Gail Burt of Metropolis Comics in Bellflower, California saw Teresa Moran's comments on the Free Comic Book Day date (see 'FCBD 2005') and feels that a first weekend in May date for the event and doing movie-related promotions at other times are not mutually exclusive:
I was interested in Teresa's comments on the movie tie-in, however, I stand by my original position, and that's to 'brand' the first weekend in May date as the permanent FCBD date. As a former advertising professional, I can't stress enough how important it is to put your product where your audience will always BE SURE TO FIND IT. It's estimated that a viewer must see a sign at least seven times before they actually SEE it. 'Branding' the weekend ensures that our target always knows where (when) our event is. Now, that said, it's not a bad thing to prepare for that big movie release, and tie in to it ourselves. Check it out:
FCBD was a bit of a bust for us because of the holiday weekend, but it WAS better than expected. We still had tons of free comics left afterward, though -- and a good thing too! We moved to our new location only two weeks prior to FCBD this year, and unbeknownst to us, our new location sits right in the middle of a small-town-feeling old-town-style boulevard (that, we did know) that runs a street fair every Thursday evening from July through September. Surprise! They close down the street in front of our store, set up a band, food stands, craft stands, a farmer's market and games for the kids -- so seeing about 8000 people gathered directly in front of our store, we started sending runners out to the street with the leftover FCBD comics, and passed them out, saying there were more free comics at our store, address stamped on the front. When I saw the traffic that night, I immediately called my Diamond rep and ordered several hundred more of the FCBD comics while I could get them.
Well, Thursdays at our store right now are like Wednesdays -- only busier. We made a flyer promising a free comic in exchange for the flyer, and we send a runner out to pass them out each week. It results in a huge boom that night, as hundreds of kids and their parents meander in throughout the evening.
Why not use this strategy, and for that matter, ALL the same strategies as we used during this past FCBD to take advantage of the BATMAN premiere next year? Make FCBD land on the first weekend in May -- that's step 1. Hopefully DC is smart enough to connect the dots the same way I have, and puts out some sort of Batman-related FCBD comic, that would be cool (but if not, please tell me you aren't completely out of Batman Adventures, Batman Strikes, and the Batman 10 and 12 cent Adventures -- if you are, call Diamond and get copies of the .12 cent book immediately, don't wait!!). Order PLENTY to get you through FCBD -- and have a bunch left for the Batman movie premiere.
Do all the same cross promos with the local theater: Go there and hand out free copies of the book with an invitation to your shop's 'Batman Premiere Party' or at least enclose a comeback coupon for a discount at your store inside each free comic you hand out. Or hand out a flyer at the theater promising a free comic with that flyer -- that way, they HAVE to come to your shop to get it. Make a big deal of the movie coming out, do all the same kinds of things as you did for FCBD, and I'll bet it turns out very similar, only this way, it happens TWICE in one summer, instead of ONCE. That's what we plan to do, and we have every expectation that we will have great business at our place both on FCBD (in MAY) and Batman premiere weekend as well!!
As so many of you pointed out last year, it's all about what you put into it -- I think there's no doubt that the May weekend is the superior date, for a variety of reasons, but there's no reason at all that with some judicious ordering of the FCBD materials and some forethought into the cross-promotions that are possible, every shop can maximize the return and benefit both to themselves and to the new customers they're going to bring in. If you don't put much in, you're sure not to get much out. But if we plan carefully, put some effort into promotion, and preparation, I'm convinced we can make the next FCBD the best ever, and in the bargain, catch a second wave when Batman Begins hits.
