Staffing across borders – one size definitely doesn’t fit all!

Cross-border promotions can be let down by a lack of consistency in recruiting and training promotional staff, says Carina Filek of Elevate Staffing UK & US

Sourcing the right promotional staff to work on a campaign is crucial. If you don’t have the right people at the heart of your strategy, then no amount of planning or creativity, or the quality of the actual product for that matter, will make a difference – the initiative will fail.

But what happens when a client requires multiple teams in multiple geographic markets? Usually, the solution will be to engage with several agencies covering different countries to allow the campaign to achieve the desired reach.

However, this can cause a number of headaches, including a lack of consistency, along with an inefficient use of client time managing multiple partners, all delivering the same product.

We all love a challenge, but when you need to execute an international campaign, you’re going to want some peace of mind. As the client, you’re going to want much more than a vague promise and a handful of hope. With stats showing that 76% of marketers say their event and experiential marketing initiatives are integrated with their other marketing campaigns, can you afford for your multi market event campaign to fall short?

Clients need a unique approach to recruitment to ensure that the talent hired is bespoke for any given project. Depending on the nature of the campaign, promotional staff may need to be highly skilled at a range of different things. That means they’ll almost certainly need bespoke training in order to present themselves as true brand advocates and experts.

To deliver successful and seamless international staffing campaigns, we believe there are four essential things to get right.

Local knowledge

When it comes to carrying out an effective campaign, local knowledge of the host locations is huge. Utilsing a staffing partner to provide a coordinated global approach makes sense from an efficiency perspective but it’s important to ensure there is also knowledgeable local application to drive effectiveness. Look for a supplier that can offer a service based on proven experience in the required markets.

Established global network

You need access to an established global staffing network of highly trained and experienced field staff, all of who are ready to deliver results for you at short notice. This network needs to be backed-up with a stable infrastructure that can delivery seamlessly, in multiple markets.

The Importance of consistency

Consistent communication and execution is crucial in any campaign, so there should be one person who is solely accountable for the overall delivery of any campaign, who is supported by a regional network. The importance of consistency shouldn’t be undervalued, especially when launching a multi-region campaign and ensuring the local market challenges that will inevitably arise.

One size does not fit all

Cross-territory campaigns are much less effective when a myopic “one size fits all” solution is applied. To ensure that this doesn’t happen, cultural understanding is vital so that selection, training and engagement plans reflect the unique nature of the host market, the local nuances and of course their consumers.

People are truly the most effective way to engage people, no matter the market. Their value can’t be undervalued.

Carina Filek is Global Managing Partner of Elevate Staffing UK & US, which delivers bespoke staffing solutions and marketing activations across the UK, EU and US. Elevate works with experiential and activation agencies including Havas, LIFE, A Little Bird, IMG, 3 Monkeys Zeno, and Jack Morton. Brand clients include Oculus, Facebook, Monster, Coca-Cola, and Soap & Glory.