This should really be called “What Browncoats taught me about marketing”, but I was a little worried that the niche title might not be understood. It also makes me realize that maybe Gary Vaynerchuk was right when he said, “Love the process and the results won’t matter”.
As listed on http://blog.networksolutions.com/authors/, “In the interest of full disclosure, Steve Fisher and Mike (Dougherty) are both co-founders of a non-profit film production company called Big Damn Fan Films…” and have wrapped principal production of our film “Browncoats: Redemption”. Our film is an independent film set in the universe established in Joss Whedon’s TV show Firefly, and later as a film Serenity, where proceeds will go to five charities. The fans of the show and the film are called Browncoats.
I tell you that, not to gloat on our project and tell you about it, but get that out of the way to tell you about the greatest example of Crowdsourcing and marketing that I am honored to accidentally be a part of. For those that need to know, Crowdsourcing, as defined by Wikipedia, is “act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call.”
Over Labor Day weekend, we were at the science fiction convention Dragon*Con to promote and show the teaser trailer for our film, to be released a year later, on a panel. The panel was on Sunday morning and was the first thing of the day. We were concerned because this is notoriously the time of the weekend were panels aren’t heavily attended unless it is a major attraction. We were just a little film that, we thought, had only been heard of by a handful of people. We expected, if we were lucky, that maybe twenty-five to fifty people would attend. What we expected and what we received were two different things, but I’ll get to that soon enough.
Before the convention we promoted our panel as best we could to what we perceived was an audience of limited awareness of our project. We printed seven thousand postcards with the information about the movie and the time, date, and location of the panel.
Once we arrived at Dragon*Con and began passing out the postcards we learned people were already aware of, and excited for, the panel. Keep in mind, until we arrived at Dragon*Con, we did not heavily promote the panel. The information about it had been passed by word of mouth, from one fan of Firefly to another, and we quickly realized we had no control over the message going out. It was in the hands of our intended audience and they took leadership of getting it out.
We found that, because of love of the TV show ‘Firefly’ and an interest in our project, people were willing to pass out our postcards for us. We learned that, without being asked to, during other panels, that we didn’t attend, some people promoted our panel to a room full of people that were there to see something else. I was constantly surprised when people, who didn’t know my connection to the film, would ask me if I had heard about my own project, ask if I knew about the panel, and tell me that they’ve seen a postcard promoting it that I should pick up.
Did I happen to mention we let go of the message? That is normally the scariest thing for any company to do, but because we loved the process of involving those who wanted to be…we couldn’t contain the message any more without doing damage to it. Thanks to the supporters of the film and those people we found knew about us without our influence, we moved 90% of our postcards by Sunday morning.
Sunday morning arrived and twenty minutes before the panel started we had, what was a 250 seated room, a standing room only panel. Additional chairs were brought in, but there wasn’t enough for everyone there. At the beginning of the panel we had to close off the doors and turn even more people away. We received 100 times more people that we ever expected…all because we let go of the message and let the crowd take over helping us get the word out.
A lot of valuable marketing messages were learned in this process.
We had created, in our postcard, a marketing piece that contained, from our mission statement to the date and time of the panel, everything the deliverer, and receiver, of that marketing piece needed to know. That postcard was sited, by several attendees, as one of the main factors, besides the enthusiasm of the person handing it to them, as their reason for attending.
We also learned that by stepping out of the way of those passing on our message, and by not overly managing them, they effectively, and passionately, spread the message of the panel for us. In that we created a greater connection to our project, and panel, than could have ever established if we held fast on to our message.
The most important thing learned from this is that you can apply this same strategy to promoting your business, your networking event, or whatever business venture you are trying to get attention for. All you need to do is be willing to trust those people that are extremely passionate about what you’re doing and give them all the information, and tools, they will need. The results will be a combination of efforts by people excited about something…which is infectious.
Gary Vaynerchuk said, “Love the process and the results won’t matter” and I agree, but I would also add “Respect the people who love, and support, your goal and the results will speak for themselves”.
Have you had equal success with a promotion or event of your own? I would love to hear your thoughts in a comment below.
You can also reach me on Twitter by sending a message to @wickedjava, or on Facebook at facebook.com/mcdougherty.
As all ways, if you have been reading, thank you and stay wicked.
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