Solo Build It! Review
How SBI! Will Help Build A Platform To
Market & Distribute Your Films As An Essential To The Business Of Movies
As the business of movies is taught in the following steps some links to websites like YouTube, Canva, and Instagram are provided. Young people who are taking this course should be supervised by an adult as they work through this lesson to ensure they are not accessing material unsuitable for Christian consumption. If you buy something through links in this phase, we may earn a referral fee. For more information, please read our disclosures.
I want to start this phase with a little bit of a story. We ran into a family the other day that recognized us from our movies. After a few glorious moments of feeling like celebrities, we asked how they found out about us.
I searched for good movies on the internet.
This was the response that we wanted to hear. The years of work we poured into industriousfamily.com produced results. It was a success!
How did we reach this level of internet visibility? Solo Build It! is how.
Solo Build It!, SBI for short, gave us all the tools necessary to get that visitor and tens of thousands of other visitors to industriousfamily.com where we market and sell our self-distributed films.
In 2008 a friend told me about SBI!. I was always looking for ways to earn a little extra money and I thought I might as well try it. Together we built how-to-pray-the-rosary-everyday.com. It earned decent money through Google Adsense plus a few affiliates.
This convinced me that the Content>Traffic>Presale>Monetize process that SBI! teaches works. I then started a website that would help Catholic families raise Catholic children. But, I never thought it would lead to film distribution.
Feel Their Pain
Fastforward to our moviemaking enterprises, we restructured industriousfamily.com around the words: family fun and good stories. In this way, a net is cast out into the World Wide Web where we catch surfers with solutions to their problem.
What is their problem? you may ask. Well they are looking for family fun and good stories. That's where Industrious Family Films eases their pain so-to-speak.
We provide family fun through good stories in our films.
SBI! taught us step by step how to build a website that gets the click at the search engine, satisfies the visitors, and converts the visitor into a loyal audience member who just can't get enough of our product, namely wholesome family entertainment!
SBI! will teach you to feel your visitors' pain in order to market your film to a targeted audience.
Task 1: Discover Your Niche
Positive, wholesome entertainment and Christian movies are all in our independent film niche and the business of movies is our business.
Being able to market and distribute our independent movies is extremely important. Without SBI! we could never have had the reach that we enjoy. SBI! taught us how to market and distribute our movies.
We send DVDs all over the United States and have newsletter subscribers from all over the world.
Actors from all over the country have answered our casting calls.
Moviemakers nationwide have submitted movies to our film festivals.
This success is due to SBI! which has impacted us in ways we could never have imagined when we were filming our first film.
Task 1:
Solopreneurs who use Solo Build It! create real businesses that outperform those that do not. Watch this 30 minute video tour of SBI! to see it in action.
You will understand how and why SBI! delivers what it promises...your best chance at online business success.
A Quick Outline For A Doable Film Distribution Process That Gets Results
In this phase you are also going to learn how to distribute your films on the website platform you have created hopefully through SBI!. At this point you are going to need to set up a YouTube or equivalent account. SBI will walk you through the process as well as the pros and cons of different video streaming platforms.
Upload your movie to the platform of your choice. Make it private. Go to your website and start building hype around your movie.
I know it is hard to be patient but you really need to do a launch. This means that you need to wait to release:
- Footage,
- Sneak peeks,
- And even behind the scene photos
until you are ready to launch.
Prior to launch, build a webpage draft where you will start writing blogs with photos or footage from shoots, promotional opportunities, media attention, or anything relevant that pops up.
You will want to aim for about 60 posts. They can be brief but the images must be high quality and unique. Use a graphic software program such as Canva to make social media posts.
Give your launch about 4-6 weeks. Premiere your movie at the end of that period.
In Review:
1. Open a YouTube account
2. Upload movie as a private video
3. Create a draft and begin writing blog posts for your launch. Store them on the draft.
4. Take a tour of Canva
Task 2: Pre-Launch
Pre-Launch - Set up your SBI! site. It will take many months to get through the Action Guide but get to the point where you have a domain name and some words in your Master Keyword List and your homepage built along with a couple of Tier 2's.
Set up a free Mailchimp account and put an opt in newsletter page on your website. Also set up your RSS/Blog on your website. SBI! will walk you through this process as well. (SBI! is like a master business degree in a box!)
Open one social media account. I'd suggest Instagram. Only follow a few people such as Industrious Family!
Don't follow all your family and friends.
You want to look like a professional and an expert in the field following others in your niche.
Bring on team members, your cast and crew, by telling them all about the launch.
Build a network. Start with Industrious Family. We're friendly and don't bite and are very excited to help you get the word out there!
Simply brainstorm and start collecting contact information for people who can help promote your film. As your network gets larger you may want to divide them into categories so when you email your network you can fine-tune your message to certain sub-niches. Our network categories are thus:
- Faith based film network
- Radio
- Catholic journalists
- Catholic Publishers
- Catholic Priests
- Actors
- Catholic moviemakers
- High profile movie makers
- Catholic SBIers
- Catholic authors
- Catholic business owners
Task 2 Checklist:
1. Set up SBI! website.
2. Open a Mailchimp Account and get a newsletter sign-up on your site.
3. Open one social media account.
4. Bring on team members and begin building a network.
Task 3: Launch
Start by sending an email to your network telling them that your movie is going to premiere soon and ask them to visit and share your webpage where your movie will stream. Build this page first.
Send out a newsletter to your mailing list including the link to the page where your movie will play and encourage people to share the newsletter by forwarding to friends.
Post twice daily on your social media and your RSS/blog on your website. These are the blog posts that you saved as drafts.
Hopefully you have many piled up to make your work easier. Post in the morning and the evening. Every post should lead back to the webpage where you will be streaming your premiere.
In Week 2, keep building momentum. Send out another email. Pick a couple of the more interesting social media posts you posted in Week 1 to highlight in your newsletter. Always lead people back to your website.
Continue to post in your RSS/blog and social media twice daily. Ask your team to post on their socials.
Bring it home in Week 3. Keep doing what you've been doing but double down on the hype. Send out a newsletter this week that starts a countdown. Send another round of emails to your network that didn't respond to the first email.
Keep asking your team to share your webpage where the premiere will be streamed. Get ready to celebrate because you are ready to premiere your movie in Week 4!
Task 3 Checklist:
Week 1 tasks:
- Build the page where you will host your premiere.
- Email your network notifying them of your premiere.
- Send a newsletter directing people where to go to view the premiere.
- Post blog posts twice a day on your RSS/blog and social media.
Week 2 tasks:
- Send out another newsletter that continues to build hype around the release of your film.
- Continue to post blog posts twice a day.
Week 3 tasks:
- Send out a newsletter with a countdown.
- Make sure your team is promoting as much as possible.
- Reach out to anyone in your network who didn't respond and see if they will help with promoting.
Task 4: Premiering And Beyond!
Once the desired day comes, you are ready to put the private video on your website. You'll have to make sure your video is now either public or unlisted. Otherwise no one will be able to see it!
Make sure you send out a newsletter, post to social media, tell the team, email your network and finally RSS/blog that it is up and ready to be streamed.
Eventually you may want to hide the page and keep the video private so you can start selling your movie on DVD.
To distribute DVDs you will need to press DVDs. You can use an external DVD burner and burning software. We use Corel Roxio Toast Titanium 20 available at B&H Photo Video as software.
You can buy all the DVD supplies from Amazon. We print our own DVD labels and order sleeves from Canva. You will need to design your own movie cover.
If you add a plastic sleeve it will make your product look very professional, and a good selling price point is $19.99. Don't forget to specify media mail when you mail copies out to your audience.
Task 4 Checklist:
1. Post the movie on your webpage.
2. Announce that the movie is available through your newsletter and to your network.
3. After a bit, remove the video to boost DVD sales.
This about sums up the business of movies. Keep it up. Keep building. Keep learning better ways to promote your movies. And keep a positive attitude.
Now that you understand the concept of marketing for your premiere, get ready to party by hosting your:
