How I sold Crashing the Con at San Diego Comic-Con 2009
Outlined below is a 'diary' of my attempt to market "Crashing the Con" at San Diego Comic-Con 2009. Hopefully, at the very least, it'll help someone else in the future with their efforts at marketing their independent feature at a Convention and not repeat the mistakes I made...
07/23/2009-07/26/2009 - Pass out cards, shout at people from booth, pass out more cards, explain to people how to actually get to booth, pass out more cards, make a sale or two, pass out more cards, give copies to people like Bill Plympton / Lloyd Kaufman / Felicia Day / Roger Chang / Yada Yada Yada, collapse in exhaustion. Comic-Con was great and while the sales aren't what I hoped they'd be, I learned a lot of lessons about promoting a product at a convention when it isn't already well known that I'll be utilizing in the future.
Booth exposure is a must. Sell T-Shirts. Give out free copies to people who are likely to tell a massive amount of others about it if they like it. Be polite to everyone, but still keep your wit and don't be afraid to joke with strangers - self deprecating humor always helps at places like Comic-Con. Again, make sure people can find and identify your booth easily. Make new friends out of other hard working independents doing the same thing you are and help each other out. Don't spend more money on your booth, materials, and product inventory than you can afford to lose. Don't be disappointed when you only sell 10% of what you'd hope you would and let that disappointment show, just keep plugging away with a smile on your face and promoting the product to everyone you see, it'll pay off in the end, whether with sales or with the retainment of your sanity. And above all, one thing always holds true - Networking, Networking, Networking.
More on Comic-Con in 305 days or so. Time to take a long nap.
07/22/2009 - Con is upon us.
07/20/2009 - Everything is printed and ready to go. T-2 Days.
07/18/2009 - Put the final touches on and packaged the first fifty SDCC 2009 bonus DVDs to pair with copies of Crashing the Con at San Diego Comic-Con 2009, I dig how they turned out. Now I'm replicating another 200 or so and just lightscribing the label on them and putting them in paper sleeves to go with the rest of the copies (or until we run out, which would be awesome) that we sell at Comic-Con.
This weekend I'm going to finish designing a 13x19" poster and mount them on Foam Core as well as put a glossy finish on them to put up at a couple of the booths that will be selling Crashing the Con so hopefully it'll help draw in people to look at it further from across the aisle. Also going to create a sell sheet with wholesale pricing/ordering info to pass out to distributors and retailers at Comic-Con along with a watermarked screener of Crashing the Con in hopes that some of them might pick it up for their inventory.
07/17/2009 - Got in another 100 copies of the retail shrink-wrapicated version of Crashing the Con today. That makes 200 on hand to sell at Comic-Con (and if we run out, we'll be selling our own bootlegs!). Also finished replicating / printing the ultra super special limited edition San Diego Comic-Con International 2009 Exclusive Bonus DVD that will go along with every copy of Crashing the Con sold at SDCC 2009 and hand numbered each and every one, well, the first fifty at least, which are actually a little different than the rest, in a good way; if you get one, you'll see what I mean. Aside from that, got in my shipment of 5,000 Double Sided Full Color Glossy Post Card Ads for CTC with $3.00 off coupon codes printed on them to be passed out en masse at Comic-Con.
Other than that stuff, I've been working with fellow indepedent artists to cross-promote their products with ours (and hopefully vice versa). Independents got to stick together.
07/15/2009 - Scored two four day passes to SDCC 2009 tonight finally (one for me and one for Jason Stout, the other individual involved with Crashing the Con). Now to focus on material prep.
07/14/2009 - Still no Comic-Con Badge for myself at the moment. Didn't think I'd be making it this year and was too stupid to register last year regardless, just in case something changed. I have some potential leads, but nothing definite at this point (If anyone has a lead for me on one, please email me asap with it and I'll be eternally grateful). The upside is that I have a couple booths so far who have commited to selling and even playing the "Crashing the Con" at their booths. Worst case scenario, I can deliver the content to them right outside of the convention center, but that'd lower my probability of selling if I can't directly pitch to people.
I have roughly 200 shrink wrapped retail copies of the DVDs + SDCC 2009 Exclusive Bonus DVD (which contains a 96 Minute Feature comprised of cut footage from Crashing the Con, a couple Trailers, a Short or two, and 1-2 Comics from Independent Artists that you'll be able to click through the pages via the DVD menu system) that we're planning on selling for $15/per, tax included. I also have 5,000 double sided glossy post cards ads with a coupon code on them for $3.00 off when you order online at the URL on the card. (See Graphic Below) Addionally, we're creating roughly 150 large bumper stickers, each one with a unique phrase / drawing on it and the Crashing the Con web site URL on the bottom; relying on the catchy/funny/shocking phrase/drawing on the sticker to get people's attention and go to the site.
I have a couple other things in the works, but I'm holding off on them until I have a definite badge at my disposal for the entire Con.
