Generation DIY: Send Your Team To The Streets!

posted in: Features

The other week I was in Cambridge, MA grabbing a bite to eat with some friends when this young college girl stopped our group to ask us to preview some music on her iPod. After a 30 second listen, she asked our thoughts and inquired if  the band was one we’d personally enjoy. At the end of our conversation, she handed each of us a postcard with information on how to reach the band on the net as well as a plug for an upcoming show. This was quite possibly one of the best interactions I’ve had with someone promoting a band, especially someone doing it for free. Since I began the marketing campaign outline last week, I thought a talk about how to create and manage a street team was a likely next step. So let’s get some more work under our belt to help kick off this campaign stronger than ever.

For those of you who do not know, a street team is a collective group of dedicated people who work under a less structured setting to help promote a product or brand ”in this case your band. Now, these teams aren’t the easiest to put together, especially if you’re not in a band that’s been around for a little bit and gathered a strong fan base. Usually, the street team will consist of close friends and fans from different areas”to ensure your efforts and promotional materials don’t go to waste.
First off, find a way to gather information and get in touch with your street teamers via the web. Most people use Yahoo! groups or Google groups, but there are sites out there, like ReverbNation, that can help with managing street teams. From one of these central hubs, you can post assignments and offers for your street teamers while giving them a place to report back to and a way to keep in touch with the band. Before you reach this step, you’ll have to assemble the front line. Reach out to your MySpace, Facebook, Twitter friends, even your mailing list and see who would like to be apart of the team (TIP: give some incentive, maybe a free CD for joining or something along those lines). Next, establish some sort of main focus or mission that your team will carry out (i.e. spread the music, finding new fans, promoting a release, a show, etc.). As of right now you shouldn’t have spent a dime on anything. Generation DIY’s mindset; we want to keep things free or real cheap.

Here comes the fun creative part. To successfully carry out your mission (refer to my initial interaction with street teamer college girl), you’ll need to provide your teamers with some sort of swag or promotional tools: postcards, posters, stickers, demos, etc. Now, don’t keep your focus on ONLY promoting physical propaganda. Keep these promotional tools for the people in the more populated hubs of the nation like LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, NYC, Miami¦ well you get the point. Your street team can also double as an e-team who focus on flooding the Internet with promo ads, links to your music etc. If you want (or have the money) to get creative then get the gears turning and create some fun ways of promoting your band with more unconventional yet eye catching campaigns.

Every campaign has an end, so offer something to motivate your teamers until your deadline. Offer the best teamer a prize package with an autographed CD, some merchandise, and free tickets to a show or even mention of them in the album booklet. There’s plenty of ways to give incentive to people, but most of the time, if you’ve made a connection with them, they’ll do it for the love of helping your band. Throughout the campaign, measure your street team’s progress by asking for screen caps of posts they did online, or pictures of them on

ReverbNation Progress Analytics

the streets promoting with the tools (TIP: Ask your street team to use a disposable camera and send it to you. Why? Timestamps). After all is said and done, reward your most diligent teamers that accomplished what you set forth to do. And that’s it! Easy right? Could be, but put in a little extra effort and it’ll definitely pay off in the end.

Hope this helps a bit with setting up a street team and helping your marketing campaign chug along. As always, let me know what helped you, or if you have any ideas to improve on some of the suggestions I have. And if you have any success stories, I would love to hear them!

Keep that hustle going, Generation DIY. This is still YOUR year!