Let's Talk About... What I Learned by Taking my Film to the International Film Market at EFM: What I would do differently & better.

Plus check out VANISHED: The Heather Elvis Case, a series I did the marketing & PR for on Access Hollywood. And let's talk about Structured Data: what websites now need to do in order to replace SEO.

Mar 10, 2025

∙ Paid

In this week’s subscriber newsletter, I’m going to touch on something called “structured data” as well as what I learned from taking my film to the EFM market in Berlin via a sales agent in the hopes you can do better here than me. (Namely I am going to give you an ideal timeline for the launch of your own film in the hope you can maximize your efforts). Experience really is the best teacher and hopefully here, you can learn from my steep learning curve.

But first…

Check out VANISHED: The Heather Elvis Case

I’ve been working on this series for quite some time and I’m thrilled at the coverage we’re getting for it. In addition to a two-part segment on Access Hollywood, I’ve got a number of podcast and television interviews lined up for the filmmakers including articles in a number of global publications.

The filmmakers released the series independently and hired me to handle their marketing and PR. I’ve been working on this since last year, in case you were curious as to how long it took to get earned media like this.

I wrote about how long it really takes to get good PR in a post back in 2024, and that hasn’t changed since I published it. PR like this does not happen overnight: it takes months for it to come together, which is why I always tell the filmmakers I work with that I can do my best work with a longer lead time.

If you’re a true crime junkie, be sure to check out the series.

Watch VANISHED: The Heather Elvis Case on Prime and Apple TV+.

RIP SEO: Hello Structured Data

In my post last week, I discussed how important PR is because Google has now basically done away with the search function on their platform, meaning the discovery process has fundamentally shifted.

In fact, two days after I wrote that post, Google announced that they were doing away with search in favor of their own AI. Click here to read their blog post.

Basically all websites now need to replace their current SEO plans with Structured Data to show up in the "best" results.

I’m paraphrasing here, but this is essentially what structured data is:

Structured Data is written in a code called JSON-LD which converts directly, (natively) into the Internet's common language called Resource Description Framework, (RDF). The goal is called the Semantic Web, which you can think of as becoming much more automated once RDF is more prevalent.

What this means is that the Google Quality Score matters less in this new world of online search. Rather than return a million search results when you look for something, AI search will deliver what they deem the "best" search results.

This means that legacy websites and publications will get a lot less direct traffic and to matter in AI search, websites will need to convert to Structured Data.

It’s no longer enough to just have a presence on social media or a website: AI is doing things that are just not humanly possible.

It’s impossible for one human or one marketing team to keep up with what AI is doing but perhaps that’s where we’ll find our strength and our differentiators… by being human. And communication and storytelling are, in my opinion, more important than ever. So to reiterate, it’s more important than ever to lean into smart PR and marketing strategies for your film, as well as building community.

Want to Work With Me?

Book your one hour session here.

We’ll start with a 10-15 minute call or Zoom to discuss your project at no charge. If you decide you want to book a session you’ll be sent a client intake form and payment information and we’ll pick a time that works for you.

And now let’s talk about…