This is the first post in our “Street Team 101” series

1. How To Recruit a Street Team. <= You are here!

2. How To Prepare a Street Team.

3. How To Incentivize a Street Team.

4. Street Team Marketing Ideas.

5. Street Team Communication.

Bonus: 3 Awesome Apps for Street Team Communication.

I thought it’d be fun and valuable to draft up a series on how to create and manage a street team based on the experiences I had as a Marketing Coordinator for FanManager.net back in the day. What you see here is the first in a series I’ve drafted up which we’ll call “Street Team 101”.

Look out for the next installments rolling out over the next several days 🙂 Enjoy!

Build your team

The first and most obvious step in creating your promotional powerhouse is recruiting your team.

What you want to do here is put together a group of your biggest fans and advocates. These will be people that are the most passionate and outspoken about your events/music/brand, and who you trust can convey their enthusiasm and stay motivated to spread the word.

Recruiting Online

The simplest way to do this is using a Google Form.

Go to Google Drive, and create a Form. After you create the form, you can embed it onto a page on your website or share a link with the form on it via emails, your Facebook/Twitter feeds, etc…

When people fill out the form, their answers will automatically be entered into a spreadsheet, and just like that, you’re building your team.

Be sure to collect all the vital information you’ll need to contact them and get them involved. At the minimum, this will include:

Full Name

Email Address

Mailing Address

Phone Number

If you want to get selective, you could include some open-ended questions that can help you screen for the best/most passionate fans:

Are you a part of any other street teams, college activities board, or any other organization you’re passionate about?

Are you outgoing and love meeting new people?

Do you go to a lot of concerts?

You might also want to know:

Availability

What Markets They’re Nearby (if your marketing will be spread out over multiple cities)

T-Shirt size

Recruiting In-Person

In my experiences I always preferred web recruiting because it was the easiest to promote and manage once the information was in your system, but you can also recruit in-person during events.

The most convenient way to do this is, instead of asking for all the same information that you would online, just ask for Name and Email address on a sign-up sheet, and follow up via email later.

Have sign-up clipboards on your merch table, at the bar, and other visible places. After the show, add all your sign-ups to your email list, and send them an email asking if they want to join your street team along with a link to the sign-up form.

A Word on Selection

When it comes to picking your team from the list of sign-ups, you’ll want to strike the balance between quality and quantity. You don’t have to be overly selective, especially if this is going to be a volunteer street team. But you also want to be aware that these are going to be your representatives on the ground. They are going to interact with hundreds of people on your behalf, so ideally they’ll be the kinda peeps you wouldn’t mind doing just that.

An Ongoing Process

The last thing to keep in mind when it comes to building your street team is that should be an ongoing process. Just like building your email list or your social followers/subscribers – it’s not going to be a once-a-year initiative or something you focus on every couple weeks. Or at least it shouldn’t be.

What it should be is something you’re constantly pushing, building, and working to grow.

Make the link to the sign-up form prominent on your website. Include the link in emails, and blast it on your social channels regularly. Keep the sign-up clipboard on the merch table and the bars at your events, and shout out to them regularly. Let it be known that you’re recruiting your army, and they will come.

Don’t forget: music and events are sexy, and everybody wants to be a part. When I was street teaming for my favorite bands and local promoters, I was tying in my identity with them. I wanted to be involved with what to me was the coolest music and the coolest parties in town, and street teaming was the perfect way to do just that.

Leverage that sexiness, let your fans get involved and be your promotional army, and everybody wins.

Next: Part 2 – How to Prepare your Street Team