Hit Your Project’s Target Audience

by Marta Ávila

When a project is submitted on Filmarket Hub’s platform, one of the key points to fill in on the One Page (summary of your project), is that of your target audience, section where you are recommended to, at least, indicate an age slot (for children, teenagers, young, adult and mature) and a gender option (feminine or masculine).

In fact, even though the film or TV series can be considered apt for all audiences, from Filmarket Hub we always recommend to focus on the target you’re project is intended for.

It is paramount to develop our project having in mind who will be the receptor of it, who is going to watch it and what they expect from us. As in the end, we don’t only write a story for ourselves, but to speak to a certain audience.

Furthermore, clearly identifying your target audience will allow you to determine the marketing strategy for your project, as all communications will have to be thought out taking it into account.

Main and secondary target audience

To be more precise, you should define a main and secondary target audience for your film or TV series. To identify this, you will need to look at your script; its theme and genre, and trace back to its main weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats (the famous marketing SWOT report) identifying them. This analysis will give you a clear and graphic vision of your project and will help you define those audiences that might be more interested in your film.

In the end, it’s about getting to know your audience.

Maybe we will be targeting a more specialized audience, maybe we will be presenting a more commercial product, and therefore our audience will be wider. In any case, our potential audience will have to be intrigued and attracted by our project; especially if there’s more competitiveness in the moment when we plan to release our film, a greater economic and creative effort will be needed to be able to stand out.

So, the challenge for the marketing team is to keep expectations about the film alive and to make it the target’s audiences first option (main target) and even, to try to attract the attention from the rest of the audience that might be interested in it (secondary target).

With this objective in mind, the spectators to whom we will direct the campaign, we will create a socio-demographic profile, we will determine attitudes and habits, values, media that they’re more likely to consume…a whole strategy which will help us to establish what’s the best way to communicate with them.

Summarizing, the next time you start planning the release and communications strategy of a film or TV project, think very well before determining your target audience, as you can see it is not an easy decision. A good communication with your audience can make a whole lot of a difference between the success or failure of your film.