Hi, it’s Jeff MacIntyre, and if you just finished a film, you’re likely stuck at the crossroads of SHITTY and CRAPPY decisions when it comes to distribution.

Do you knock on the door of a frothing-at-the-mouth, blood-thirsty shark? A.K.A. Traditional Film Distribution.

OR…

Do you bravely venture off on your own and try to self distribute your film? What follows is a no-holes bared, brutally honest case study of my experience.

After all, self-distribution is the rage. Every podcast you’ve listened to in the past year has been extolling the virtues of: Finding Your Niche, Serving Your Niche and Profiting From Your Niche.

As uplifting as those stories are, how does that really translate to real world numbers and real world results for YOUR film?

Frankly, I don’t know. Nobody does. But I do know the results I was able to achieve with my doc and will peel back the curtain to give you a peek of exactly what self distributing a documentary looks like. Yes, we’re going to go deep.

We’re going to look into the production budget. I’m going to share my marketing numbers and crack into my Facebook ad account. You’re going to get the skinny on how much was spent and how well those ads performed. Oh yeah, we’re going to get messy. We’re going to dive into the virtual pig pen known as distribution.I’ll share emails and deals I received. Names will be named. Terms will be discussed.

At this point, I don’t give three shits. What’s the point on holding anything back? In the spirit of transparency, we all need to start sharing real numbers and real results. If there are any. Without this industry-wide honesty, how will we grow?

How will this institution of independent filmmaking thrive into the future if we don’t understand the current rules and we all don’t see the cause and effect of certain strategies and game plans we’re experimenting with. It’s only through transparency…warts and all…can we grow together.

I’ll also reveal how the launch went and show you how many units were moved. And we’ll wrap-up this big ol’ self-distribution shit show with what I like to call Phase Two Revenue Streams…pursuing educational and institutional sales.

For me, those are opportunities that are bursting at the seams with potential. So, if you’re ready for this deep dive, strap on your scuba tank and let’s jump in the shark-infested waters and figure out: Is it possible to successfully self distribute a documentary in these crazy times?

The documentary in question is called, The Great Cookie Comeback.

Have you heard of a little cookie brand, Famous Amos? Yeah? Well, it’s only one of the biggest cookie brands in the US. Whether you knew it or not, when you were plowing through your bag of Famous Amos Cookies, there actually was a real guy named Amos. Wally Amos. In 1975, he started Famous Amos.

His cookies may have been small, but WOW, the success he achieved was massive. He was a household name back in the day and really hit it big. Fast forward 10 years, Wally loses everything. So, I roll up on Wally Amos five years ago, and, at this point, he’s 80 years old and a step away from being homeless.

He’s about to move into a 10′ by 10′ room at the YMCA. A sad turn of events for a guy who used to be a business icon. But, enough of my chatter, take a look at the trailer.

This isn’t my first trip to the Documentary Rodeo. No, I’ve been in this game for decades. Travelled to 50 countries…Picked up 17 Emmy Awards along the way. However, what is new is my responsibility to get this film out there and, hopefully, have it turn a profit. In the old days, I did a lot of work with ABC TV where my primary role was “maker”, not “seller”. They would handle the broadcasting and monetization of any content we created. Now, that’s all on me.

First stop on this grand tour is the budget. For the sake of round numbers, this film’s hard costs were about $15,000. The biggest expense was travel. At the time, Wally was living in Honolulu, HI. I was having to fly back a couple of times to shoot interviews. Oh, thank you, I really appreciate the sympathy. I know, it was rough having to go to Hawaii to shoot this. But, I muddled through.

Another line item was licensing fees for photos and film clips. Thankfully, Wally had an incredible archival library of photos and had some really cool old film that had to be transferred.

One of the bigger cost centers was legal clearance. I hired one of the best teams in town to clear this film, Donaldson and Kaliff. That ran me about $2,500.

Being a fellow indie filmmaker, you know -nowhere in this budget- are the hundreds of hours of the blood, sweat and tears that went into the shooting, the producing, the directing, the writing, the editing, the marketing, the promoting, the selling of this film.

No. And those hours are never recouped at full market value. If recouped at all…but that’s part of the contract of trading pain for art.

Now it’s time for everybody’s favorite topic. Yes, going through the Big D. Depression? Disappointment? No, distribution! AKA depression and disappointment.

My foray into distribution for this project was like a BLT sandwich. Just without the B or the T. Just lettuce on stale bread with expired mayo. Take a bite. Yummy!

After researching a bunch of indie film distributors, I had a list of about 10. And my bar was pretty low, too. To make it on this extensive list, you had to fall between the range of: Shitty, but may not get fucked without lube -to- Mediocre with slim, but possible chance of making $100.

The Orchard, Brain Media, Submarine, Rocco Films, Gravitas…all got emails. They all were sent trailers. Majority said, “No, thanks”. Gravitas said, “Hey, this looks interesting. Let’s talk.” Why not? I’m excited. Wow, a distributor actually likes my film. That enthusiasm quickly fades after we speak on the phone.

From Gravitas comes a Crappy-tas offer. 15 year term, all rights, excluding theatrical, 25% distribution fee. I think I can do better.

Right about now, I was soaking-up a ton of content; sponging tips from Alex Ferrari from Indie Film Hustle and I even took The Film Audience Blueprint course from Rob Hardy from Filmmaker Freedom.

The depth and quality of that course really lit my fuse to think, “Hey, I could find and build a niche audience around this film and at least match a Gravitas deal, if not do better.” The march to self-distribution began!

In addition to Gravitas, I did get a “yes” from Indie Rights and had a nice chat with Linda, one of its key players. It’s one distributor people hold in medium to high regard and they definitely sounded very solid.

So you know, Indie Rights and every other distributor at our level will NOT do much marketing, if any.

That’s something you have to be very comfortable with. If you’re not ready to market your film hard, don’t press ‘record’.

Don’t bother making a film, unless you have enough gas in your tank to take it across the marketing finish line.

You’re going to be huffing and puffing to get the word out and it’s always going to be on You/Us, as filmmakers, to spread the word.

No one is riding-in on their Social Media Marketing Horse to save us.

No one is coming in the rowboats. It’s just us in that rowboat…with one oar…in a sea full of sharks and mutant piranhas with coronavirus. It’s up to us to paddle like hell to get to that island where maybe five potential audience members await and then keep rowing to the next island where maybe 12 potential audience members, potential renters of our film… for $4.99 each…exist.

Which smoothly segues us into marketing. And if we’re talking marketing, we can only be talking about…Facebook Ads!

Not only that, of course, I employed some other strategies from reaching out to podcasts and bloggers, list building, funnel conversion, email blasts, all that, which we will get to. But first, let’s start with the unicorn in the room: Facebook.

Come on, that’s where the gold is, right? Well, at least in Zuckerberg’s pocket. It used to be in mine, but now it’s all in his.

I launched the film’s Facebook page in January, 2018. Looking back, I really didn’t start advertising until 2019. Back then, you had a slightly better chance of your tribe seeing your posts organically. Now, good luck, it’s 100% pay to play.

Over time, I was able to build up the page’s followers to 2,893. Then I started ramping up once I decided to release this damn doc. I wanted to get it out of my hair and push it through the creative birthing canal. It was time to get it into the world, so I can move on with life.

Honestly, it’s not the best film I’ve ever made, but it’s definitely good enough. It tells an interesting story. Hopefully, it helps Wally get some exposure and get him back on his feet making cookies and money. But, it will not consume any more of my life. 82% is good enough for me, because a film that’s 82% and out is much better than a film you’re intending to toil on to get to 99% and then push out.

Reality Check: You never will. Intentions don’t pay the bills. Intentions don’t springboard you to other opportunities. Drop the shit and move on. So, I did.

However, I didn’t slack off. I hustled and created a ton of custom Facebook content. 110 posts, 28 original videos. Wally was a real positive guy, so I had a bunch of posts that incorporated some Wally Wisdom, his positive sayings and slogans. This seemed to resonate with people.

Like I said, Wally had a rich photo archive. There were so many wonderful old photos that fueled a Wally Throwback every Thursday.

My sweet spot with this audience was 45 to 65 year olds. Many remember Wally back in the day and love the old photos. The archival material always did big ‘social business’.

Topical content was also important.

Something I’d do around the Oscars was create an Oscar-themed post with a play on words from one of the Best Picture nominees. In 2020, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was the nominee. So, Once Upon a Cookie was born. This is some cool artwork of Wally’s original shop on Sunset Boulevard.

Let’s get down to the nitty gritty. How much did Jeff drop of his hard-earned money…which he’ll never see again?

Jumping into the clunkiest online interface, the Facebook Ad Manager. Thank you for making this so difficult, Zuck. I really appreciate that. As you can see, a whole lot of ads were running…a whole lot of credit cards were $wiping.

Since January, 2018, when I first started running ads for this film, I ran a grand total, as of March 2nd, 2020: 121 ads for $1,383.

In a little bit, all will be revealed. Was I able to recoup at least my marketing spend on the big launch? Are you teetering on the edge of your futon?? We’ll find out…

But first, something interesting I discovered. Since this is an older audience, when I’d run an ad with just a current picture of Wally, it didn’t convert as well as when I used a split screen then-now pic. Using an old pic from the audience’s heyday was a little blast of nostalgia to trigger a Dopamine hit and hopefully a Like or a Buy. It was key with his audience to always take them back to “sweeter” times.

You always need to be mindful of your audience’s/niche’s psychological trigger points and always deliver content to push those buttons.

Sober Wake-Up Call! At times, I’d get intoxicated by vanity metrics. The Likes, the Shares, the Comments. At the end o’ the day, who gives two flyin’ fucks if you got 758 likes, if you ended up getting zero sales.

It. Doesn’t. Matter. BUT it’s so easy to get swept up in the feel good rush of the Likes and page followers. At first glance, that’s awesome, but you always need to stay sober to what really matters.

And that is…building a passionate, engaged following and interacting with them online like a real human being who cares and not just a slick, used-documentary salesperson. It’s imperative to drive them from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter to your website where there’s an opportunity to opt-in and sign up for your newsletter in exchange for a freebie or lead magnet (if you want fancy web marketing talk).

Never confuse the Like button with the Buy button.

Building, maintaining and nurturing your own email list is crucial. Not just for the survival of this film, but your next and next and next. You know all this, but are you making a concerted effort into doing it?

Are you creating landing pages? Do you have mechanisms to grab email addresses that trigger an autoresponder email sequence? It’s worth the effort and pays long term dividends.

A couple months before releasing the film, I wanted to try a couple of different ad experiments. I eventually would test three things. Can I entice people to jump on my email list if I give them:

• Free Film Ticket
• $5 Off Coupon
• Wally’s Famous Cookie Recipe

All in, I spent about $173 testing different lead magnet ads. I collected about 189 subscribers. Which lead magnet performed best? Surprisingly…

• 52 – Free Recipe
• 23 – $5 Off Coupon
• 11 – Free Film Ticket

To do it again (Ha, like I’d ever do this again!), I’d never give away a free ticket because I had some takers. Why cater to the minority? You need to figure out what’s going to move the needle with your very unique audience and then deliver an enticement that will excite them.

I decided to use Gumroad to sell the film. It’s a pretty robust platform for creating different versions of your product. You could let people buy and download your film, or restrict it to streaming only, which at this point, I have chosen.

As an enticement to motivate someone to buy the film instead of renting it for $4.99, for an extra $5, I pushed The Cookie Lovers Bundle. It included:

• Documentary
• Deleted scene
• Video of Wally showing you how to make his famous cookies
• Wally Memes, which I repurposed from the Facebook campaign
• A Book using the Wally Wisdom images re-packaged as a nice square book
• Wally’s original cookie recipe

Always try to drive people to the ‘bigger’ ticket item. Only in film is a $9.99 product considered ‘big ticket’. Why didn’t I become a plumber??

So far, Gumroad has been working out. It integrates nicely into your website, too. Keep in mind, in order to use these features, Gumroad charges $10/month. There are months were I don’t make any sales…and the Movie Masochism rolls on!

Super critical when running Facebook ads is making sure you laser target the specific audience you’re going after. The real secret sauce to Facebook ads is the ability to micro-target specific groups, ages, regions, hobbies, or whether they’ve got a wart on their left or right cheek.

Some of the early audiences I targeted were people who self-identified as: Entrepreneurs who like documentaries, Shark Tank and small business owners.

The last couple months, I found an audience that really seemed to resonate…Steve Harvey fans who also like documentary movies and the Shark Tank TV show.

If you’re not micro-targeting, you’re truly macro-wasting your hard-earned money. Put Facebook to work in the way it was intended. Use their super sneaky, piracy-marauding techniques to your benefit.

God knows they’re pirating and selling all our personal information. Why not put that to use to benefit our films? But, you better understand how Facebook ads work, because there’s a lot of options for ad types. What’s your goal? Is it conversions? Vanity metrics?

Watch some YouTube videos and get some training, or you’ll just be throwing money down a digital hole. And if you want to do that, I’ll give you my email. It may make you feel better to at least know who it’s going to. Arigato, Mr. FilmRoboto.

Come launch day, February 28th, 2020, I hit it hard with a multi-tiered advertising blitz, saturating people with Wally videos. If you have the opportunity to shoot custom content with your film’s characters, do it! A short promo video with your main characters promoting the film is a fun way to push the film in an authentic way.

The Big Question…Did you make any money off this silly project?

Funny you should ask. I mean, we could have saved a bunch of time if you would’ve led with that question.

To recap, the ad spend was $1,383 for 121 ads. Forget about the nearly $15,000 in hard costs, hundreds of hours of time, talent and passion.

Does The Great Cookie Comeback lead to a great documentary payoff?

During its first week of launch, The Great Cookie Comeback produces a grand total of…10 sales for a payout of exactly $36.94. But, not really. Before I launched the account, I had to do some test transactions.

We have to then subtract $7. Because I promised to share real numbers, it brings the total to a robust $29.96. OR put another way, a profit of 11.9 boxes of Famous Amos Cookies. Yes, almost 12 boxes of the sweet, diabetes, cavity-inducing treat as compensation for almost five years of work.

Ah, it’s a good time to be an indie filmmaker, ain’t it?

Dry your eyes. All is not lost. Oh no, my sweet indie filmmakers. The ‘big’ money still awaits for Education and Institutional Sales and Senior-Related Organizations.

From senior and assisted living facilities to conferences where they buy content, there’s potential within this sector…especially since they buy films to show at these facilities. There are over 70k facilities across this country who’d love to meet the charismatic, uplifting, motivational Wally Amos. To me, that’s a direct fit. *Not the best time to be organizing events at senior facilities. Time will tell…

Also, the film’s a great learning tool for business schools. Packed within Wally’s story are great lessons from entrepreneurship to business planning, contracts, marketing, promotion, business law. I think that’s a ripe audience to tap and for $200 bucks to license the film, there’s a chance to recoup some of my Facebook marketing budget.

The Takeaway: Thinking as a entrepreneur, not just a filmmaker, is crucial for survival.

For senior living facilities, I’m creating an Activity in a Box. There are Activity Directors at each of these facilities who are desperate to come up with daily activities for the seniors. Make their job a little easier and they’ll gladly fork over a measly $350.

To test this theory, I did some research on facilities in my area and set up some screenings where I showed the film to a small group of sleepy seniors. I think we only only lost two during the screening. We didn’t LOSE them. I’m not talking about paramedics and gurneys. No, no, they just fell asleep. Some of them left early. Uh, most of them left early. For a filmmaker, it’s a great feeling to hear loud thuds during your screening as bodies hit the floor.

I also contacted business schools in my area and had a great screening at a California State University. In exchange, I was able to get some nice testimonials from professors, which I now use in my marketing. Social proof does wonders for conversions.

That’s the goal. Do a couple more screenings at biz schools and assisted living facilities. Rack-up more testimonials, get some feedback, make some tweaks, and hit the ground hard to sell this.

In addition to social media marketing, I reached out to influencers, podcasters and bloggers who produce content that mirrors some of the themes in the documentary.

I made them the following offer:

“In order to do something different to promote this film, I’d like to work with you to create custom content that not only reflects the film’s major message, but aligns with your mission statement.”

For example, for a popular business podcaster, I said,

“Let’s put together a course based on the principles in the film. You watch the doc, then address five areas you think would be interesting to your audience. You can breakdown what Wally did right and wrong when he started Famous Amos and frame it in a way which would move the needle with your audience. You’d score a pretty cool piece of content, which I’d produce for you. You can sell it or give it away for free to your audience. It’s a great way to build your list, too.”

All these podcasters/influences are hungry for fresh content. Why not help them solve a problem? Instead of begging for free promotion, give them something valuable/promotable in return. And, let’s say it was a course, you could generate some nice rev-share profits.

If you sell the course for an additional $49-99, then you’re pocketing extra money and you’re thinking like an entrepreneur. All this was in place and I had a couple of takers early on, but they all vanished.

If you made a documentary that has some good life lessons, figure out a way to transform it into a course. Online courses are huge now. Just find a podcast or blogger that’s talking about this stuff and you’re on your way!

Even though that didn’t come through, I still think it’s a great idea and something I’m going to push for.

Something that goes hand-in-hand with knowing your niche is figuring out if they truly want what you’re selling. At the end of the road, that’s the only thing that matters.

Are you producing a product for a hungry audience?

As entrepreneurial filmmakers, we need to make sure we have enough gas in our tank to then switch hats from producing to marketing to promotion to distribution and sales.

It’s fatiguing and not for the weak of heart. You better have a hell of a lot of passion for your project, your topic, your niche in order to make it across the finish line. As creatives, the finish line is no longer, “Oh, I finished the movie, save as MP4 and upload.”

No, no, no. That’s really when the real race begins. After you’ve finished cutting, you better hope have enough money/energy to carry you through the next phase.

Fight on! We never know what’s coming around the corner and this media landscape is constantly changing. Opportunities will always await, but it means we may need to pivot and apply our skills in a new way. Some of us old timers resist change and prefer the old way, the old road.

After all, it’s been steady. There aren’t many potholes. It’s familiar. But this road, unfortunately, now is leading to a dead end for a lot of us.

It’s crucial to pivot and find opportunities in new spaces. They don’t look anything like where we’ve come from. It’s seeing things through new eyes and figuring out innovative ways to apply our rich skill-sets.

The great thing about the old timers, we have decades of experience waiting to be tapped. But, it’s our responsibility to get innovative with our skill-sets and find new ways to apply them to the ever shifting landscapes of audience demographics/needs and media platforms that don’t resemble the familiar landscape of yesteryear.

If I can’t make this feature doc work, that’s on me. Come on, it’s time to innovate. Why not chop this baby up into 8-10 different five minute episodes and then roll it out as a series?

Enough of this madness! Thank you so much for investing your time. Time, you’ll never get back. (Sorry, no refunds.)

This is probably where I’d say, “Good luck to y’all!” But, I’m not, because you don’t need luck.

As independent filmmakers, we don’t need luck anymore. We need -strength-.

So, I wish you lots of strength to stay committed to your passion, committed to your why. Why did you hit record on that camera years ago?

I wish you strength to stay aligned with that passion, strength to endure storms that will rock your creative boat. I wish you courage to try new things, new marketing methods, new advertising channels, new self-distribution techniques.

Perhaps some of you will get lucky on any number of those things, but luck is never a strategy.

Strength and forward momentum are essential for your growth and success. Taking a risk by putting your foot out and making the next step, that’s the only way forward in this wacky, new world of self-distribution.

Stay strong!

(Fade to black)

Minutes later…

So, “stay strong” felt good. It’s rah, rah, go team. I still stand by that. But more important than staying strong is acting from a place of strength. And the only way you can do that is arming yourself with the right information…the right steps to guarantee a successful movie launch.

While I truly believe the techniques I used were proper. Many, on their own, had great merit. I stumbled in the execution of some of them and could really use some tweaking.

I’m excited to announce I’m partnering with the movie marketing expert, Rob Hardy, the captain of The Filmmaker Freedom website.

He has this great course, The Film Audience Blueprint, which inspired me to take on self-distribution. Rob knows his stuff, and that’s why I’m so excited. He’s agreed to dissect my marketing moves from launch 1.0 and give me a report card.

Where did I go right? Where did I go wrong? What could I have done differently? Then he will compile that information and give me homework and send me out to attempt launch 2.0 with a smart strategy.

The cool part? We’re inviting you to ride shotgun! You’ll have a front row seat to try out some of the marketing principles with your film.

Birthing a film is hard enough. Fellow filmmakers, I know you feel me. If you’re wearing all the hats already, this next phase is grueling. I think if we can all band together and share tips and tricks that work, that’ll only help us all along.

Here’s how this is going to shake out. If you sign-up for our free mini course, we’ll give you something unlike anything you’ve seen before.

We’ve all signed up for a mini course, right? We’ve all been disappointed by the content…thin, ultra-salesy content. All sizzle, no steak.

Nope, not here. The one thing Rob and I have in common, we like to over deliver. I mean, look at the blog post you just survived! Who does that? We do, because we’re all about delivering value.

This Movie Marketing Mini-Course promises to have actionable items. It’s five videos where Rob deep dives on some of my marketing efforts and gives me/you actionable advice. Over 95 minutes of valuable content!

Real world advice that you, as a filmmaker, at a crossroads right now, might be wondering…

What platform do I advertise on? How do I use Facebook ads to my benefit? Do I even go down that road?

We want to arm you with the right information before you throw away a bunch of money, because it’s so easy to drain your MasterCard if you don’t get all the settings dialed in properly and Rob knows this stuff.

That’s why I’m so excited he has teamed up and is going to give me a chance to relaunch this movie. And relaunch in a way where I actually could profit. There’s a thought, right? Profiting from indie film? Incredible! Who would suggest such a crazy thing?

Well, we’re just crazy enough to believe it can work. And if you are too, if you believe in indie filmmaking, if you refuse to give up on your passion to make money from your art, this is for you and we’d love you to ride shotgun with us as we give this movie a marketing makeover.

If you’re in, just sign up below. Thank you so much for your time. I know it’s time you’ll never get back, but we hope to pay that forward with this mini course. Thank you!

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