5 Top Traits to Look For in Brand Ambassadors

Posted on December 20, 2022April 24, 2024 by britney

Tips

What Are Brand Ambassadors and Why Are They Important?

Brand ambassadors are hired by a company to represent their brand in a positive light, helping to increase brand awareness and sales.

In some contexts, ‘brand ambassadors’ can refer to celebrities or influencers who endorse a certain company on social media platforms, but in terms of experiential marketing, a brand representative is someone who puts a personal touch to a specific pop up, product launch, or brand activation.

In other words, they don’t need to be a famous celebrity, blogger, or have a large social media presence at all because their role is based on forging relationships with consumers at in-person events. Think of your brand ambassador as a regular, friendly face who adds a human element to your brand name.

5 Traits all Great Brand Ambassadors Have

With that being said, all great brand ambassadors share five main qualities that help elevate a brand experience:

1. Great interpersonal skills

Above anything else, all great brand ambassadors display excellent communication skills. Initiating conversations with strangers is no easy feat, and yet, the overall success of your marketing activation relies on your brand representatives being able to do this with confidence and ease.

To be clear, the job entails a lot more than just waving people down. A great brand ambassador knows how to be enticing without being pushy and how to be informative without rambling— and all the while, they have the social awareness to identify passerbyers who are a part of your target audience.

Let’s paint a picture to help you better understand what this skill looks like in practice. Say you’re a makeup brand opening a pop-up in front of a mall, and you’re looking to hand out free samples of your new blush. A brand ambassador will stand near your activation and welcome guests with a friendly face and quick explanation of what’s being given out and by who.

Once a guest is ‘hooked,’ they’ll try to walk them through the pop-up (perhaps guiding them to scan a QR code or grab a flier) and build rapport that adds a personal touch to the overall brand experience. As small as the interaction may seem, this moment of communication is extremely important to your brand image.

2. Knowledgeable about your brand

However, it’s not enough just to be charismatic; since they are in the ultimate customer-facing role, effective brand ambassadors should be extremely knowledgeable about your company’s products and/or services.

This may sound obvious, but it’s not as easy as it seems to find representatives that show a genuine interest in your company— and on top of that, people who can then effectively communicate what’s unique or noteworthy about your company to others.

When you’re selecting from potential candidates, it helps when ambassadors show a previous interest in your company, but it’s not a requirement. Many great ambassadors can work across all industries and become knowledgeable and enthusiastic about your brand with the right training.

As long as your brand ambassador can one, do their own company research, and two, convey the key talking points you want to hit, then they will prove to be a useful component to your marketing initiative.

3. Open to feedback

Being open to feedback is important in any professional setting, and it’s no exception in the world of experiential marketing.

Typically, there’s a full-time company employee overseeing a brand activation, and it’s not unusual that these managers will have notes for their brand reps. This makes it extremely important for brand ambassadors to receive feedback well and to actually improve upon whatever notes they were given.

Especially because small tweaks to the activation flow can double, or even triple, the amount of impressions a pop up gets, the ability to take pointers is a crucial part of being an effective brand ambassador!

4. Exceptional work ethic

Brand ambassadors work long, consecutive days. Especially when they’re a part of an on-going campaign, it’s really important that they have a strong work ethic that keeps them motivated. Punctuality, reliability, and the overall ability to stay positive and enthusiastic day-in and day-out is invaluable for people in this position.

Also, a lot of the time, ambassadors work without direct supervision. You want to make sure your brand ambassadors are people you trust to take initiative and be proactive without you explicitly instructing them at all times.

5. Creativity

Creativity may not be the first quality you think of for brand ambassadors, but it’s so, so important. In this context, creativity refers to the ability to innovate and find new approaches with each new guest. Because the whole point of experiential marketing is to give your brand the opportunity to connect one-on-one with consumers, you need brand ambassadors to be able to capitalize on this face-to-face time.

In many cases, this means they need to learn how to adapt to new audiences. While brand ambassadors are provided a basic brand message, they should use their best judgment to decide whether a specific approach will work better with a certain audience or demographic.

Interested in becoming a brand ambassador?

If you made it to the end of this blog and think that you’d make a great brand ambassador, then we encourage you to apply here!

Food Truck Promotions is always on the look-out for friendly, enthusiastic hard workers who can elevate our mobile pop up experiences, so we look forward to hearing from you!

Final Notes

Brand ambassadors can make or break experiential marketing events. If you want to communicate your brand image in a way that really resonates with your target audience, selecting the right brand representatives should be a top priority.

We hope you use the five traits we just outlined to weed out and select the best brand ambassadors to represent you at your next marketing event!

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Experiential Marketing Strategies For Your Wellness Brand

Posted on December 7, 2022March 24, 2023 by britney

Experiential Marketing

Are you looking for new, cutting-edge ways to distinguish your health or wellness brand from competitors?

You’ve come to the right place. In this blog, we will discuss experiential marketing strategies for your wellness brand, and help you find ways to put your company in the spotlight.

Experiential Marketing Can Help Your Brand Stand Out In An Increasingly Saturated Market

To the average consumer, it feels like new health and wellness brands pop up every day, which makes you wonder: how does a company in this fast-growing industry stand out from everyone else? From a promotional perspective, it’s significantly more important to implement unconventional marketing strategies that cut through the noise and leave impressions on buyers.

Thankfully, this is where experiential marketing comes in.

What is Experiential Marketing?

Experiential marketing is exactly what it sounds like: it’s an experience-based approach to marketing, in which companies connect with consumers by creating immersive brand environments, like pop ups, mobile showrooms, and more.

In some ways, experiential marketing acts as the antidote to over-used tactics like social media marketing, Google Ads, billboards, commercials, etc.

Focusing on meaningful, organic connection, rather than impersonal, digital efforts, experiential marketing is an approach that gets people to notice— and more importantly— remember your brand.

To get a better idea of what is possible for your wellness brand, let’s take a look at specific experiential marketing initiatives brands like yours have taken in the past!

Hopefully, you are able to pull inspiration from these successful brand promotions!

Wellness Brands Like Yours Who Have Turned To Experiential Marketing

1. Olly

In order to launch Olly’s new Immunity Supplements, the brand knew it was important to turn to experiential marketing and partner with our agency to design an unforgettable brand activation. In the case of Olly, this meant a Winter Wellness Café right in Central Park.

The ‘branded vehicle-turned-pop up café’ served hot cocoa and matcha beverages, while at the same time sampling Olly products to passerbyers. The result of this simple, yet memorable marketing strategy? Thousands of New Yorkers falling in love with the brand in real-time.

Aside from the in-person impact, customers were also encouraged to share their experience with the branded food truck on social media; the resulting organic social media presence is just the cherry on top of what a branded environment like this can help a brand accomplish.

2. Being Frenshe

We introduced the world to Being Frenshe, a new line of beauty & personal care products by Ashley Tisdale, in a similar fashion.

Again, we gave away matcha lattés to stay in the wellness theme, but this time, we also offered complimentary swag bags for the first 50 lucky guests! The Being Frenshe tote bags were stocked with everything from candles and perfumes to body mists and lotion, enjoyed by the promotion’s early-birds.

Then, starting with guest 51, people were gifted the tote bag, hand treatment, and one of the five matcha lattés: ‘Sooth & Comfort,’ ‘Unwind & Rest,’ ‘Balance & Harmony,’ ‘Joy & Bliss,’ or ‘Awaken & Uplift.’

If this wasn’t enough, the most iconic part of the entire branded promotion was giving people the opportunity to meet Ashley Tisdale herself! This limited-time pop up was everything the brand had hoped to make a big debut.

3. EcoFabulous

Following the skincare’s launch day, EcoFabulous enlisted us to help them execute the perfect brand activation in New York City. Together, we were able to put their brand on the map and resonate with consumers in a huge market.

What we pulled off was incredible and wholly fitting for the colorful, environmentally conscious line. For one, we offered the brand the opportunity to host their launch from our electrically charged tuk-tuk in three New York locations– Noho, Union Square, and Williamsburg– to honor the brand’s commitment to sustainability.

Then, from the vehicle, we immersed New Yorkers in all things EcoFabulous: enjoying a promotional video, while also receiving a tote-bag of product samples and complimentary jars of rainbow cake by JARS by Dani.

Additionally, guests were treated to a photo-moment and prize wheel, with the chance to win reusable straws, reusable bags, squeeze keys, gift cards, product samples, or a whole set of face oils! To top the activation off, Disney Channel star and celebrity Skai Jackson made an appearance to educate people about the products!

Wrap Up

There are so many ways to reach your target audience and create brand loyalty through in-person initiatives, which is the very basis of experiential marketing.

With that in mind, we hope that the examples above have painted a clearer picture of what’s possible as far as experiential marketing strategies for your wellness brand! You can choose to pull aspects of brand activations you’ve seen, or you can go a different direction altogether.

Really, when you work with an experiential marketing like ours, customization is the foundation of our partnership. All you have to do is tell us your idea, and we deliver.

If you want to discuss your experiential marketing idea in more detail, contact our team!

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Marketing Ideas To Honor Your IPO Day In Style

Posted on November 30, 2022March 24, 2023 by britney

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For many businesses, an Initial Public Offering (IPO) is the ultimate milestone, marking your company’s past success and signaling even more growth to come in the future.

Because the stakes are high, as a CEO, your chief concern for years may be paving the way to reach the day when you can finally ring The NYSE Bell and take your company public.

However, as an experiential marketing agency, we see IPOs in a somewhat different, specific light: an opportunity to double down and bring even more exposure to your company name with a creative marketing strategy.

Our focus is geared wholly toward leveraging IPO day to your company’s advantage, asking the question, ‘When you’re inviting the entire world to believe in your vision, how do you get everyday investors on board?’

We believe that IPO day– in and of itself– is an organic, one-of-a-kind opportunity to grow your brand name and resonate with the masses through in-person, experiential marketing tactics. Keep reading to learn about possible marketing ideas for IPO day!

Go Public in Public with Event Marketing

Event marketing is an effective way to mark any milestone, and IPOs are no exception.

This marketing strategy is used to promote brands, products, or services, generally with in-person events. By marketing at events, businesses can build trust and loyalty, develop meaningful relationships, drive sales, and much more.

So, when it comes to IPO day, what better way to hone in on your big moment then by elevating your brand name with a memorable, in-person experience on Wall Street? Now, you may be wondering, ‘what, exactly, do these in-person experiences look like?’

Well, let’s take a look.

Our Work

We are no strangers to brainstorming event marketing ideas for IPOs, and ultimately, our hope is that by painting a clearer picture of what experiential and event marketing looks like, you’ll be able to envision how you can amplify your brand using similar tactics on Wall Street.

When looking at our work, keep in mind that because Food Truck Promotions specializes in marketing vehicles that incorporate a culinary element to produce brand-to-consumer (or in this case, brand-to-investor) connections, each of these examples have similar elements, while still being wholly unique to the brand. There’s so much room to be creative!

With that being said, here are 3 IPO promotions to pull inspiration from!

1. Uber Eats

On IPO day, Uber partnered with Food Truck Promotions to transform two food trucks into UberEats pop up shops. Once the IPO was official, Uber Eats trucks began serving people on the NYSE grounds, accompanied by reporters who were there to cover the event as it was happening live. With our help, the company offered gourmet snacks ranging from Black Seed Bagels and Mah-Ze-Dahr Bakery’s special coffee cake or gluten-free banana bread to fresh Agavi Juice or Brooklyn Diamond Cold Brew.

2. Grindr

Like Uber, when Grindr went public at the NYSE, the company didn’t shy away from bringing even more attention to their brand name. We honored the company’s IPO, loud and proud, by handing out rainbow Baz bagels and coffee from a branded food truck. Among drag performances and champagne popping, this perfectly festive, perfectly Grindr breakfast was the magic touch the company needed to celebrate its huge milestone on Wall Street.

3. Fisker

After the bell-ringing tradition had been postponed for a year, in 2022, Fisker finally had the chance to honor their IPO. With so much built up anticipation, the company knew they had to mark the occasion in style, so Fisker partnered with our agency to serve delicious breakfast sandwiches and coffee from a branded food truck on Wall Street!

Wrap Up

IPOs are a monumental occasion, and with everything else to prepare for— press conferences, social media strategy, meetings, etc.— we hope that we have been able to guide you in the right direction as far as event marketing.

Our hope was that by showing you the success we’ve had using experiential vehicles, you’re left with a taste of what is possible when you’re marketing for IPO day!

If you’re interested in learning more, or discussing a specific idea at length, reach out to our team!

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8 Ways To Use Branded Food Trucks To Ramp Up Sales

Posted on April 7, 2022May 26, 2022 by britney

Experiential Marketing

When food trucks were created in the 70s, they were just a quick, easy, and original way for customers to grab food. Now, food trucks have a different use. Most notably, they can be branded to bring more exposure to a company at corporate events, music festivals, and other community gatherings.

Because of the high visibility that food trucks can get, they are great “vehicles” to showcase brands. While branding a food truck might turn some heads, this alone is not enough to create meaningful brand-consumer relationships. Read along and learn the top 8 ways to use branded food trucks to ramp up sales.

1. Activate At Festivals

One sure way to showcase your branded food truck is by activating in high-engagement locations. Food, art, and music festivals are often perfect spots because they attract foot-traffic. Already high-excitement and high-engagement, these bustling environments give you the opportunity to capitalize on a high volume of approachable people.

By participating in a food, art, or music festivals, you also get the opportunity to check out what tricks other brands are using. Keeping an eye out helps you improve your own mobile experience to create maximum brand awareness.

Also, high foot-traffic locations give you the chance to connect in the long-term. These are the kind of events where you can capture email addresses or have people follow your business on social media.

According to the Hubspot State of Marketing Report published in 2021, email collections were seen as the most successful at converting 15% of viewers or spectators into customers. This is definitely something to keep in mind as you develop call-to-actions at your mobile activation.

2. Capitalize On Mobility

What sets food trucks apart from brick-and-mortar locations is that trucks are mobile. Unlike your standard pop-up shop or showroom, experiential vehicles allow you to go on a mobile tour. So, the benefit of hitting multiple key markets for your brand can’t be overstated.

Because branded food trucks are transportable, you can grow the reach of your product launch, sampling activation, or showroom in an alluring way. Since you’re not locked into a particular area, branded food trucks should opt out of staying in one place at a time. Go ahead- choose a few dream destinations to maximize your visibility.

If you’re open to the idea of a mobile tour, you may wonder how to gain publicity in each of these areas. This is where creating buzz around your mobile tour comes in. Social media is a great tool to let people know where your mobile tour is headed and to create more buzz.

3. Use Geo-locations

Ok, your phone knowing where you are- and maybe even listening to your conversations- can seem creepy, and understandably so. However, there’s a plus side. The fact that smartphones are so in-tune with our lives can serve as a great marketing tool for your branded food truck, especially if you’re on a mobile tour.

Location-based advertising is essentially using location services on a person’s phone to directly reach out. This can mean text messages with product discounts, branded food truck updates, or other brand information. Targeting ads is also a great way you can get people who are in the vicinity of the area to get to know your brand.

Another tool that you can use is Geofencing which enables business owners to target a specific group of people based on their interests.

4. Offer Free Samples, Discounts, and Loyalty

“Free” is everybody’s favorite word. This next tip may seem really simple, but there’s no overstating that complimentary giveaways and exclusive offers are effective and timeless. Using this age-old practice in a new-age a branded food truck makes for the perfect combination to turn heads towards your product.

An experiential vehicle that offers free items will no doubt entice people to try out your product, and in the end, grow to love your brand overall.

A loyalty program is also a great way to encourage customers to keep coming back by rewarding them with freebies.

5. Include Entertainment

Although people initially designed food trucks to be a convenient way to grabbing food on-the-go or outdoors, people are now using these vehicles as a platform for a wide range of offerings.

One way to attract people to your branded food truck is by offering entertainment. This can mean live music or performances, magicians, face painting, arcade games, wheel of fortunes, and more. An extra detail like this is extremely magnetic and is element that will definitely distinguish your mobile activation.

6. Exhaust Social Media

According to Pew Research, 84% of US adults between the ages of 18 to 29 are active social media users. Social media marketing should be at the front and center of your digital marketing strategy.

It’s not enough to just have a social media presence. As a business owner you need to have a designated employee who is posting on your social media. Their job will also entail answering DMs and other interactive features.

Constantly updating your posts and curating your content is also an integral part of your strategy. Sharing human stories about the interactions and experiences you have with customer- is an excellent way to humanize your brand.

In addition, social media giveaways a great way to keep up with your followers and engage with them.

7. Create Eye-Catching Designs

Eye-catching designs are of the utmost importance for your branded truck, and so is every detail down to the menu board.

The actual custom wrap of your food truck is the biggest piece of advertisement for your brand. It allows you to get exposure not only when you’re parked during activation hours, but also when you’re just transporting your truck from one location to another.

However, no detail is unimportant when it comes to creating a branded food truck that will build brand awareness.

8. Partner With Food Vendors

While a branded food truck serves more purposes than just a traditional culinary experience, people will still be expecting delicious food. This expectation is something you can capitalize on by partnering with culinary masters and chefs. This will surely boost your brand and entice people to stop at your branded food truck for more than just the food.

Branded Food Trucks Wrap Up

Food truck marketing is taking the advertising world by storm. It’s an easy and convenient way that you can showcase your brand. With the 8 tips that we shared above, you will see an increase in brand awareness which will positively affect your sales.

Food Truck Promotions can help you elevate your brand using the tactics we talked about. Don’t hesitate to contact us today.

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It’s been a big year here at Food Truck Promotions. With the holidays on the horizon and the new year quickly approaching, we’ve been looking

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How to Host a Trendy Pop Up Shop Event In Your Neighborhood

Posted on March 28, 2022October 11, 2023 by britney

Experiential Marketing

As a kid, did you and your siblings or friends ever set up your own lemonade stand? If the answer’s yes, then believe it or not, you already have some experience in hosting a pop up shop event. Well, ok, pop up shops are much more sophisticated than a ten year old’s lemonade stand, but they’re still inextricably linked to the old practice of setting up in a public location in the morning, interacting with customers, and packing away in the evening. So, if you want to host a trendy pop up event in your neighborhood, just combine that old tradition with some new tools, and there you have it.

Some points we make in this article you might already be familiar with, but others might be less obvious and just as helpful insights when you wonder how to host a pop up shop event in your neighborhood. As you continue reading, we’re confident you’ll take some useful and intriguing information with you as you venture on and host a trendy pop up shop of your own.

What is a Pop Up Shop Event?

Pop ups are more than fashionable, “apparently spontaneous,” or transient events; they offer significant potential for increasing brand awareness, and anyone who has hosted their own knows that they require significant planning and effort. It’s worth noting, too, that when you talk about ‘pop up shops,’ you’re really talking about something as broad as a ‘party’ or a ‘conference.’ They come in many different forms, depending on the occasion and objective.

Pop up shops came into popularity only a decade ago, and they’ve become crucial brand awareness platforms in all industries, from tech to fashion to art to hospitality; today, marketers spend up to $600 billion on brand activations.

At their most effective, pop up shops offer people passing something unusual and exciting on somewhat familiar grounds. But, as everyone who has attempted to perfect the casual look knows, pulling off an extraordinary event with a sense of spontaneity about them requires a lot of planning, ironically enough.

Define Your Goals

Write down your goals: this cannot be stressed enough. Doing something as simple as this can help you immensely, helping you prepare, stay on track, and execute your pop up event. It also aids in client retention and lead generation.

Who doesn’t want to know if they achieved what they set out to achieve? When you have pre-defined goals from the get-go, you can easily refer back and evaluate your success in the end. One or more of the following goals should be the focus of your pop-up shop event: obtain new clients, boost brand awareness, provide an outclass customer experience, and conduct market research.

Create A Standout Concept

You can choose the ideal event theme by assessing your goals. It also acts as a guide for determining what style of the pop up store to open, what materials to buy, and how to advertise it once it’s up and running. Rather than sacrificing your idea to accommodate a location, select a location that matches your theme.

Whatever your event concept may be, just make sure your identity and concept are obvious, engaging, and support one or all of your event goals. The beauty of the pop up idea is that you don’t have to offer your goods or services directly. It might be as basic as putting on public activities.

For example, consider TULA Skincare, a popular influencer beauty brand, which held a pop up event in Dallas to promote one of its newest products. The tropical-themed event had lots of balloons, a manicure station, and a beautiful background for photos that created a lifetime experience for the guests.

Choose Your Pop Up Shop Venue

Okay, now that you have a great concept and a defined framework, start looking for good locations, and maybe more crucially: places you don’t want to be in. Think about where prospects work, chat, dine, and unwind when picking an event location. If you’re selling tickets, the uniqueness of the experience is a factor in how much they’ll pay. Following that, it’s preferable to provide special bargains or bonuses to entice new clients.

When you have decided on a location, things start to get tricky. How much room is needed? Is it an indoor or outdoor event? Seated event? Try putting somebody with a knack for logistics on your team so they can help you! If this is a solo-project, you may seek advice from professionals, which is to say, us. We’d love to learn more about your next pop up. Simply tell us what type of venue you want, and we’ll provide you with some fantastic possibilities for how to host a pop up event.

Don't Go Solo- Collaborate On Your Pop Up Shop

Consider a pop-up collaboration. Is it necessary? Absolutely not. But, collaboration is a great idea and adds to the enigmatic nature of your event. A co-branded and hosted event can have a bigger reach and appeal.

In other words, people are more inclined to make an effort to attend or stop at your pop up if they realize it’s a one-of-a-kind, limited collaboration.

Spread The Word With Creative Marketing

There’s no denying that social media is vital for spreading the word and generating interest. So, in the weeks leading up to your event, come up with a catchy hashtag that would grab attention, create mysterious social media posts, and keep them wondering!

Invite bloggers and influencers to your pop-up event because they have a large following who will become aware of your event. And they will introduce you to a new target audience you may not have considered previously. This might expand the scope of your marketing activities far beyond the event.

Word-of-mouth is a great way to spread your name swiftly. Create an extraordinary experience for your guests because you want them to talk about your event when they leave, don’t you?

Also, don’t overlook other types of conventional offline marketing. For example, leave flyers and leaflets at places where your target audience is saturated because you want to attract potential customers.

Lastly, reach out to folks who cannot attend your event in person. Provide visually appealing images as well as a succinct, relevant hashtag. If you’re going to live stream, make sure your images are distinctive and eye-catching, and test them on mobile and laptop devices.

Set A Budget

The best way to proceed is to be forthright with a real budget early on because our bank accounts are not limitless as our imagination. Making a budget beforehand will assist you in determining where to rent, as well as the price of the ticket, food, beverages, and items. It facilitates and simplifies decision-making.

Due to the transient nature of pop-up shop events, it’s impossible to accurately estimate the finances. However, it would be favorable to start by making an objective to break even.

Wrap Up

The importance of planning cannot be overstated. So, plan, doublecheck and doublecheck the doublecheck. Good research is also an element of planning. So, when are you hosting your trendy pop-up shop event in your neighborhood?