Note: This article is written for those of us Copywriters who also double as working as a Promotions Manager or as a senior team member – so yes, it is does make some presumptions about your role.
Have you thought about the unique make-up of your promo team?
Do you have one particular person who is brilliant at setting things up safely?
One who is fantastic with clients and listeners alike?
Another who is amazing at social media posts?
If not, and you don’t know who has what skills, then it’s time you found out.
Copywriters work alone, Promotions people don’t.
So you have to learn to work with the team you have, or create the one you want to achieve the results you want to get.
If you have more than 1 person who does the promo heavy lifting with you then your ‘team’ needs to work together, and knowing who can do what better is the first step.
GET TO KNOW YOUR TEAM:
Create a list and ask each of the team members who is better at this task or that activity.
For example…
- Who has no problems at all with getting up early? AND can make it to the station at an early hour?
- Who can pack the promo vehicle safely?
- Who can set-up safely?
- Who loves talking to clients and listeners?
- Who is good at social media posts?
- Who has restrictive hours?
- Who has a first-aid certificate?
Now that’s just 7 off the top of my head, and I am sure you can write a list that is specific to your needs and requirements, then you can assign tasks based on a better and deeper knowledge of what they have to offer and you can deliver a better quality street cross our outside broadcast to your clients and sponsors.
TRAINING:
When you know what they do well, ask them to train the others (and yourself) to do it almost as good as they can, or show them how its done, and try to cross train everyone in your team… why?
Because promo staff are usually casual, here one week and gone the next – or they get promoted, and you should be across everything to train the next person who comes through.
I have seen promotional team members be elevated to breakfast jocks, others to on-air shifts, or to sales and more – it’s a great opportunity for people to get their feet in the door at a station.
One day a month at the very least should be set aside for one of your street team members to come in and clean out the promo vehicle, re-packing every cable, checking every piece of equipment for faults, and doing general maintenance. Now this is at the very least.
Some stations insist this is done after every single cross our outside broadcast, including fault reports on equipment, reports on attendance, and cleaning and re-packing.
The most important thing is that this job should not be the sole domain of one person – every member of the team should do it, and everyone should know how and where everything gets packed away and set-up.
MOTIVATING YOUR TEAM:
Remember to always congratulate your team members when they do a good job. If they do something out of the ordinary, praise them in front of the rest of the team. If you need to admonish them, do it privately.
Your team members are all individuals, and you need to get to know their strengths and weaknesses to deliver the best for everyone, making your sales team look better, the station look better – and delivering the results that a client has paid for with the cross to their location.
Until next time, happy promoting!
