Lets Affiliate yall!
One of the things I’m most excited about is something I wrote about in the DIY and NOT DIE section. Using affiliate programs to promote your film as well as put money into the pockets of your fans, cast, crew and random people who just want to help promote your film for the money.
When my first feature film was in the Sundance film festival I had a sales rep... one sales rep... one guy who was supposed to try and sell the film to distributors... he was to be paid $10,000 + %10 of the sale. Now if you made some high concept movie that a studio is going to pay $1,000,000+ good for you! and go with that old way!
Now the film was never sold because this one guy didn’t know how or who to sell it to. So one guy and his ideas in a big world full of other people who MIGHT HAVE AN IDEA how to present and sell your film... they might have a better idea WHO you need to sell the film too.
They may be out there right now? AND they don’t do charity work so create an affiliate program and give them a reason to work with you!
So with an affiliate program for your film you could potentially have ten sales reps out the in the world pushing your film. You could have 50 or 100 sales reps in different parts of the world exposing your film to their people increasing your chance of success. Increasing the odds that you might find YOUR AUDIENCE.
If you use DPD it has a really easy to set up affiliate program. It’s up to you to go out and solicit people to sign up for your affiliate program, so theres no magic there. Just the fact that you can set up an affiliate program and perhaps pay your audience back is great.
This is what I’m doing with my affiliate program:
- I set up a level 1 affiliate in which they are paid %20 off of a sale. So my film sells for $5 if a sale is caused by them they make $1 from every sale of the film. This level is open to anyone and everyone.
- I also set up a level 2 affiliate that is paid %33 off of a sale. I reserve this level for members of the films CAST and CREW. I wasn’t able to pay them for their work so this is a way I can give back. Myself and the composer agreed to split profits 50/50 so on a level 2 affiliate sale the composer, myself and the cast/crew member make an equal sum.
There’s really nothing to lose with using affiliate programs with your film EXCEPT a gang of sales rep selling your film for you. If your like me you don’t have time to hustle your film online full time so maybe you could use a little help as well? AFFILIATE!