Local directories generally cover a smorgasbord of businesses from restaurants to mechanics to nannies. We focus exclusively on listing pop-up cinemasA pop-up cinema is a general term for any type of cinema owned and operated independently outside of a building, for example, open-air cinema, outdoor cinema, sunset cinema, drive-in cinema, backyard cinema, silent cinema, movies under the stars, moonlight movies, community cinema, mobile cinema..

We also know that people travel and they move to new areas, and when they do – they want “local” recommendations. A global directory like pop-upcinema.com with location-based searching meets that need.

In addition to helping filmgoers and renters find their local options, pop-upcinema.com helps entrepreneurs wanting to start their pop-up cinema business by guiding them on how to start, where to get equipment, how to improve marketing, answers their most frequently asked questions and offers one-on-one consulting. But that’s a side note and you can read more about our mission on our Who is Pop-Up Cinema blog post.

Listing your business on the pop-upcinema.com directory is just one tool in your businesses toolkit – but it’s an important one and we’ll explain why.

Targeting and Increasing Your Online Visibility to the Right Audience

Anyone who has dabbled in online paid advertising and monitors their website traffic analytics knows it’s not quantity but quality that counts. One can spend a small fortune advertising and completely miss the mark getting a bunch of website visits from irrelevant audiences – you get the clicks, it costs you money but they bounce or don’t “buy” because it’s not what they were expecting or looking for. An exclusive niche directory significantly reduces that challenge and sharpens the target market.

And because directories are a source of traffic and trust.

Establishing [Brand] Credibility

Probably THE most valuable commodity any business can have is their reputation, their credibility. Your business builds credibility by offering great products and service, having happy customers say so and telling others. That’s where the reviews on pop-upcinema.com come in.

Not every pop-up cinema business has a permanent location (venue) and for those that do, not all have a search engine listing for reviews.  We’ve done a whole post about reviews – but this is the key takeaway from Qualtrics:

• Nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media when researching products or services in their local area
• 91% of 18-34 year olds trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, and 93% of consumers say that online reviews influenced their purchase decisions
• And the best news is that 77% of consumers would be willing to leave a review if asked.

All pop-upcinema.com listings have the functionality that allows your customer to rate and review your business – read more about how to handle reviews here.

So with a listing, not only can customers find your business but, also see how you are rated and have a level of confidence thereby increasing the likeliness of them engaging with you!  The more your listing is reviewed, the higher your cinema business will rank in searches.

Psst: We’re building out a widget you can add to your website showing your pop-upcinema.com ratings ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’s Cost-Effective

This dovetails with the paid advertising scenario we laid out above. Going it alone, trying to get (new) people to visit your website and social media (regularly) is a mammoth task. When you list on a localized directory, you benefit from the overall ranking and ad-spend and effort of that site – it becomes a numbers game. We operate with the principle that we (pop-upcinema.com) succeed when your business succeeds – so that’s our primary focus!  And because that’s our focus, we have now enhanced the basic (FREE) package.

You may be thinking “Our season is over – why would we advertise now?”

If you offer your services to run private events (rentals), then there is no off-season. The online world is never offline or on vacation – so we encourage you to build your digital footprint while you have downtime. By this, we mean using your off-peak time to keep your listing updated and fresh.

While listings are sorted primarily by the filmgoer’s search selection (location, category, etc.), the search results (just like Google) may auto-sort and present by popularity, so those with lots of “views” are considered popular and will show up nearer the top of the results. Reviews also positively impact search sorting like previously mentioned. That’s why it makes sense to have eyes on your listing, leaving reviews and ratings. 

• Update your photo section from your last season and share it on your social media
• Be proactive about getting reviews – read this great post about Word of Mouth and Reviews.
• Change up your listing’s primary category from “outdoor” to “rent” and get some rental leads!

And finally, you cannot afford NOT to add a listing

As we’ve perused 1000’s of websites and social media accounts of pop-up cinema businesses while building the directory, one thing became clear – it’s not apples and apples out there. Larger businesses in the industry have the resources to build very flashy websites and clearly have a social media team doing amazing work. But there’s a vast amount of smaller businesses who simply don’t have those resources and their websites and social media accounts are – with all due respect – rather sad and some are even quite broken. We totally understand how the “digital” side of your business becomes less of a priority than making ends meet, hustling for business, maintaining equipment and paying bills – we’ve been there ourselves, we know the drill.

Listing on pop-upcinema.com levels the playing field because the “look” is professional and in our opinion rather stunning. And while some packages offer more features (extra photos, videos, etc) all listings have a standard layout. It also means if you don’t have time and resources to revamp your website or hire a social media team, you can just decide to focus the time you do have on making your listing as current and awesome as possible.

For those just starting out, or who have exhausted their promotion/advertising budget, we have enhanced our Basic (free) listing. So take advantage, within minutes you can be set up and showing your best look at no extra cost to your business. Read more about what the package offers here!