Have you ever been to the mall or maybe a sporting event and run into a person that is just handing out some sort of product for free? it could be cans of redbull, t-shirts, frisbees, or even toothpaste. The idea is that someone is handing you something for free, hopefully for them, you will try the product and purchase it in the future, or maybe you check out a companies website because it's printed on the frisbee. The stuff is free, but they are giving it to you as a form of marketing. What an easy job that person has right!!! that's what I've always thought. I figured these people are either getting paid pennies, or they work a more serious gig for the companies they represent and the are doing this pretty much just for fun!!! So it turns out that 99 times out of 100, both of those assumptions are wrong!!! My sister was the first to enlighten me on working promotions. It turns out that most of the time the person that may be handing you a coke zero, for example, usually is working for a marketing company that was hired by coke. On top of that, that person is most likely getting paid $15+an hour to do what is a pretty simple task!
Armed with this knowledge, and given an additional kick in the ass or two from my sister, I decided to try this work out! Now after a year and a half, I've pretty much done nothing to make money besides promotions. Some of the things that this has entailed have been, passing out free stuff, flyering doors, spinning signs, signing people up for sweepstakes and raffles, worked cool events, taken pictures, demonstrated electronics, and I've even been payed to play videogames!!! I've done all of this stuff and made between $15-$30 an hour doing so!!! At many of the events I've worked I got free food, even bottles of wine, and I've even been paid to travel and had all of my food and hotel paid for. Some of these perks come with time after you've got your foot in the door a little bit, but are all very realistic possibilities if you work hard and do a good job! While I know these jobs all sound pretty simple there is a little more to it. A lot of these companies could hire people to do these jobs for near minimum wage, but because of how much they pay, they are usually trying to find people that are gonna do more than that. I would say that being outgoing and approachable are probably the most important qualities a person needs to have when working promotions. Yeah you may just be handing out sun chips, but it's important that you do it with a smile and engage the people that you encounter. You are representing a brand, you're not just there to feed homeless people, you are there to let people know about the exciting product that you are allowing them to sample!!! There are so many companies that hire for these type of things it is fairly common that a person who doesn't meet the normal standards slips through. They look at it in the most basic light, they are getting paid to hand out stuff and getting paid good money. They figure they'll do just enough to not get fired, and probably go back to doing something else once the promotion is over. I understand that some people feel that way, what can you do? I look at that as a positive for me because it makes me look even better when I'm showing up on time and giving that extra effort. Many marketing agencies have many clients and many promotions, why not do well and have the opportunity to work for them again. I dunno, that's just the way I look at it. Anyways, below you will find a little guide to getting into promotions. One last tip would be that if you haven't done any promotions before, figure out a way to make your previous job experience relevant to promotions. When I was first getting started, I used my experience working for Disney. Disney is known for it's customer service and is also known for trying to go above and beyond guest expectations. Pretty much use your experience to make you into a "people person." So now just check out my little guide below!!
Before you sign up for anything, You should create a resume. Put everything that you've done on the resume, but if you've done anything related to promotions or marketing put that at the top. Also, pick out a couple of nice pictures of yourself that you can use, at least one head shot, and one full size picture.
Finding promotional work is a bit of a process and there are a few different ways to go about finding the gigs. There are a few ways that I go about finding work, I will update this whenever I have new info!
- Craigslist- Go to the craigslist.org, find the gigs section and search any of the following keywords. Event, Event Staff, Brand Ambassador, Street Team, & Talent. These are the words that I use, but I'm sure other people have some others as well.
- Marketing Companies- Tons of marketing companies are looking for promotional talent, basically you go on the website of each company and create a profile and they will start sending you emails whenever they have work in your area! Go to the "Promo Links" section of this blog to see some of marketing sites, just look around the different sites for the hiring/talent signup sections.
- Networking- networking may be the most important way to survive in the promotional world! every time you work a promo you should exchange info with everyone that you work with. I'm talking phone #s, email addresses, facebooks, twitter, everything! Lots of people in the industry get job offers that they can't do, or may be working a job that needs extra people, so it's good to connect with everyone. It's important that it goes both ways though, if they send you work, do the same for them!
- Facebook- Facebook can be a very good tool for finding promo work! Most marketing companies also have Facebook Fan Pages, like those fan pages and you will often see job postings in your news feed! Whenever I do promos with someone I try to add them on facebook and I look at their "Likes," and usually most of the smart ones have liked the pages of different marketing companies that they have worked for or heard of. Also, there are several facebook groups out there where job postings are put on! The biggest one that I have seen is called "USA Promotional Talent Lifeline." ask to get added to that group, there are tons of postings on there across the country.
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