How to Master your Marketing Event Staffing?
These days there are all types of events and marketing including corporate event marketing and the relatively newly termed, experiential marketing.
What is Experiential Marketing?
Experiential Marketing, which can also be called engagement marketing, event marketing or participation marketing, is a marketing strategy that directly engages consumers and inviting and encouraging them to participate in the evolution of a brand. Experiential or engagement marketers believe that instead of considering consumers as passive receivers of messages, they believe that consumers should be actively involved in the production and co-creation of marketing programs and therefore developing a relationship with the brand.
Key Event Staffing Challenges
All companies, particularly SME’s, will struggle with staff management at some stage and whether you run corporate events, festival staffing or experiential marketing “events” you need to manage and monitor your staff, control your margins and track qualifications, absences and training to get the best out of the staff, the most satisfied customers and the most profit.
Selecting the right staff for the right event or experiential marketing jobs will result in your company:-
doing doing a better job,
having happier clients
winning more repeat business from existing clients
giving you an easier working life
Therefore it is critical that you are able to select the right staff for the jobs that your company wins.
In order to do this, you need to make sure:
you have a decent “bank” of staff to select from
you know what type of jobs they are good at and enjoy
you have their expertise or certificates readily accessible
you have their contact info & can reach them immediately
you select the right staff for the right job at your function
you have a management system in place
that everyone is communicated with and “on the same page”
So for effective event management you want to solve all of the above issues. You want to find the right technology that can do this AND maybe that little bit more – a bonus element or feature! What you should be looking for is a workforce management software program that combines great staff management, communication and tracking capabilities. Now there are many, many workforce management software – some package or in-house server based and some cloud based.
In an “ideal world” you want to be able to manage your staff, check and swap shifts, make note of absences, access contact and certificate information wherever you are, whenever you want. If you do, then I think a cloud based solution is what you should be looking for. Not all workforce or staff management software programs allow you to manage by shift, event and or job! If that’s important to you then pick one that can – like PARiM Workforce Software.
10 Questions to ask yourself
I am not for one moment suggesting that you rush out and sign up for a lengthy contract with the first potential solution you find! That would be a mistake!
I recommend you assess them carefully with the following criteria:-
How easy is it to get started
Do they offer a free, no commitment trial
Easy of use and understanding
Visibility and automation of repetitive communication
Ability to amend/ bespoke aspects to your needs
Separate switch on/off access portals for management, staff & clients
Do they have a development pipeline and can you see it?
How many new versions were launched in last 6 months?
How do they help and support you?
Is it cost effective and do they offer a level of “inclusive training” in the price
If you choose the right package for your company, then it can save hours and hours of time, even on a weekly basis, when just managing and scheduling your event or experiential marketing staff.
You could go further and select one that manages your subcontractors, gets their agreement to work and includes them in your overall staffing – a total staffing solution if you wish!
Dependent upon the different types of access the system you pick allows management, staff and even client it will also mean you are ALL on the same page which can reduce client and staff miscommunication.
If you pick one with a CLIENT PORTAL then Consumer Engagement, which is the ultimate point in which a brand and a consumer connect in order to offer a true experience related to the brand's core values becomes that much EASIER to achieve!