The Entrepreneurial Filmmaker’s Guide to Niche Research
In the Art of War, Sun Tzu tells us, “victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." If your goal is to earn a living from your films, this is wisdom to live by.
I mean, what if you could virtually guarantee your film would be profitable before you ever wrote a word or shot a frame?
What if you knew—with a high degree of certainty—that if you engaged a particular niche, you’d be able to build a sustainable, enjoyable business by producing films for them?
That’d be pretty rad, right?
It’d take so much of the pressure off when it comes to raising money and distributing your films.
With that kind of certainty, you’d be able to focus more of your energy on telling stories you care about.
You’d be able to spend more time doing what you love, and less time worried about whether your efforts would ever pay off.
Once you work through the research strategies in this article, you will have that kind of certainty.
You’ll be able to win the brutal war for audience attention before ever stepping foot on the battlefield.
I’ll warn you up front. Niche research is far from the sexiest topic, and the work itself is indeed a bit tedious.
But it’s one of a small handful of things you can do to ensure a vibrant, sustainably profitable career doing work you love.
So let’s get to it.
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No seriously, you need to do this research
Now, I can already hear some of you thinking just how boring the phrase “niche research” sounds.
You’d rather be writing, shooting, editing, creating.
So you might skim this article, do some light googling around your potential niche, get bored, and say “eh, I think I got the gist.”
Trust me, I get it.
But when you do this, you’re putting yourself at risk.
I’ve known far too many indie filmmakers who’ve spent tens or hundreds of thousands of their own money, and a years of their lives, only to find out the market didn’t give a shit about their film.
Hell, there’s a filmmaker here in Arizona who spent like 7 years on his first feature, and went into substantial credit card debt to make it, only to earn like $500 when it was released.
I can’t imagine a more brutal, disheartening outcome than that.
Yet this is the outcome you invite into your life when you write off the niche approach, and you don’t do your market research.
“The media landscape is a brutal, cutthroat competition for attention. No matter how much blind faith you have, if you approach that competition having never learned the rules, let alone trained or studied your opponents, you’re going to get walloped.”
You’re not only inviting financial catastrophe into your life, but you’re practically holding the door open for it.
If it sounds like I’m being extreme, that’s because I am.
Indie and micro-budget filmmakers are rather well-known for their delusion on the business side of things.
Now, I’d be lying if I didn’t point out that on rare occasion, that delusion actually pays off in terms of a lucrative distribution deal—which then, frustratingly, gets covered relentlessly in the trades, which fuels the next generation of delusional filmmakers.
But I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
If your plan is just to make the film you want to make—market realities be damned—then hope for festivals and distributors to make you whole, you’re basically playing the lottery.
And buying a lottery ticket is not a business plan.
Film is among the most expensive, time consuming artistic mediums we’ve got. So the cost of even buying into that lottery is far too high to justify the odds. There’s a lot to lose, and astronomically low chances of winning.
Now, if you want to approach it as a hobby, more power to you. That’s what I did for several years of my life, and it was liberating to approach it that way.
However, if your intention is to make a living from your films, you can’t close your eyes to the reality of the market, and hope everything will just work out.
The media landscape is a brutal, cutthroat competition for attention.
“If your plan is just to make the film you want to make—market realities be damned—then hope for festivals and distributors to make you whole, you’re basically playing the lottery.
And buying a lottery ticket is not a business plan.”
No matter how much blind faith you have, if you approach that competition having never learned the rules, let alone trained or studied your opponents, you’re going to get walloped.
And while there’s never 100% certainty in any business venture, there’s a ton we can do to limit our exposure to risk.
You learn the rules. You dig into the psychology of why audiences consume media. You search for a niche where you can be the dominant player.
And finally, before making anything, you get your hands dirty and do the research required to be certain that, if you spend your time here, it will be financially and personally rewarding.
Once that groundwork is laid, you’ll have the foundations of a profitable project.
From a research-backed foundation, you can approach investors more confidently, gain leverage in negotiations with distributors, and get superior results from the traditional film business ecosystem.
Or, if you crave true financial and creative freedom, you can use that foundation to cut out the middle men, sell directly to your fans, and build a long term business around your films.
So again, niche research isn’t sexy. And you’ll almost certainly find it boring and tedious (unless you’re a masochist).
But if you’re serious about this indie film entrepreneurship thing, you’ve gotta do it. Otherwise, you’re just rolling the dice and setting your future self up for a bad time.
So, with all of that doom and gloom out of the way, let’s get a bit nerdy, shall we?
Two things to do before you dive into niche research
Now, if you stumbled onto this article without having read the previous entries in the series, you’ll want to stop and go back.
Part one was about why niching down is essential in the modern media ecosystem.
And part two went extremely deep into how niches form, and how to choose the perfect one for your films.
The last article in particular, on using identity groups to niche down, is a prerequisite for the research process we’re about to embark on.
Once you work through the action items towards the end of that piece, you should have a handful of niche hypotheses that you can bring into the research phase.
So take an hour or two and do that work. Then come back here, as we’re about to dig into the exact process you’ll use to test those hypotheses.
Cool? Cool.
Set up a system for keeping track of everything (or grab my personal niche research template)
One more action item for you before we dive into the research process itself.
You need to set up some kind of system to keep track of and sort through all of the information you’re about to uncover.
Trust me, you’re about to be swimming in an outrageous amount of links and numbers. Without some way to document and organize it all, you’ll get overwhelmed.
As for what system to use, that’s totally up to you.
It could be anything from a simple text document (not recommended) to some fancy spreadsheet or database software. You could use an Excel spreadsheet, a Google Sheet, or a more modern equivalent like Airtable.
Personally, I use and love and app called Notion for this.
In fact, I made a handy Notion template that you can duplicate and use yourself.
This is the exact same template I start from when consulting on DIY distribution for other filmmakers.
If you're interested, here's how to get it.
First, click here create your own Notion account. It's free.
In the upper righthand corner, you should see the option to duplicate the template into your new account.
Click that, and voila! You've now got a niche research database all set up and ready to go.
If you don’t want to use Notion, however, no worries.
Here are the types of data you’ll want to keep track of, along with the fields/columns I recommend setting up in your database app of choice.
Name of influencer/website/community
URLs to their site/social channels
Type (blogger, YouTuber, podcaster, media company, community, etc)
Audience size (rough estimate)
Ability to be a guest on their channels (ie. interviewed on a podcast, submit a guest post, etc)
Contact info for the person/organization
A notes field for jotting down observations and such.
Once you’ve got my template imported (or set up your own system) it’s time to get to work.
Step 1: High Level Research
There are two distinct types of research you’ll want to do before committing to a niche.
First is high level research, followed by deep dive research. They should be done in that sequence, one after the other.
So let’s start with high level research, which is all about seeing a niche from the 10,000 foot view.
Your goal is to understand the full picture of the niche so that you can answer one super important question.
If I commit to serving this niche, will it pay off?
In other words, high level research is all about determining the financial validity of a given niche before you ever start making films there.
This is one of the key ways you can avoid spending a ton of time and money on a film, only to release it to crickets.
We’ll get into the specific process for conducting this style of research in a moment.
But first, it’s important to know exactly what you’re looking for. And there are three key indicators/questions to keep in mind.
How big is the niche?
How engaged are people within the niche?
Are there other creators/influencers/media companies serving the niche?
Let’s break each of these down a bit more.
For starters, the size of the niche should be at least as big as the Minimum Viable Audience number you came up with in the last lesson.
As a quick refresher, your MVA number is the minimum number of people you need to reach with your films in order to hit your personal financial goals.
Everyone’s goals are a little different, but for most people, a niche size of 500,000 is a good starting place.
If, in your research, you find that the niche isn’t even close to your MVA number, you’ll have to go back to the drawing board. Otherwise, you’re taking on significant financial risk.
The second factor, niche engagement, is just as important.
There are quite a few niches online that have plenty of people in them, but they don’t really talk to one another, engage with content, or share.
As a filmpreneur, you need that kind of engagement in order to insert yourself into the culture, and have your ideas and content spread.
Trying to get an unengaged niche to talk about your films, let alone purchase them, will be like trying to squeeze blood from a stone.
But if you know ahead of time that the inhabitants of this niche are enthusiastic about consuming and sharing content, and they love talking to one another, that’s a clear green light.
The final factor—the presence of other creators—is also hugely important.
For starters, if the niche already has other creators or influencers or media companies, it’s a great indicator that you can earn and monetize attention there.
Basically, it’s a signal that people in the niche are hungry for content around their identities. And because the demand exists, the supply crops up to satisfy it.
But there’s another reason I stress this point so much.
One of the best ways to reach A LOT of people with your films isn’t ads or content marketing or anything of the sort.
Instead, the best, most cost-effective way to reach a ton of people is to connect with creators who already have audiences, build mutually beneficial relationships, then ask for them to promote you.
With 5-10 of the right influencer relationships, you can take your little film business to substantial heights more quickly than you ever imagined.
But this strategy is only on the table if you choose to enter a niche that has an existing media ecosystem.
So, those are the three key indicators for a financially viable niche. Size, engagement, influencers.
You’ll spend a few hours going through the keyword roulette process I’m about to share, gather data from as many sources as possible, then make a judgement about whether those three areas are sufficiently covered to keep digging.
If the niche is big enough to meet your MVA, it’s full of engaged people, and there are other influencers already working there, you’ve got yourself a damn fine niche hypothesis, and a green light to move on to deep dive research.
Keyword roulette, or how to uncover your entire niche
Ok, now that you know what you’re looking for, it’s time to get into the nitty gritty of niche research.
I’d like to introduce you to a concept I’ve come to call “keyword roulette.” Or perhaps keyword “wheel of fortune” is a more apt metaphor.
Either way, the process works like this.
Brainstorm a list of keywords that describe your niche.
Combine those keywords with various search modifiers.
Work your way through a ton of different combinations across multiple search engines.
Let’s dig into each of these a bit more.
Brainstorm niche keywords
The first step is coming up with your niche keywords.
Ask yourself, how does this group describe themselves? What do they refer to themselves as? What are the exact words they use? Is there any unique jargon?
Even more than that, you might want to pick out a few of the core topics and ideas this niche cares about most, and formulate additional keywords around those.
If you’re already a member of said niche, this should be insanely easy. You can pull most of these keywords right from your head, because that knowledge is already deeply embedded within you.
But if you’re outside the niche (which I wouldn’t recommend), you’ll likely have to do a bit of digging ahead of time just to put together your keyword list.
So what does this look like in practical terms?
Last year, I was consulting on a narrative indie feature that was targeting the niche of aspiring musicians.
Here’s the list of keywords I came up with for the research process.
Indie musician, artist, band, producer
Aspiring musician, artist, band, producer
Beginner musician, artist, band, producer
Indie music career
Indie music business
Indie musician tour
Once I had all of these keywords, it was time to dive into research phase.
Rob’s giant list of search modifiers
Ok, get your fingers warm, because we’re about to do some hardcore googling.
“You take your keywords, combine them with modifiers, and work your way through the list until you’ve uncovered every visible trace of your niche that exists online.”
Your job now is to take your list of keywords, and one by one, combine them with the following list of search modifiers, or the modifiers that make most sense for your particular niche.
Blog
News
Magazine
Group
Community
Forum
Reddit
Meetup
Amazon
Chat
Mailing List
Newsletter
Video
Tutorials
Film/Movie
YouTube
Facebook Group
Creator
Twitter
Instagram
Influencer
Resources
Help
Advice
Wiki
Media
So, let’s piggyback off my example from above.
When I went to do research for the indie musician film, I took my list of keywords, chose the one I thought was most likely to yield fruit, and started googling my ass off.
For instance, here are some of the keyword and modifiers combinations I tried together.
Indie musician + blog
Indie musician + community
Aspiring musician + newsletter
Indie band + movie
Indie musician tour + resources
Indie artist + facebook group
I’m sure you get the point. You take your keywords, combine them with modifiers, and work your way through the list until you’ve uncovered every visible trace of your niche that exists online.
Through this process, you’ll get a good sense of whether the third criteria mentioned above—an existing media ecosystem of creators and influencers—is present.
In fact, if you do this research right, you’ll come out the other end with a giant searchable list of influencers who may help you promote your films.
Pretty rad, huh?
Three more considerations when doing keyword roulette
The first important thing to note is that Google is far from the only important search engine for this type of research.
YouTube is a powerful search engine, as are facebook, twitter, instagram, reddit, Quora, etc.
So in addition to your basic Google searches, you’ll want to run a lot of those keywords directly through the platforms that make sense for your particular niche.
At the very least, I recommend you search directly on FB and YouTube, as that’ll nearly always surface results that don’t show up in a Google search.
The second thing I want to mention is that this is one of the most tedious things you’ll likely have to do on the business side of filmmaking. No doubt about it.
I want to be fully transparent with you. This process sucks ass, even for an experienced marketer like myself.
After an hour or so, you might find yourself thinking, “Holy shit, this is awful! Why did I ever listen to Rob?!”
In those moments, just remind yourself why this is important.
You’re laying a strong foundation for your indie film business. You’re ensuring that you’ll be able to make a living telling stories you love. You’re getting a major competitive advantage in our hugely saturated media landscape.
In other words, it’s supremely important work, and when you connect with those deeper reasons, and see the future you’re creating for yourself, it’ll help you push through the tedium.
“Honestly, this process sucks ass, even for an experienced marketer like myself. After an hour or so, you might find yourself thinking, “Holy shit, this is awful! Why did I ever listen to Rob?!” In those moments, just remind yourself why this is important.”
The final thing I’d mention is this. Tedious though this style of research may be, the beautiful thing is it’s a self-contained, one-off process.
You only have to do it once when diving into a new niche, and once that initial work is done, you can move forward with confidence and certainty.
Oh, and on a more practical note, I like to do this style of research in 30-60 minute chunks, after which I’ll go do something fun.
No need to subject yourself to too much of this in one sitting unless you’re on a deadline or are a complete psychopath.
If you take a week, and chip away at high level research for 30 minutes a day, you’ll have more than enough information to determine financial validity.
But that still leaves a few questions…
How do you actually document all of this stuff? How do you uncover and interpret the data? And once you’ve got the raw data, what exactly are you looking for?
How to document your niche and measure its size/engagement
Now that you know the keyword roulette process, it’s time to talk about keeping track of everything.
For starters, you should already have some kind of system to document what you find. If not, set one up, or use the Notion template I provided earlier.
Once you have that set up, here’s the process to go through for everything you find during keyword roulette.
For each new influencer/website/community you find…
Create an entry in your database.
Include a link to their primary and secondary sites/social profiles, etc
Include a rough estimate of the size of their audience (more about this in a moment)
That’s the bare minimum of what you should include in your research database.
However, if you want to step it up a notch, there are a few other things you can document that will make your life easier later on.
For starters, you can also categorize all new entries.
So you could separate out FB groups, blogs, YouTube channels, news sites, etc. This isn’t super important in smaller niches, but if you’re going after a much larger niche, you’ll want the ability to sort the database by type later on.
Another column/field worth adding is whether or not each entry allows for guests to access their platform.
In other words, do they accept guest posts on their blog? Do they interview people for their podcast? Do they do collaborations with other YouTubers? Or channel takeovers on their instagram?
It’s helpful to make note of channels that allow this ahead of time. Once it comes time to promote your films across the niche, these outlets are the low-hanging fruit, and it’s really nice having all of them in one place, where you can sort them by size and category.
And finally, one other thing you’ll likely want to keep track of is the contact information for each of these creators.
So add their email address, a link to their FB profile so you can message them, or any other contact methods you can find publicly. It’ll be insanely useful to have that information all in one place once it comes time to do your influencer outreach.
However, just know you won’t find contact info for a lot of the people you encounter in your research. In fact, in my own research endeavors, I’ve noticed that contact info is only readily available for maybe a third or half of people I come across.
That’s totally ok, so don’t feel like you have to spend hours trying to figure out how to reach them. That’s a problem for future you to solve.
Right now, the most important thing is getting through the keyword roulette process and validating your niche. It’s just an added bonus if you can find contact info now.
How to judge the size/reach of any creator/website/influencer
Now, you might be asking how on earth you can tell how big someone’s audience is.
There are a number of ways, but I first want to stress this isn’t an exact science. Especially when it comes to things like website traffic, email lists, and podcast listeners, it’s unlikely you’ll get a precise number.
However, there’s one rad tool you can use, as well some signals to look for in terms of making educated guesses as to audience size.
Use the SimilarWeb Chrome plugin/platform to get an estimate of a website’s traffic, where it comes from, and who their competitors are. This platform is awesome, and free to use.
Make note of follower numbers on twitter, FB, instagram, YouTube, etc.
Make note of member counts on FB groups, reddit, pinterest, forums, etc.
On sites like YouTube, pay close attention to how many views individual videos get, on average.
On sites like Facebook, ignore video view numbers because FB inflates the shit out of them, which makes them meaningless for this type of research.
How many ratings and reviews does their podcast have on iTunes?
So for every new creator or platform you find in your research, run through this list of size indicators and make an educated guess as to their reach.
Let’s use my site as an example of this.
Right now, Filmmaker Freedom gets roughly 25-30K pageviews a month, has an email list of 5K, a FB page with 22K followers, a FB group of with 4K members, a podcast with 3-4K downloads a month, as well as some smaller numbers on other channels that I don’t pay attention to (sorry twitter and instagram).
Other than the email list and podcast downloads, you could easily find all of that information just by searching my site and social profiles.
And from that, you could make a fairly accurate guess that my total reach is somewhere in the range of 30-40K people.
That number isn’t exact, but’s that’s ok. It’s close enough.
You never really need to know someone’s precise audience size. In order to validate your niche, all you need is a loose estimate of how many people are in the orbit of the influencers, media companies, and communities you stumble across.
Once you’ve gone through this process for everything you find in your niche, you should have a fairly good idea of whether it’s big enough to constitute your Minimum Viable Audience.
Play close attention to niche engagement in addition to niche size
We talked a little bit about this earlier, but it’s worth stressing again.
Throughout your research, don’t just pay attention to niche size. It’s important, sure. But to get the full picture, you need to pay equal attention to engagement.
A niche could be huge, but if the people there aren’t actively engaging and talking to one another, that size is meaningless for our purposes.
In order to build an audience, and for your content and films to spread, you need to be able to insert yourself into an engaged media ecosystem where people are already communicating.
“The people in your niche need to have demonstrable hunger for content, connection, and conversation. This ongoing communication between like-minded people is the lifeblood of your marketing.”
The people in your niche need to have demonstrable hunger for content, connection, and conversation.
This ongoing communication between like-minded people is the lifeblood of your marketing.
Without it, you might be able to sell a few copies of your film through brute force, but you’ll never be able to reap the benefits of word of mouth, which is essential for creating perennial sellers and a sustainable long-term business.
That’s why, in addition to judging the size of a niche during your research, you need to pay close attention to what I call “engagement signals.” Here are a handful to look out for.
Are the niche communities active? When was the last post? Did people interact with it? What’s the frequency of posting? Is it one person primarily driving the conversation, or is the engagement spread out through the community?
Within those communities, do people regularly share outside content and ideas, or is it insular and protected?
Do blogs, YouTube channels, podcasts, etc have recent content? Do they post new stuff on a regular schedule or sporadically?
On said blogs and YouTube channels, are there comments? If so, are the comments engaging and thoughtful, or silly and vapid?
When these creators post their work across FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc, are there conversations happening natively on those platforms?
For “influencers” native to social platforms, do the same kind of analysis. How much/often do they post, and how do people engage with what they share?
Like determining niche size, this piece of the process isn’t an exact science, as there’s no meaningful way to measure engagement across an entire niche as far as I know.
So you’ll have to use your best judgement here. Does the niche feel lively and active, like it’s full of engaged people who clearly want to be there? Or is just kinda flat and dead?
If it’s the latter, that’s a significant red flag, and one that you should probably not ignore.
However, if the niche is big enough to meet your MVA number, and it is indeed engaged and full of frequent communication, that’s the go-ahead you need. You’ve got a green light to move forward.
At that point, you’ve successfully completed phase one of the niche research process, and you’re ready to move on into phase two.
Step 2: Deep Dive Research
Once you’ve determined that your niche is financially viable, there’s one last determination you need to make before committing to it—personal fit and enjoyability.
So if high level research is all about seeing your niche from 10,000 feet, deep dive research is about getting down in the mud.
In a nutshell, you want to immerse yourself in the niche to understand whether it will be an enjoyable, fulfilling place to spend your time.
I’ll share how to do this in a moment, but first a little context for why this is so damn important.
In the previous article on how to choose a niche, we talked about why building a business like this is a marathon, not a sprint.
“If high level research is all about seeing your niche from 10,000 feet, deep dive research is about getting down in the mud.”
To reap the rewards of audience building, and to create a business that gets more profitable and easier to run over time, it’s important to stay committed to single niche.
Sure, you can jump to a new niche every time you make a new film. But when you do this, you sacrifice the ability to sell to the customers and fans you worked so hard to cultivate in your previous niche.
After all, when we’re making niche media, people watch it because it’s relevant to their interests. If we switch to a new niche, our new work won’t be relevant to our previous fans anymore.
If you care about long-term sustainability and profitability, that’s a problem.
One of the core principles of running a sustainable business is doing what it takes to acquire customers, building genuine relationships, then continuing to sell to them for years on end.
In business circles, this is known as maximizing the lifetime value of a customer. And for creatives, you might refer to it as creating true fans or superfans.
Either way, as indie filmmakers, we can only take advantage of this powerful strategy when we commit to serve a single niche over the long term.
This is how you make a sustainable living from your films, without constantly having to hustle and sell and market yourself. (And without having to go through this damn research process again and again.)
Which brings me back to the core idea behind deep dive research.
If building a business like this is a marathon and not a sprint, it’d be helpful if we actually enjoy running, right? And more than that, it’d be nice if we did everything we could to ensure a pleasant race day.
That’s exactly what we’re doing when we validate our niches for personal fit and enjoyability.
We’re making the marketing journey that lies ahead of us an enjoyable one, instead of something that will suck your soul out and leave you crying in the fetal position.
So, with all of that context out of the way, let’s talk about the actual process of deep dive research, shall we?
Act like an anthropologist
Deep dive research is all about thinking and acting like an anthropologist.
More specifically, you’ll want to approach this through the lens of ethnography, which is a subset of the anthropological field. And in its simplest definition, it’s the systematic study groups and cultures.
An ethnographer uses two key tools—participant observation and informal interviews.
In other words, ethnography is the art and science of immersing yourself in a culture, observing how people interact, talking and engaging with people yourself, and making note of what you find.
And that’s exactly what you’re going to do in the deep dive research phase.
You’re going to become an active, engaged member of this identity group, and interact with other members, for an extended period of time.
Practical steps for deep dive research
Luckily, this style of research is much simpler than the high level stuff. You don’t need any fancy spreadsheets or databases, and there’s no math involved. It’s all about creating the circumstances required to let your intuition work its magic.
So here’s what to do.
You’re going to join all of the online communities you can find in the niche. This means FB groups, forums, subreddits, and private communities like those hosted on Mighty Networks, Discourse, Slack, etc.
In addition to joining communities, you’re going to follow all of the creators, influencers, and media companies you found in your high-level research. And you’re going to subscribe to all of the newsletters and other communication channels you can find.
Basically, you’re going to take any and every opportunity to immerse yourself in the niche, and connect to all of the open communication happening there. You’re actively creating the circumstances required to truly, deeply understand what this ecosystem is like on a day-to-day basis.
Sidenote from Rob: If you’re worried about spam and information overwhelm, consider making a new email address, or even new social profiles, specifically for engaging in deep dive research. That way, all of this new information you’re about to encounter is contained and doesn’t spill into your existing online life. Just beware that if you do this with your social profiles, it could jeopardize your ability to connect, as people might assume you’re a Russian bot or something. 😂
Anyhow, for at least a week or three, you’re going to spend as much time here as possible. You’re going to engage in conversations, consume media, read the comments, click through the hashtags, and be an active online participant in the niche ecosystem.
Now, even though this is less structured than high level research, I still recommend approaching it in a structured way.
Ideally, you set aside at least 30 minutes a day, but preferably more, to really dig in and participate in these communities. Put it on your calendar if you have to.
What you’re looking for in deep dive research
Remember, building a great niche media business is a marathon, not a sprint. And we want to make sure we’ll enjoy being in the niche for the foreseeable future.
To that end, your deep dive research is all about spotting red flags ahead of time. You’re looking for signals that indicate you’ll grow weary, annoyed, jaded, or resentful of this niche.
So, unlike high level research, which is somewhat scientific and quantitative, deep dive research is about trusting your gut.
It’s about immersing yourself in the culture for awhile, and seeing how that immersion makes you feel.
Do you relish the conversations you’re participating in?
Do you feel a sense of belonging and connection with the communities you’ve joined?
Do you enjoy consuming media from niche creators?
Are the comments left on that media supportive or toxic?
Are the topics people talk about interesting to you?
Can you imagine yourself happily creating media here and not getting bored?
If, after spending a good deal of time in the niche, you land on the positive side of those questions, congrats my internet friend, because you’ve got yourself the perfect niche to build your film business around. That’s a HUGE deal, and you should pat yourself on the back once you’ve done it.
However, if your niche rubs you the wrong way right out of the gate, it’s a good indication that your negative feelings toward it will only be exacerbated with time.
I’d like to give you an example from one of the students in my course, the Film Audience Blueprint.
He and his producing partner decided to target the niche of people interested and engaged in polyamorous relationships.
The high level research confirmed this niche would indeed be a profitable place. There are a ton of people talking about and engaging in polyamory these days, and there’s a fairly thriving network of communities and media in that realm.
However, upon immersing themselves in that niche, they found it wasn’t a particularly enjoyable place. In fact, they hated it.
Many of the conversations happening in those polyamory communities were based on complaints people had about their romantic partners. In many cases, discussions turned outright judgmental and demeaning and toxic.
So, even though the niche was validated from a financial standpoint, it just wasn’t a good fit for a long-term business.
And that’s something you really want to know ahead of time, before you commit and start producing media.
Point is, don’t skip deep dive research. Otherwise you run the risk of resenting your niche and hating that you have to engage there in order to make a living.
Final thoughts
Alright, my friend. That’s a wrap on the Filmmaker Freedom niche research process.
To recap, here are the big ideas we covered today.
Doing niche research isn’t sexy or fun, but it’s the best way to ensure the profitability of your films before you’ve ever written a word or shot a frame.
Skipping out on market research can, and very often does, lead to wasting money and time on projects that nobody wants. For a medium as expensive and time-consuming as film, that’s not a risk worth taking unless you’re a hobbyist.
Before diving into research, come up with several niche hypotheses, and set up a database system to keep track of everything you find.
The research process consists of two distinct parts. Start at the high level to determine financial viability, then dive deep to ensure it’s a good long-term fit.
The core activity of high level research is keyword roulette, where you work through a series of keywords and modifiers across a variety of search engines.
The two main goals of high level research are to ensure the niche is big enough to meet your Minimum Viable Audience number, and that there’s already an active, engaged media ecosystem in place. You’ll also discover influencers who will potentially help you promote your films in the future.
Deep dive research is all about actively immersing yourself in the niche for an extended period of time. This means joining the communities, consuming the content, having conversations, and being an active participant.
The goal of deep dive research is to make sure there aren’t glaring red flags. If you don’t really enjoy the niche after a few weeks, imagine how much antipathy you’ll feel after months and years. It’s best to learn this lesson before you’ve invested too much time and work into a niche.
If a niche makes it through both stages of research, it is indeed the perfect niche for you and your films.
And that’s it!
Once you work through that process, you should come out the other end with a niche that’s validated for both profitability and enjoyability.
After that, you can get on with your life. You can start building your business, creating content, making films and ancillary products, and all the fun things that come along with being an entrepreneurial filmmaker.
Now before I leave you, a reminder that this is only part three in our four part series on how to dominate niche filmmaking.
In the final part, I’ll share a technique that I call Audience Mapping, which is extremely damn powerful.
Once you’ve got an audience map in hand, you’ll be able to create content and tell stories that resonate so deeply in your niche, that competition becomes irrelevant.
You’ll have the keys to the kingdom when it comes to truly earning and keeping attention in our cutthroat media landscape.
But for now, you’ve got some research to do. Good luck, and godspeed!
-Rob
If you’re truly invested in putting these ideas to use, I’d recommend joining Freedom Fighters, my private community for entrepreneurial indie filmmakers.
It’s not another spammy facebook group or noisy forum. It’s an online oasis just for people like us. A place of sanity and respect, where we try our best to support one another in our respective journeys.
So if you’re interested in becoming a member, here’s where you can get the full scoop and apply (don’t worry, it’s totally free).
Excited to see you inside.
