Producing : Publicity & Press by Ethan Frome

Ethan Frome

Publicity & Press

I'm doing a drama/comedy webseries in NY (Currently planning the fundraiser campaign for $30K) and have a few questions. How does getting publicity and press for a project work? What is the process? Is it a viable option to pursue press coverage for a project in the fundraising stage? The Pre-fundraising stage? Are there options besides social media to bring attention to a project? What kind of money would have to be spent towards press/publicity? Thanks in advance for any insight on this matter!

Marleen Irani

It depends how you want to target your series, and where your target group can be found for an effective campaign. If your target group can be reached through press, it helps to arrange some agreements in the pre fundraising stage, or even earlier, for securing articles/interviews during your campaign. Besides social media, you can think of organizations/businesses or brands that are in some way in connection with your topic/target group, local organizations, universities, social gatherings or events, film festivals/theaters, your family, online forums. :D Hope this helps!

Christopher Phillips

Fundraising campaigns are usually done through social media and email. You would only go through the press for a very large project with very big names attached. Fundraising campaigns rely mostly on the fundraiser's social media reach and ability to get word of mouth started.

Ethan Frome

Christopher Phillips I've looked through a lot of successful campaigns for web-series and many of them include "press" as part of their budget breakdown. Everyone doesn't have a star studded cast but Press is definitely a common thing to incorporate to some capacity in conjunction with email and social media in campaigns. And then I google the press coverage they receive and it's definitely there. I'm sure it contributes to the marketing and awareness of the project like social media and e-mail does. Just in a different way different audience.

Christopher Phillips

Sure, you can have the web series announced in the trades or in local papers. Maybe convince someone to interview the talent for a local show or for the weekend entertainment news. You usually need to pay a dedicated person to make that happen. There is also advertising on social media.

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