Back in the late 90s, when Amazon was $48/share and my broker told me not to buy it because it was too expensive (PS, it’s $1,608/share now, which means a $10k investment would be worth $335k), they unrolled an aggressive marketing strategy that turned their customers into ambassadors.

That system?

They paid people for recommending them.

It’s called Affiliate marketing, and it has become a thing for many online retailers.  It goes like this:

You register with a company to be an “affiliate.”

You tell your friends, followers, subscribers, etc. about products and services that said company sells by sending them a unique URL or code.

If your friends buy a product or service from that company, you get some cash.

You don’t get paid much, but it’s something and it requires little or no effort at all.

And in exchange for those few bucks, companies like Amazon get a marketing army of online ambassadors sending traffic to their site . . . and they only pay when they make a sale!

Amazon’s affiliate system was an early initiative that they incorporated in their attempt to gain massive market share . . . and fast.

Now, here’s the interesting thing . . . almost two decades later, Amazon dominates the market.

So now that they have so much traffic, you’d think they’d abandon the affiliate system.

And you’d be wrong.

And when a company is this successful, yet still rewards their customers for sending other customers their way, it’s worth taking notice.

This isn’t a new concept.  Referrals are one of the most important parts of the sales process.  You sell someone on something (a ticket, an investment, whatever) and then you ask them if they know someone else who might be interested in the same product.

So . . . my question . . . you guessed it . . .  is why don’t we have affiliate marketing on our ticketing sites for ALL of our customers that is as easy as Amazon’s?

Both Ticketmaster and Telecharge have affiliate programs  . . . but they are not for everyone.  It’s more for B2B relationships.

And I’m not sure I understand why it’s not more of an open-for-all program.  What Producer wouldn’t pay a few bucks from their ticket price to gain the potential online ambassadors of an affiliate system?

We pay MORE than a few bucks for advertisements to sell tickets, why wouldn’t we pay consumers for recommending us?

Affiliate marketing is actually a cheaper and more effective form of advertising than most of the media we’re buying.

That’s why Amazon still does it.

And why you and I should too.

In fact, you know what?  I was going to end the blog with that last sentence, but I just realized something.  While I may not be able to create an affiliate program through my official ticketing sites, I can create a workaround.

So if you like my shows, from Once on this Island to Gettin’ The Band Back Together and want to make some extra money from home, email me . . . I’ll hook you up.

And if you’re producing a show, drop me a note and I’ll tell you how to set up a program like this for yourself.