by E.D. Cameron

Created on: January 12, 2008

Street teams are one of the most affordable, effective methods for promoting your music. By getting together a group of fans and volunteers, you can save your energy for other aspects while ensuring that word is getting out about your band.

In exchange for all their hard work, you can also maintain your fans by offering freebies: stickers, buttons, tee shirts, singles and other items.

I have broken down this article in to two main sections to help provide an action plan to keep you organized, and an idea well to be the source of inspiration for your street team. Having both items will provide a great foundation by which to lead a street team efficiently and see returns.

Action Plan:

1. Draft an idea of your goals for the next year, and break up into three month increments. Do you want to increase live show attendance by 10%? Sell 5% more merch? Make your goals attainable, and clear.

2. Based on your goals, identify your current promotional strengths and weaknesses. Do you produce great posters, but seem to never have time to put them up? Are you better at e-mailing than phone calling?

3. Use info from #1 and #2 to create a specific plan of attack. If you want to sell more merch, but suck at face to face interaction you might need a street team to do the door to doors at record shops and other stores.

4. Split plan of attack into committees, and list job details, approximate time per week or month, and any other pertinent info a fan might want to know.

5. Post committees, send out to e-mail lists, and in general promote opportunities.

6. Create a database to store pertinent information about your street team members (name, phone number, e-mail, availability, any geographic issues (neighborhood), committee interest, what free gear you've given (or promised)).

7. Establish e-mail lists for different committees. Also establish a general link and e-mail list so that you can let other fans know when you need some help.

8. Get to it! Make sure to keep records of what folks are doing.

9. Run some analysis after a month. Did you see any increases in the target areas? If not, try doing step #1-#3 again.

10. Remember to always thank your street team with lots of free stuff, verbal thank yous, and other recognition!

Promote Here:

1. Radio stations. A lot of them now have request lines on their websites. Provide a list of local stations that do, and enlist everyone on your street team list to request your music.

2. Flyer posting. The best strategy here is to post flyers in spots of high

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