Amazon.com‘s ‘associates’ program is an exceptional example of marketing through other people’s passions. For those unfamiliar with ‘associates’ or ‘referral’ programs increasingly common among savvy web companies, they allow you to refer potential customers to them, and get a commission if the referral ends up with a purchase. It costs the associate nothing, comes with a bundle of support services to help you be a better web citizen, and results in a tiny but real payback (in my case, Amazon gift certificates so I can buy books for the Bolz Center for Arts Administration library).
On this site, for example, I’m already recommending books and movies and such in the Readings, Etc. section. As a courtesy, I would have pointed visitors to Amazon anyway, in case you had a driving need to read more about the resource. Amazon is smart enough to give me a toolset and service so that I’m more likely to point you there than to some other retailer. The book costs you the same, the link costs me nothing. And I now have a whopping $14.18 to spend on books for our library (not a lot, I admit, but quite a bit more than zero). Amazon’s associates program boasts more than 900,000 members now, which doesn’t sound bad for business (even if you multiply that number by my measly sales record).
The point here is not how clever Amazon is…although they are clever. It’s to demonstrate an astoundingly powerful way of reaching audiences that seems almost untapped among arts and culture organizations. People who LOVE a certain arts organization, art form, or artist, are the most exceptional advocates we can find. They bring their friends. They help their friends prepare for the experience by expressing why they love it so much. They bundle an evening’s worth of activities to make it all enticing to first-time attendees (let’s meet at the diner, go to the show, and then wander to my house after for drinks and discussion).
This is all stuff that arts aficionados will do anyway, and are doing right now. Imagine what they could do if we helped them‹with an on-line associates program like Amazon (where they get something back for referring ticket buyers), or with a responsive depth of background materials to help them be smarter, more passionate, and better at telling their friends about the art form. And I’m not talking here about rewards for them as crass as cash (free tickets, maybe). The people I know who do this with panache aren’t driven by economic reward, but by the great feeling they get sharing something they love with someone they love. There are ways beyond money for an arts organization to pay them in that currency.
Marketing plans for the arts seem rooted in a direct connection between every audience member and the organization itself (which is why we blanket the earth with subscription and membership brochures). What if a large portion of our audience comes to us through other people (their friends, spouses, co-workers, families)? If that¹s the reality (which seems pretty obvious), then we all could learn a lot from Amazon.
