Didital Marketing Plan

Digital Marketing Plan
Silver Screen, showcasing the latest specialism films and featuring regular film events and activities, is a new independent cinema in Newcastle. Our group will analyze and strategize for the independent cinema Silver Screen in this project. According to the digital marketing strategy template and the group meeting contents, my group role is Social Media Manager which is not only taking responsibility for customers and market analysis, but also in charge of the online representation or presence, content and engagement strategy, and acquisition communication strategy. Therefore, this marketing plan will divide into two parts that are situation analysis and strategy plan. In the first part, I will concentrate on analyzing the ideal customers for Silver Screen and the current state of independent cinema in UK. Then, I will work out a social media strategy in terms of online representation, content and engagement strategy, and acquisition communication strategy.
Situation analysis
Customers
According to the statistics of the UK film council, it demonstrates that “the cinema audience for the top 20 films in 2009 was predominantly young, with the 7–34 age group (40% of the population) making up 64% of the audience” (UK film council, 2009) In addition, the article At a Cinema Near You argues that “the demographic characteristics for specialist cinema audiences differ in important respects from commercial cinemas audiences. There are a noticeably higher proportion of people in education or with higher proportion of people in education or with higher educational qualifications.” Thus, it’s obvious to notice that the ideal customers of Silver Screen are 18-30 years old white middle class audiences. More specifically, Newcastle city center is based on the two famous comprehensive universities, thus college students are the main target customers for Silver Screen.
Market
The current state of independent cinema industry is that specialised films are a growing aspect of film culture, but the screens were dedicated to specialised films increase gently. The figures from UK film council illustrates that “the box office of specialised films has grown steadily from low point of 51% in 2003 to 69% last year. And the specialised film’s share 15% of the UK box office.” Moreover, “only 7% of screens were dedicated to ‘specialised’ (that is non-mainstream) programming, with 0.3% dedicated mainly to South Asian films.” (UK film council, 2010) Therefore, the market of independent cinema is developing stably.
On the other hand, the current trend for independent cinema is concentrated on two terms ‘quality’ and ‘choices’. More specifically, the standard of cinema buildings, audience comfort levels and the quality of the technical presentation have all risen sharply. Large screens, multi-channel sound systems, comfortable seats with generous legroom are considered to be the basic requirements by many contemporary cinemagoers. Thus most independent cinemas attract customers due to improving the physical environment. At the meantime, the main reason why cinemagoers choose independent cinema is that they want to access a large range of films from around the world. Hence, it’s significant for independent cinema to offer a large range of films in order to satisfy customers’ demand.
Strategy plan
Online representation or presence
In terms of the online representation or presence, the overall style of the Silver Screen website is professional and stylish, thus the main colors of the website page are black, white, and dark blue. Furthermore, the website pages of Silver Screen will be divided into six parts which are included homepage, now showing, specials, mobile app, cinema information, and contact. More specifically, the homepage will provide the information of showing film and drop down boxes in order to make customers access to the latest features and goings on easily. Meanwhile, the non homepage pages will embody screening times, details of cinema events and mobile app, contact information, etc. Furthermore, Silver Screen will update the latest news and events in the Facebook and Twitter pages in order to attract customers’ attentions.
Content and engagement strategy
In order to gain customer’s initial interest and support the buying process, the website of Silver Screen not only provides main information about events, screening, and cinema, but also offers the 10% off discount for the customers who book the ticket online. With the development of Silver Screen, the website will combine the social networking with cinema news. Registered users can post reviews and chart about the films which release on Silver Screen.
Moreover, for the sake of collecting customer’s feedback and promoting return visits, Silver Screen will post the latest news and events in the Facebook and Twitter pages, and give free drink to the customers who’s comments with the most ‘likes’.
At the meantime, Silver Screen will launch the Mobile App that customer can download it from the website page. This Mobile App will update the latest news, events, and screening time, and offer the geo-location program which can help customers find the cinema easily. Furthermore, customers also can download the film soundtracks and trailers through the Mobile App. In order to gain customer’s interest, Mobile App will provides a interesting program ‘Shake, Shake’ that is randomly choose a showing film for the customers, whilst customers will get 20% off discount for the tickets.
Acquisition communication strategy
Search engine marketing, social media marketing, advertising, and E-mail marketing are the main media channels which Silver Screen will use to attract customers’ attentions. In respect of search engine, Silver Screen will pay for the advertising fee to the famous search engine websites, thus the terms such as independent film, entertainment place, and Newcastle cinema will link to Silver Screen naturally. Moreover, Silver Screen will have a personal voice on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. In order to acquire traffic, Silver Screen will e-mail the latest screening times and events information to the potential customers as well. In terms of offline media, Silver Screen will publicize the advertisements in local radio and TV, and distribute the leaflet and event guide book freely.
To sum up, with the development of independent cinema, Silver Screen which is focused on the college students will consummate the physical environment and film programs, and implement the social media strategy in detail.