13 Best Street Team Marketing Ideas

Having a street team can be an effective way to get a marketing message to a specific demographic. They can talk to your prospects in an individualistic way and this helps to bridge the gap between your company and that prospect so a relationship can begin. It’s a way of networking, interacting, and growing a presence in a community that is proven to work with the right people working for you.

It all begins with dividing your street team up into what their skill sets can best do. In basic terms, you’re going to want some people working online to accomplish your mission and others working offline in the more traditional street team format.

Best Street Team Marketing Ideas to Brand Your Business

1. Get Active and Do It Fast
There’s a lot of noise on every marketing channel these days and many people are oversaturated with all of the chatter they’ve got going on around them. They’ve stopped listening unless you’re able to stand out from these noise. The best way to do that is to be active and do it right away. The faster you make a positive impression, the more likely you are to get converts.

2. Use Your Events To Spread Your Message
Your street team loves a good perk, so let them enjoy a local event your organization is putting on. After the event, as all of your attendees are leaving, have them get to work by handing out flyers, brochures, stickers, or other marketing materials that will encourage everyone who came that night to come another night.

3. It’s All About the Approach
Body language says more than words could ever say and poor body language will quickly turn off a prospect. Teach your street team to be engaging with people, open, and not defensive. Crossed arms are bad. No eye contact is even worse. Staring a hole through a prospects forehead is even worse than that! Be natural and you’ll get a natural response.

4. Engagement Works Online Too
Many online street teams focus on social media solely and that’s a mistake. The whole point of having a street team is that you’re going to where all of the people are to market a message. From an online perspective, that means your team needs to be canvassing forums, talking to people through email, and even hitting up people on SnapChat if necessary.

5. Active Marketing Isn’t Passive Marketing
The general public doesn’t like to be engaged by a stranger, but if your street team is just standing on a corner, trying to be ignored, then nothing is going to happen. Even a billboard around a neck is better than this because it will make the message come through stronger.

6. Remember the Rule of Three
The average person needs to see an image at least three times before they’ll remember it and it must be in different locations. Putting up all your posters on one wall just isn’t going to cut it! Put your posters up all over town, hand out flyers with the same imagery on it, and don’t be afraid to print up some stickers with the exact same image and have your street team slap them everywhere.

7. Utilize Your Street Team’s Skills
People love to see a good show, especially when it happens to be free. If your street team has some good skills, then give them some branded apparel, get some logo stickers on the props they might need, and you’ll have a creative sales pitch that people won’t forget.

8. Get Involved With a Good Cause Simultaneously
Most folks will be more receptive to your message if you’re trying to promote a good cause at the same time. It should be something that relates to your business in some way, but there are general causes that will attract attention as well. Fighting hunger, stopping cancer, or helping kids to read are all good ways to help a community and make your own message known.

9. Costumes Can Be Good… Sometimes
Having a street team wearing a costume can be a very memorable experience when it is done right. It can’t be scary and it must relate to what you’re doing. Good costumes will grab someone’s attention because it is part silly, part genius, and it’ll have your brand on the costume somewhere. Think about what your target demographic would like to see and go from there.

10. Start a Flash Mob
The social media revolution of a flash mob is a great way for your street team to make a memorable impact that could go viral. It doesn’t have to be all in one place either. You can distribute your team out to the entire community and have them coordinate a specific time when they’ll perform something pre-planned. If people stop to see what is going on, then reward them with a discount card for an upcoming event or a coupon for your store that expires in a couple days.

11. Hijack a Known Brand
Remember when Anonymous brand-jacked Westboro Baptist Church on Facebook and started posting pictures of kittens, unicorns, and a counter-message to what people would expect? Your online team can do the same thing by hijacking a known brand that may not have a social media page, but be careful. Your message must be positive AND you can’t tear down the brand you’ve hijacked… unless they’re a widely regarded hate group, of course.

12. Do Something That No One Has Done Before
The ultimate goal of street team marketing is to surprise people so that they remember the message in a very unique way. ESPN once turned the drains of a urinal into a football goal with their logo. That level of uniqueness is what you must bring to the streets in your community or to your online presence.

13. Use QR Codes
When QR codes are placed on all of your marketing materials, you’ll be able to enhance the efforts of your street team. You can take people who scan the code to a website, to a specific discount, or to a funny recording with more information about your planned event. The choice is yours.