” points which need correcting.

Knowing what marketing is, and understanding how to track success, will help you fix what’s wrong in your marketing strategy and efforts, and help you become more efficient in your marketing expenditures. After all isn’t a dollar saved a dollar earned? Contact Us and we can help you create a specific strategy for your business, and get you going in the right direction of making more money and growing your small business.

Joel Metzer of the L.A. Business Spotlight Podcast sat down recently with Circle Marketing’s Louis Tanguay to discuss some tips and hints for Small Business Marketing success. Their interview can be heard below, and you can subscribe to the L.A. Business Spotlight Podcast through their iTunes page.

(Note: to listen below, please make sure you allow QuickTime to work and give it a second or two to load…then enjoy!)

In the interview, they go over the Biggest Marketing Mistakes Small Businesses make with their websites and social media; the correct way to go about placing online advertisements; and the important of e-mail marketing. There’s also a bonus segment discussing how The Circle of Marketing keeps all phases of your marketing outreach finely tuned, aligned, and constantly spinning for bigger and bigger revenue! This interview is definitely a must-hear! Enjoy, and please comment below!

The problem with working from home is one of focus and productivity. Working from home is recommended for the person who is self-motivated and doesn’t drop performance when working outside the office.

Working from home full time for most, however, can provide distractions and bad communication habits. Like the home schooled child, social interaction is extremely important. If one works from home, then doesn’t interact socially with others that could present a problem. Working in any sort of bubble creates some issues for the individual, but these might be more personal issues rather than professional. Like the programmer in the dark corner office, it’s not like some who do come into the office are very social. It all depends on the person.

I would recommend, based on personal experience and from what I’ve seen, that working from home is a great perk, but nothing replaces the energy of being in a room with other people. I would recommend working from home full time for developers and programmers, and accountants, to name a few types who might work just fine from a remote virtual office. However, team leaders, product managers, and marketing directors should probably have at least part time in the office. Entrepreneurs must leave the office, virtual or otherwise, because they need to keep busy networking and meeting people, so they might be best equipped to handle the fluctuations.

Personally, I really enjoyed working at home, but for me, I like the energy of being around other people and find that just the act of getting away from the virtual office and into the “real” office helps me prep my mind to separate “work” from “home” and I enjoy the luxury of part time in both locations, depending on the work load for that day, and what tasks are due. So, there are some things to consider. Write in the comments below, what’s right for you and why you prefer each one.

1. Offer Something for Free
Use this as an incentive. Don’t give something away just to give something away. Whether it’s bobble-head night at the local stadium, or the eBook on the website, or T-shirt at the credit card booth, all these promo freebies are actually incentives to capture either additional sales, or at least additional qualified leads.

2. Frequent Buyer Gifts
Depending on your business this may or may not work, but many coffee houses, yogurt parlors and sandwich shops have loyalty cards. You’ve seen them. Show the card when you make a purchase and the cashier will either punch the card (or swipe it these days) to track how many times you have bought something. After X number of purchases (usually 10), you are entitled to a free item of usually equal value to the lowest qualifying purchase. If you have a business where the customer can come back again and again often, then start a loyalty program to keep the repeat visits up.

3. Partnership Offers
We mentioned parnerships as a business development strategy in one of our previous blog posts, but let’s talk about partnerships now as promotional marketing opportunities. Partner up with a company or service provider who is in your field, and sells to your target market, but who isn’t directly competitive with you. Example, a printer teaming up with a Web Designer, or an auto repair shop teaming up with an auto insurance salesperson or rental car location (or all three teaming up together!). You get the point. Not everyone pitching your customers and clients is a competitor. Team up and sweeten the deal. Not to mention getting exposure to each other’s list of clients which neither of you would have had access to previously. Make it a win-win for each of you and it’ll be a double-win for your mutual clients!

4. Team Up With A Non-Profit or Charity
Now, this one is tricky, because if you do this for the wrong reasons, then it’s unethical and definitely bad karma if you believe in that sorta thing. When you team up with a non-profit, or sponsor a charity event, become a local school booster, or even donate a portion of any particular sales to a charity, you gain a lot of good will and appreciation from your customers and clients. However, just make sure it’s a cause you can get behind and fully support, and make sure it’s a cause you believe in and would (or have) donate money to out of your own pocket. Another great incentive is matching any customer portions. For example, for every widget you buy, $1 will go to XYZ charity and (insert your company here) will match with an equal $1. So long as you believe in the cause and are doing it for the right reasons, charities and non-profits are great teammates for promotional marketing efforts.

5. Offer a discount to a targeted group of customers
This is basically an extension of the first idea, but a step further. You want to offer a discount or freebie to your best customers out of the blue. A huge “thank you for being a loyal customer.” This will show that you actually care about each individual customer, and also has the side benefit of staying in someone’s mind while not being spammy. You can also offer a special gift or discount on the person’s birthday. You can offer discounts to those who take a survey. Last but not least, you can offer discounts and deals to those who review your company on Yelp, Facebook, or Google Local, and also for those who Check In on Yelp, Facebook, or FourSquare. Make it fun. Maybe even offer a bigger discount or bigger freebie to those who do multiple efforts for you, like Review on Yelp and Check in on Facebook, for double discount (or whatever you’re comfortable giving away which the customer will find valuable in it’s own right).

With these promotional marketing ideas, you should have a few new ways to get more customers in the door, and also more customers back in the door after they leave. Keep these creative promotional juices flowing! COMMENT BELOW what promotional marketing efforts you have done in your own business which has met with great success so others can learn even more tips on how to keep awareness up and constant for small businesses.

1. Ineffective Messaging

• Failing to understand who the customer truly is…Model your top two customers…create the “person” you’re speaking to
• Not speaking TO the customer’s needs, only about how great your company is.

2. Poor Content

• Blog might not exist
• Blog posts aren’t optimized for keywords
• Content isn’t fresh
• Spelling and grammar mistakes
• Having large paragraphs of text, long sentences, or long pages. articles/posts should be 400-750 words, 3-5 visual lines for a paragraph, and about 2-3 paragraphs minimum to 5-6 paragraphs at the very maximum.

3. Not being Mobile-compatible

• iPads are now in the millions
• Mobile phones are outselling desktop computers
• Mobile phone internet usage is surpassing desktop internet usage

4. Unprofessional Design and Branding

• Lot of dead space
• No information due to pushing info down on page
• Poor quality graphics/branding
• Important content Below the Fold
• Use of Flash, and (worse) Flash Landing pages.
• Poor usability and navigation
• Visitor can’t find what they’re looking for
• Navigation is hidden, not in the place the user is looking for, or is too clever for it’s own good.
• No search (if applicable)
• NEVER have a site’s navigation in Flash
• Never have auto-play music/sound
• Poor Conversion/Functionality
• Children pages are “dead-ends”
• Remove the clutter, make it simple but not plain, and obvious what action the user should take.

5. Not using a Marketing Company to handle your marketing needs.

• Trying to do it all yourself takes time to learn, and time away from running your business
• Just having a web site, but not updating it, creates a “dead” website and google will not give it high rankings
• Reaching out via social media, posting your articles on Fb, Tw, etc., Consistently creating blog posts, etc will help keep it relevant, fresh, updated, and give it better ranking results from search engines.
• Experts can help you form a short-term and long-term marketing/growth plan for your company.
• Experts stay up to date with the latest marketing trends, strategies,tactics, and techniques so you don’t have to. You can spend more time working in your business, like you’re doing now, and know someone is helping you work on your business
• Hiring someone with the knowledge of how to market your business can cost anywhere from $60,000-$100,000 depending on your market geography and what you require. The cost could be more if you require technical needs, or hire them on staff and need to pay insurance & benefits, etc….while hiring a marketing company can save you $50k-$75k minimum

NOTE: Reminder that this article was essentially a Part 2 to our original “Top 5 Website Mistakes You Shouldn’t Be Making” article. Please check that out, and let us know what you think in the comments below. Thanks for reading and sharing, we truly and genuinely appreciate all the support.

Susan asked Circle Marketing’s Louis Tanguay to be a part of that series, and he naturally accepted as it’s a great honor to be associated with the large number of companies and brand experts Susan interviews. You can read the entire article here on Susan’s Branding You Better website. We pulled out some snippets below to whet your appetite…

How did you know what typeface (font) would be right for your company wordmark or logo, and describe why your logo was the right object for your company.

We chose the Circle Marketing typefaces based on a combination of things. First, we wanted a sans serif font, because we felt that visual style conveyed a more modern and more legible feel. We enhanced the typeface and used two different fonts we had in stock to create a custom face. We chose to have a large, bold and red “CIRCLE” because that’s the basic concept of the company, appearing in many of our promotional materials, like the “Circle of Marketing” and such.

The “Marketing” font is thinner, but still all caps. So, while it is smaller and thinner, it’s not “wimpier.” Also, the “Marketing” word changes in our animated logo which helps the first-time viewer understand a little bit more of what we do.

The circle itself, is more like an eclipse than a perfect circle with a perfect border. This is to add some weight and balance to the entire logo. The sides of the circle are thinnest near the type, and heaviest where there is an absence of type. This varying thickness also helps create a more interesting visual and negative balance, than just a standard circle with a thick border would.

How did you decide on the right color palette to fit your company look and feel?

We wanted to be known for professional and clean marketing. That’s been a personal trait of mine ever since I was a graphic designer in the 90′s. I always felt that a clean look will always trump a busy look. It’s also better for small businesses to look more “professional” when they have a clean and balanced look, as opposed to collages and who-knows-what that the average bargain-basement designer will offer their competitors.

We chose red, because we wanted a POP color. My personal favorite color is green, and I love orange as well, but this company isn’t about me. It’s about our clients, customers and partners. We thought orange would be a great color, because it’s fresh, new, and is an “action” color, but so many companies out there are using orange because of that very reason, that we wanted to stand out from the crowd (like we tell our customers to do). We went with a deep red, because it still has the visual pop we’re looking for, is close to a “lighter burgundy” but not as stuffy and boring, and is striking but not alarming or forewarning like a brighter red would be. When you have a clean and white brand, that could look plain with a plain accent color. Therefore, the red helps add some punch and pop which also helps balance the brand’s essence and communicates our messaging through our visuals.

Other questions and answers included the transition to Social Media Marketing, Online Advertising for your business, and future directions for the brand and business. Check it out here, and leave comments below!

Check out the two photos here. Neither one is going to win this forgotten family photographer the World Press Photo of the Year award, but there is a certain something that’s been captured which the family will treasure and value forever. That treasure is not in the well-cropped photo. That treasure is in the horribly-cropped, way-too-far-away-by-professional-standards original photograph.

Notice that while the perfectly cropped version shows the mother and son in their precious moment when the mother is basking in the glory of her son’s 8th birthday, and the son just wanting to dive into that chocolate cake, there is something missing.

The missing elements are the little things which help you remember what it was like to be there at that moment. The little girl enjoying the moment of familial sweetness, the horrible-for-you-but-awesomely-tasting party food, and the super-sweet 70’s wall paneling. These are the elements of nostalgia which would be lost forever with a modern day DSLR and talented (or at least semi-talented) photographer. OK, well, maybe the paneling can remain in the forgotten past…but I digress.

While I’m not suggesting to take horrible photographs on purpose, maybe a good compromise to keep aware of is the not just capture the perfect little cropped moments, but be sure to click a few extra clicks in the direction of the surroundings of all your special events. There’s a reason why wedding photographers capture accents and elements. They know every details will be fawned and reminisced over for the rest of the couples’ lives. Photograph all the elements around you, because they’ll never happen again, but can always be cherished if you can capture them.