Google AdWords Campaign for East Lansing Film Festival

Photo courtesy: East Lansing Film Festival

Thank you for the opportunity to develop an advertising campaign for the annual East Lansing Film Festival. After careful consideration, my recommendation would be to utilize a Google AdWords campaign. A Google AdWords campaign works this way: when an individual searches for you on Google using a keyword you have chosen, your ad may appear next to the search results. As a result, you have the potential of reaching an audience that is most likely already interested in you.

Google AdWords is also very cost effective, as you're only charged for the Cost Per Click (CPC)...that is, you're only charged when someone clicks on the ad that is showcased. This ensures your advertising budget won't get out of hand.

There are several things that could be accomplished by utilizing a Google AdWords campaign. You could attract advertisers or corporations that may want to sponsor the East Lansing Film Festival. You could educate the general population about film and the importance of local humanities opportunities. You could reach more customers - both in the form of potential festival attendees and potential film makers for future festivals. The opportunities are endless based on the keywords you choose.

What's also great about Google AdWords is that you can localize and regionalize your ads so they only appear to the individuals you want to reach in designated areas. Whether that's to key communities of people you know would travel for the festival, or Great Lakes-area film makers who may be interested in submitting to the festival.

For the purpose of this campaign - and due to the fact submissions are no longer being accepted from film makers for the 2011 East Lansing Film Festival - I would suggest focusing solely on advertising to potential festival attendees and encouraging them to buy tickets.

Keywords I would consider include "film in Michigan", "Michigan film festival", "film festival tickets", "film festival", "Michigan movies", and "East Lansing film festival". This keywords would be items individuals who have an interest in film (or are in the area) would be most likely to use.

The sample ad copy I would suggest would be something like the following:

East Lansing Film Festival
Best film festival in Michigan!
Tickets available now for November
www.elff.com/festival/box-office

Best Film Festival in MI
Come to East Lansing this November
Tickets on sale now
www.elff.com/festival/box-office

There are a variety of ways that we could measure campaign effectiveness, including monitoring the click-thru rate of the keywords we have selected - and determining which ones people are actually utilizing most. We could also monitor the analytics of the East Lansing Film Festival Box Office landing page (through Google Analytics) and see how many people are actually ending up where we want them to go. And then an office measurement would come in the form of ticket sales and determining what motivated individuals to buy tickets.

Overall, I think Google AdWords would be an effective use of your time and resources. Thank you for the opportunity to present this idea to you.