Guest blog: Why promotional staff will make or break your brand campaign – Carina Filek, Elevate Staffing

It’s a tough market for FMCG companies. New brands are looking to make a stunning impact and established brands are trying to recapture their share of a market. Often they need a killer product sampling campaign to cut through the noise.

Staffing is one of the most critical elements of any marketing strategy in the FMCG industry. Any marketing strategy can look good on paper, but it’s the human touch that dictates whether your plan will sink or swim. It’s the people showcasing your product at that crucial end point, who will decide whether your campaign works or not. Never underestimate the role that your promotional staff will play in your business and their value.

The majority of product sampling campaigns focus on the logistical details. Such information is obviously vital, but there’s a risk if you treat staffing as an after-thought. Every sampling campaign should begin with investing in people. And every brand needs a unique solution. Sampling campaigns that are planned and executed well can deliver amazing results, but they’re not without their challenges.

For starters, there’s short engagement time. Consumers come and go in a flash, which means that promotional staff need to be targeted, accurate and effective. They should know your product inside out, be aligned with the brand values, and believe the key brand messages that you’d like to communicate. And there’s a need for extra skillsets– one size does not fit all.

Campaigns need to be thoroughly planned out. It’s vital that the brand’s goals and the challenges in any given market are clear. Agency and client working in partnership and aligned on delivering the end goal, gives the best chance of success.

Clients need an agency who can sew everything together – working hand-in-hand with them and their partners – whether that’s logistics, warehousing, etc. – to deliver a seamless campaign.

And let’s not forget ROI because it’s the results that are really important. Measuring a campaign is vital. Always set clear targets at the beginning of the collaboration.

We’ve delivered amazing results for the likes of Monster, Ristorante, Bacardi, Coca-Cola and Soap & Glory, and our extensive experience allows us to overlay all our learnings to future work, to ensure seamless implementation.
The results we have seen reinforce our belief that people are truly the most effective way to engage people. Their value can’t be undervalued.

Find out more about Elevate here.