How to Manage an Effective Street Team in the New Digital Decade

Please Contact FanManager if you want a proposal or pricing to run your street team campaigns in 2011. We can execute all of the ideas below for you and more! We also offer social media campaigns, graphic/web design services, viral marketing campaigns, consulting, and other services and plenty of creative ideas for your band, event or brand!

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By : Erik Koral – FanManager Founder/CEO – 1.10.11
http://www.fanmanager.net

Hey everyone,

One of my new years resolutions was to do a bit more personal blogging and provide the music and marketing communities with some cool tips in navigating the web and managing your street campaigns. I have been in the marketing field for over 10 years now and running FanManager for 6 years, so I wanted to post some of my observations and let you know what has worked and what hasn’t. Please feel free to spread this around and use it how you wish. I will also be bringing in many friends in the industry for guest blogging over the nest few months as well, giving you tips about all areas of the music world from management, PR, booking, tour management, and branding. All posts will have a marketing and educational feel.

The entry below will cover everything you need to know about online and offline street teaming in this new digital era. Although online street teams are becoming much more important today, it is still crucial to know how to manage your fan base helping you out on the streets as well.

How to Manage an Effective Street Team In the New Digital Decade

1 – CREATE YOUR OFFLINE STREET TEAM

• Create a FUN name for your team so more fans are encouraged to join. Ex: “Shapeshifters” for the ALO Street Team and “Flight Crew” for the Moonalice Street Team.

• Blast out to your email list to look for members
• Blast out to your social networks to look for members
• Have a sign up box or banner that directs to a street team landing page on your website, Myspace, blog and other social networks
• If your numbers are low, put a “refer a friend” program in place where each new person recruited gets the original street team member rewards

2 – WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO CREATE FOR YOUR TEAM

• 4×6 handbills on matte stock that are full color. Album or Tour branding plus your website on the front side. Dates and additional information on the back side. Plus if you have sponsors and social networks you want to promote, add those as well.

• In our experience, paper handbills on color or white paper are not as effective. You can get nice color card stock materials printed for very cheap these days.
• 4up handbills on 8.5×11 paper/PDF so street teams can print up extra materials at Kinkos if needed. Saves money on shipping additional packages to street team
• 11×17 Full Color posters with some really popping artwork on the front and a blank white space at the bottom of the poster. This space is there so your teams can write in show information with a thick sharpie pen at the bottom.
• Stickers
• CD samplers

3 – WHAT YOUR OFFLINE STREET TEAM SHOULD DO

• Street teams help pass out handbills, stickers and CD samplers before and after like minded concerts, on college campuses, at parties, and other events. These materials can be dropped off in retail locations as well, but are more effective being passed off hand to hand in person.

• Teams put up your posters on college campuses, in record stores, smoke shops, pizza joints, coffee shops, community bulletin boards, and other locations. Most importantly, they will make sure the radius around the venue is covered with materials so you feel good about the work being done in each market. Also making sure that posters are hanging up at the venue itself
• Give your team a list of like-minded shows to target with handbills, stickers and CD’s. For example, if you have a Reggae artist touring you will want to make sure your team has a list of all like minded bigger reggae acts coming through town, jam bands, roots music and also events like hemp rallies and skate/surf events.
• Give your team a list of like-minded shops and good areas to target with posters. Same deal. They should be Looking for smoke shops, record stores, skate/surf shops, and anything else within that lifestyle market. Ask store owners nicely if they can put up posters in the front windows and bulletin boards.
• Street teams can help you promote your band’s tour, album release or even a performance time at a major festival.
• Make sure your teams are complying with local laws as some cities have strict rules about posting banners and could fine you.
• Use the street team (usually cute girls wearing your band’s T-shirt) to help walk around the show and gather email list entries.
• Use the street team (usually cute girls wearing your band’s T-shirt) to work your merchandise booth for you.
• Use the street team to pass out extra goodies (stickers, CD’s) before and after the show.
• Use the street team to help call in radio requests. This has to be done carefully though as most radio stations can easily identify a street team call-in campaign and this could do your band more harm than good.

4 – HOW TO MANAGE YOUR STREET TEAM

• Prepare WAY in advance. If you have tour dates lined up 2 months before the tour starts, that is when you want to get everything together for your street team campaigns. Remember, its takes TIME to find and organize people. Look for 5 people in every market to help you out and at least 1 rock star “team leader” in each market to help you manage those other people.

• Ship packages with 15-20 posters and a few hundred handbills, stickers and CDs to everyone at least 5 weeks in advance of their show so they have at least one month to get the work done. Make sure a manual with instructions is included in every package.
• Follow up with everyone by email first then phone call at least 3 weeks before their show to make sure they got materials, are getting to work, have a list of targets and know what to do.
• Follow up a second time with everyone to make sure they are not sleeping
• Follow up with everyone one week before their show to make sure they know about reporting deadlines are are giving it one final big push.
• MOST IMPORTANTLY : BE NICE! Remember that these are VOLUNTEERS, not slaves. Shower each street team member with kindness and you will see amazing results. Make sure they know that the harder they work, the more they will get in return. Implement a point system for the number of stores covered, shows attended, and pictures uploaded/submitted.
• Thank everyone for their hard work at the end of the tour so they want to come back and help again!

5 – HOW TO REWARD YOUR STREET TEAM

• Typically free tickets to shows are the best rewards. 1 free ticket for good work, 2 free tickets for going above and beyond.

• People that REALLY go above and beyond should be invited to band sound checks and backstage to meet the band.
• Anyone helping out AT a show like a mailing list worker or merchandise booth person should be rewarded with a free T-shirt and a little bit of cash if possible.
• Anyone who does “some” work but not enough for a free ticket should at least get a free download or CD so they feel like their work was worth something.
• Make 100% SURE that no names are left off a guest list and double check with your tour manager to make sure no ball is dropped at a venue. Nothing is more frustrating to a hard working street team member than being left off of a guest list after they did all of that hard work!

6 – CREATE YOUR ONLINE STREET TEAM (E-TEAM).

• Your E-Team and Street Team should be the same people, but some people might only have time for one or another so make two separate lists just in case.

7- WHAT YOU WILL NEED FOR YOUR ONLINE STREET TEAM

• Animated banners. As many as possible. Typical sizes are 300×300, 368×100, 728×90

• Widgets for Collecting emails (TopSpin), Tours, Album Releases (countdown clocks are very cool!), or overall mini website types of Widgets. ReverbNation is a great place to make Widgets for free!
• HD Live Videos and Music Videos on YouTube or Vimeo that can be spread around.
• Create a digital landing page for your street team if you can so they have an “asset depot” of sorts.
• Avatars.
• Admats promoting an album, specific show, or tour.
• AIM Icons.

8 – WHAT YOUR ONLINE STREET TEAM SHOULD DO

• Host animated banners and widgets on their own Social Networking pages/blogs and other profiles which click through back to the band’s Web site, fan club ticket pages, or other purchase links.

• Spread the word about your band, tour, event, and album on other like-minded message boards, in chat rooms, local music lists, and other forums.
• Comment on blogs writing about your band or like-minded artists.
• “Like” items across the web so it shows up in your Facebook news feed
• Invite people to Facebook events and also to Facebook band pages with the “Suggest to Friends” button.
• Tweet and Re-Tweet message on Twitter.
• “Digg” News Articles
• Tag photos on Flickr
• Share YouTube/Vimeo Videos, on Social Networks, Forums, and Groups. Comment on Videos
• Email friends admats and forward other show advertisements
• Recommend music on sites like iTunes Ping, iLike, Last.FM, Pandora, Blip.FM, etc.
• Post show advertisements on Craigslist, Event Brite, etc.
• Write favorable reviews of your music on Amazon, I-tunes, and other E-commerce sites.

9 – HOW TO MANAGE YOUR ONLINE STREET TEAM

• Send out missions once a week that focus on different areas of the internet. Week 1 can be Facebook missions. Week 2 can be Twitter missions. Week 3 can be forum missions, etc.

• Require screen shots with examples of online work for points and other rewards
• Make easy to obtain goals for the team like “reach 5000 members” or “comment on 5 blogs.” Make sure missions take the team no more than 20 minutes per week.

10 – HOW TO REWARD YOUR DIGITAL STREET TEAM

• Online street team rewards can range from simple things such as free downloads to huge rewards for big bands like an iPod loaded with a band’s music, VIP Fly Away for 2 people to a show, signed Guitar or Box Sets.

• Online campaigns work best as competitions for the most points. Top 10 point winners get the biggest rewards

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