Last week, we discussed the importance of properly staffing your sales team. Now, we’re moving on with how to staff and incentivize your promoters. The difference in this department vs. the sales department is that rarely do nightclubs understaff promoters. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The issue with staffing as it relates to promoters is not hiring the right people, not tracking results, and thereby not rewarding the ones doing the best work.
Promoters
Most clubs look to promoters to act as their marketing personnel. They’re the ones who keep an eye on trends, create a loyal following, and bring guests through the door. But too many venues give promoters too much operational leeway, including: 1) not looping them into their overall business objectives and 2) giving them access to the club’s general inbox to communicate with guests.
This is an issue for a number of reasons:
1. They have their own interest in mind and not your venue’s as a whole. This damages your reputation and brand image.
2. They may offer other services that benefit them personally, rather than upselling customers on specials your venue is running. This decreases your profit opportunities and hinders customer loyalty.
3. They may not pass information on to management that should be passed on when working with a general inbox. This is when tables get double-booked, reservations are uncounted for, and guests aren’t given the experience they expect.
4. They don’t know who your high-profile guests are or how to communicate with them in your brand voice, again damaging your reputation and brand image.
You wouldn’t bring in a server and not train or integrate her into your operations, so why would you do this with your promoters? It’s important for your promoters to know how your business operates and how all staff members fit together to create a successful venue. This helps them understand how they fit into your club and what they need to do to further your success.
It’s also important to convey your business goals and vision with promoters. It may seem like too much information, but this is what will allow them to identify marketing opportunities that align with you venue. They’ll know what trends match your vision, what performance acts align with your brand, and what messaging to use to get guests excited about coming to your venue.
Lastly, and most importantly, you need to track your promoters’ performance. Without tracking measures in place, it’s nearly impossible to truly understand how well your promoters are working for you.
There are systems available that give all staff members – including promoters – a personal login to handle guest management and point of sale. What’s more is this system has tracking measures in place to help you truly understand how well your promoters are working for you, tying an individual customer’s attendance to a promoter’s work. The system tracks the referrer of an individual customer, VIP reservation, or guestlist party. Once the customer is in the club, the technology can continue to track spending habits, such as product type and amount. This makes it easier for you to identify not only who’s bringing in the most traffic, but also who’s bringing in the best traffic.
This type of operational efficiency gives you insight on which promoters are bringing in the most customers, the best customers, and even the most money. All of this allocates you to make better, more logical business decisions while still keeping your brand intact.
Stay tuned for part 3, where we will go into staffing your internal team.
Whitney Johnson is the global director of marketing at BookBottles. Contact her at whitney.johnson@bookbottles.com.
