A crucial part of an independent low-budget filmmaker's marketing plan is getting permission to follow up with people that have already found out about the film. You don't have the money to keep reminding them with advertising, so you need to keep in touch with them in other ways. Permission marketing takes a lot of discipline because it's just as easy to do it right as it is to do it horribly wrong.

Get Attention

You have to get the people to notice you first before you can build a relationship with them. This is where advertising could come in handy, but you will likely do it in other ways due to budget constraints. There are places where people gather and if you have something of value on your site you might mention it after becoming a good citizen of whatever online community. Or people might find you from a social bookmarking site or maybe they are introduced to you by a friend.

Ask Permission

Once they get to your site, you need to get them to give you some contact info or make a connection of some kind. You can have a blog-based site that they can subscribe to using their RSS reader or you can offer an email newsletter that goes to their inbox. You may even ask for a mailing address and send printed material. Whatever it is, you need to get permission and have a way to follow up with them that is sustainable.

Give Them Content

Once you have a way to keep in touch with these people you have newly become acquainted with, you need stuff to show them on a consistent basis. You might keep them informed of fun stuff that happens on your web site or let them know when you have new videos released. The important thing is that you don't just keep asking them to buy stuff. Have something they care to consume that markets your movie indirectly.

Respect Their Wishes

It's easy to ruin the relationships you build with these fans. They often change their mind or are finicky about what kind of stuff they want. Don't make them do anything they really don't want to do. If you publish videos and blog posts but they only want to know about the videos, make it happen. Don't force them to endure something that will ultimately create ill will. Help them have the most positive experience possible. When they don't want to hear from you anymore, don't make them go through hoops.

No Spam, List Sharing

Your list of people you have gathered is not only not for anyone else to use, it's only for this movie. You may be doing other projects, but you can't expect these people to necessarily care. Don't let other people use your list for sending promotional messages and don't send any blatantly commercial messages yourself. This doesn't mean you can't mention people's stuff in your communications, but it means it must be something of interest and value to them. A link to free stuff of a friend that you thought your fans might like would work. An advertisement to get fans to buy your friend's stuff would not.

Turn Strangers Into Friends

It may not seem very clear what it is we are doing with all this free stuff we are giving away. You don't go from stranger to marriage overnight, likewise these fans won't very quickly go from never hearing about you to rabid lover of anything you do. The idea behind the permission and content strategy is to give these people a better idea of what you're about with the hopes that some will turn into paying customers. Many will never buy, but they will tell friends and some of them might buy. In this new economy you cannot concentrate on the sale. In fact sales will likely be a minority of the interactions you have with people.

Likely Interested In Next Project

You cannot use this list for your next project, but that's not to say many of the fans of your previous work won't also like your new stuff. When you have moved on from the project that attracted all these fans in the first place, they are a natural source of people for the permission marketing for the next thing. Make mentions of your new stuff and offer for them to give permission to get content from the new thing. Don't just convert the list wholesale or else you will be breaking the bond with them you so painstakingly built.

You need to find fans and keep them. You can't afford to be doing shotgun marketing with the hopes that some of it will stick. Come up with a series of things you can release to fans that give you permission to let them get to know you and your storyworld. Just because it's not a sales exercise explicitly, doesn't mean it's not worthwhile and won't eventually help spur money being exchanged.