Love to Tease?…Promote Your Film!

Do Not Press This Button.

2026 Promo for Qikfinger Films ©️2026

Why promote? Streaming films into people’s living rooms, over phones and tablets, is the Holy Grail for most filmmakers. Can you produce films engaging enough for distribution on Amazon, YouTube, Tubi, and others? That’s step one. Step two is letting people know about your film, finding your audience by helping them find you. Big studios spend a fortune advertising a feature release. Suddenly it’s a barrage of commercials, billboards, ads plastered on the side of a bus, and TV interviews. So what’s an indie filmmaker to do to cut through all that racket? As with many hats that indie filmmakers are called upon to wear, Advertising Exec is just one more.

After you’ve spent money on production and post, what do you do now? The film festival route is a wonderful and strategic way to kick off your film’s promotion. Just the vetting process alone, being selected, attaching laurels to your key art, provides both credibility and an IMDb-ready professional credit. The catch is that festivals charge entrance fees. The most prestigious fests serve as promotional launchpads for studio-level productions. Regardless of the odds, if you believe in your film, leave no stone unturned but have a strategic plan. Learn which festivals will embrace your film’s genre. It’s all about demographics. The festivals may attract a certain crowd for comedy,

horror, suspense, docs, what have you, but what they also attract is your demographic, your audience.

Film festivals all have a web presence. They promote. They sell tickets and merch. They have email lists of past attendees and attract the local press. What they are promoting, most importantly, is your film. Your artwork, posters, production stills will be part of the online fest program as well as, and here’s the important part, your teaser or trailer. They provide direct access to an audience eager to see your promotion.

Concept artwork matters, teasers, trailers, and posters matter. These are the time-proven elements needed to attract an audience, but also distributors and streamers. Filmmaking, making films you want to be shown, is not called “show-fun.” It’s show business. Include promotion in your budget.

If you already have a cut of your film, you have everything you need to make a teaser, trailer, or banner ad. Decide what you want to say and how you want to say it. Fifteen-second teasers are incredibly effective and can be cut on a laptop.

If you don’t have a website or social media accounts to promote both your films and youself, get them today. Social media is free. Websites cost money, take time to build, but they’re a professional platform and great for promotion.

Once you cut a teaser that entices viewers to see your film it’s time to create a social media ad campaign aimed at a demographic of your choosing. Create banner ads and link your teaser. Draw in fans to stream your film. With a micro budget version of a big studio rollout, you can sell your film. No one will know your film is on the web unless you tell them. Better yet, show them. Build your audience. Show your teaser.