Marketing Plan

Complementing the distribution plan, every film must have a detailed marketing plan, the point of a marketing plan is very simple.
-Raise Awareness
-Engage Interest
-Create visibility

Posters:
This is basically the main image of the film, it normally will give its stars, genre, cast and maybe the odd tagline which may send a question to the audience. There is normally more then one version of the poster, each one may show a different cast member or a different aspect to their film so each one on it's own has to stand out against the rest.
The posters may be created by the studio themselves or a sales agent, these are then rolled out over the globe or changed to suit locally. In terms of the UK they may have originally been devised here from scratch depending on approved materials and how the film is best presented.

The most popular poster would be the teaser poster, the idea behind a teaser poster is the same of a teaser trailer, it is meant for the audience to look at it and want to know what it is. Genre and that are normally strictly hidden or will unveil very minor details to the whole film.

Trailers:
Trailers and Teaser Trailers may be the single most cost effective part of the marketing plan in general. But these can be boosted by the fact they are played on the big screen to try and captivate an audience. Main trailers tend to appear not long before the actual release of the film however, teaser trailers are shown a couple months in advance. Teaser trailers tend to be short revealing very little information but may spill some bits such as cast or genre. The tend to be between 30-90 seconds in length and are basically aimed at making the audience want more.

A successful teaser is one that can get an entire audience disappointed because they wanted more to be shown. Trailers are made by specialist agencies or production companies to make it with the available material from the movie. Most trailers give you a variety of shots from the movie, to get some attention they may put some of the best bits in it as well to bring more anticipation from the audience. Material can be short as maybe most shots have not been filmed yet, so they try to make in engaging off what they have.

More then 3000 copies of a theatrical or teaser trailer are sent around, they tend to be shown in screens that are viewing films of similar interest. Some trailers for upcoming movies get shown on DVD's of similar interest as well, it isn't as common but is a possible way of doing it. The most common way is trailers being shown online, it is by far the more common of the lot.

Online:

Most successful planned movies tend to get more then just a poster and a trailer or two. A website is normally the next step to get people who like the internet to be interested in their website. The website is normally like a teaser site, which contains the trailer and maybe some brief news that has been going on with the movie. The also may contain mini-games depending on the audience they want. Galleries/stills will also be available and even behind the scene footage may be shown to the online community.The may sometimes give the audience blogs from the set and other content like video blogs or snippets from the set entice the audience more into their movie. Film clips are actually the most searched for content on the internet.

Merchandising:

Many releasing films, mainly family orientated films have merchandising laid out for the public. Normally it would be an image or logo relating to the movie put onto different merchandise. Examples of this are figures, clothing, ringtones, screen-savers or anything else to be honest. Even food outlets release toys for kids in their happy meals etc, this is normally for kids movies or other related content. But it means more people can know what their movie is, merchandise is a big thing in the marketing plan. Take Star Wars for example the amount of merchandise that has shipped in it's life span is a phenomenon on it's own.