Volunteering My Marketing Skills

A few months ago, a non-profit that I was volunteering for asked me to take a look at some survey data that they had collected from one of their movie screenings and advise on marketing. 

Demographics

63% Female

Upon seeing that the majority of attendees were women, I wanted to know if this was because the film was more geared towards female audiences or if it was reflective of the nonprofit membership.  If indeed the majority of members are female, I advised that the nonprofit should work towards tailoring their ad copy towards women and perhaps even think about doing some women only events.

40.1% Chinese speaking

From the survey, I noted that there could be a large number Chinese speakers.  Adding up the numbers: 32.8% Chinese + 7.3% Taiwanese = Theoretical 40.1% of the audience was Chinese speaking.  This number is most likely inflated, due to the high number of American born Chinese that do not speak their native language. 

However, the percentage is high enough that it does warrant looking into run ads in different languages. Chinese language ads in Chinese language newspapers could be a cost effective way to do print advertising.  It is my guess that ad space in the ethnic newspapers are much cheaper that San Diego Tribune.  In addition, there is a strong word of mouth effect due to their strong ties in the community.  Ethnic language radio stations would be a great channel to target local ethnic communities as well.

35.2% of social media age

• 17.6% of attendees were aged 26 - 34 = Ideal social media targets
• 17.6% of attendees were aged 35 - 44 = Good social media users

The nonprofit should invest time in engaging its users with the end goal of having them attend screenings.  Leading up to the screening, background information on the movie and trivia should be posted on the Facebook page.  Facebook ads targeting people with an interest in Asian film located in the San Diego area should also be considered.  Applying the rationale of ethnic language ads onto Facebook would make them stand out even more.   

How did you hear about tonight's event?

Word of mouth 46.7%

With a little under half the attendees hearing about the screening through word of mouth, I believe that an effort should be made to make the message about the movie as clear and succinct as possible.  Upon reading the copy of the screening, people should be able to tell their friends in two to three sentences what the movie is about and why they want to watch it.  This could be done by clearly stating what type of movie it is (Coming of age, war, spy etc), then summarizing the major themes and closing with a unique identifier (audience choice, winner of festival, etc).   

Newsletter 38.5%

Taking into account the large percentage of attendees who heard about the screening through the electronic newsletter, with the even larger percentage of those who heard it from word of mouth, it makes sense to build in a link or button that instantly tweets or Facebook shares the event especially given the percentage that are of social media age.  This function in the electronic newsletter would integrate in well with the nonprofits social media efforts.   

Where in San Diego do you currently live?

I Google mapped locations of all the attendees, so that it could help in the choosing of future event locations.  Utlizing this map, it would be easy to choose a location that would be most convenient for the greatest number of members.  In addition, it could be used to determine where to target marketing campaigns.