Top Four Ways to Vet an Experiential Marketing Staffing Agency

Top Four Ways to Vet an Experiential Marketing Staffing Agency

Whether you’ve had a horror-story worthy experience or are just looking to avoid such a catastrophe, you know hiring the right partner to staff your activation is essential. Here you’ll find everything you need to know about vetting your activation staffing agency. We’ll cover what could go wrong if you don’t, what will go right when you do, and we’ll even give you our top four ways to properly vet an experiential marketing staffing agency. 

Why Vetting is Essential

When choosing an event staffing agency, you should be selective and strategic. Finding a recruiter who can effectively represent your brand in this market is critical. Ultimately, it can lead to an overall win or loss for your 6-figure activation investment. 

Often called in the final stages of activation planning, your event staffing partner will be the one who sets the tone for your entire event. Contacting your event staffing partner early in the planning process is the best way to ensure success during the activation. Without the proper staff in place, the event cannot reach its full potential. This is why it is critical to hire an agency that knows the industry inside and out. 

What to Avoid When Hiring a Staffing Agency for an Activation

If the agency is not reputable or established in the industry, it could result in unqualified or unreliable brand ambassadors at your event. When you have unreliable brand ambassadors, this leads to a bad experience for customers. Bad customer experiences will reflect negatively on your brand, and result in an overall loss for your event.

On the flip side of this experience, if an agency does not take proper care of its BAs, then the BAs bad experience can also leave a negative impact. It is essential for agencies to build trust with their BAs, so that the BAs are set up for overall success. You’ll know the staffing agency is not a good fit if: 

  • BAs consistently show up late
  • BAs no-call/no-show repetitively 
  • Instructions for the activation are not followed
  • BAs don’t get paid or paid on-time, which may result in negative reviews online
  • Customers have a bad or mediocre experience
  • BAs are distracted/not creating the desired atmosphere for guests

What to Expect from a High QualityActivation Staffing Agency

When you vet your activation staffing agency in advance, not only will you get quality Brand Ambassadors, but you will also gain a valuable business partner setting you up for success.

Your staffing agency shouldn’t just look to fill all of the necessary positions, they should look into who is BEST to fill those positions. When you hire a staffing agency that does their research in advance and invests in quality relationships with their Brand Ambassadors, you can expect:  

  • BAs that are comfortable and familiar with the brand and product
  • Reliable and experienced BAs, showing up before event start time
  • BAs that are adaptable and flexible and can make changes at the moment to get the most out of the ACTUAL activation and customer experience
  • Top quality staff to choose from
  • BAs asking thoughtful questions before the activation begins because they’re familiar with the materials provided
  • Brand continuity in the market with BAs that want to come back and work with your brand again and again
  • Clean cut, hygienic, manicured representation for your brand with the same quality you expect

When you hire us for your experiential marketing staffing needs, these are the standards you can expect from InCast Marketing Brand Ambassadors.

Top Four Ways to Properly Vet a Experiential Marketing Staffing Agency

It’s easy to see why it is important to vet an experiential staffing agency, here’s how to do it. There are several strategic ways to ensure that the agency you hire is both qualified and reputable. Here are to top four ways to vet an experiential marketing staffing agency: 

Check Their Online Presence

The first way to vet an agency is to check out their reputation online. Read their case studies on their website and look into how they represent themselves on social media. This will give you a quick indicator to whether or not they are industry professionals. 

Check out InCast Marketing on Instagram here and Facebook here!

Check Their Peer to Agency Reviews

Don’t just take the agency’s word for it though. Get an inside source and find out what their brand ambassadors are saying about them. An easy way to do this is to browse industry listing sites such as Trusted Herd. Here, you can read multiple brand ambassador reviews to see which agencies are or are not qualified staffing experts. Look at the most recent reviews and how frequently they are left so you know the staffing agency is consistent over time.

Check out InCast Marketing’s Rating on Trust Herd here!

Check Their Employer Reputation on LinkedIn/GlassDoor

Another great way to see insider reviews from past staff would be on LinkedIn or Glassdoor. This will give you an even better idea of how the agency handles its overall operations over time.

Follow InCast Marketing on LinkedIn here.

Ask for References from Previous Partners

A qualified agency should have no shortage of good references on deck. When vetting your staffing partner, make sure that you reach out to their past partners to see how their events went. This will give you an excellent idea of what it is like to work with that staffing agency.


Request references by contacting us here.

How is Incast Changingthe Game

We’ve heard all the horror stories of events gone wrong, so we’ve set out to change the game. We do things differently here at InCast because we want to see the success for everyone involved in the activation industry. Here is a little insight into how we set ourselves apart from other national and international experiential staffing agencies:

  • Vetting jobs to make sure they’re going to be successful for our BAs

Just as you are vetting us, we are vetting our events so we can find the best BAs to match each activation. We do all of our research in advance to ensure the most qualified and professional BAs are chosen to staff your event. 

  • Researching clients to ensure potential for long term partnerships & synergy

To us, clients are not just faceless brands that need positions filled. We deeply care about the event’s overall success and our partnership with a brand. That’s why we do our research in advance to know what kind of event we will be staffing, and which of our BAs will be the BEST fit for the job. 

  • Expanding your network of brand ambassadors available 

We’re consistently building our network of talent. We work with some of the best and most qualified BAs in the industry. We ensure that each and every one is set up for success, and we offer a wide variety of skill sets for our clients to choose from. Looking to kick off your career as a BA? Apply with us today!

  • Maintaining a lean office budget by working 100% virtually so we can allocate better rates for our brand ambassadors

A big problem we have seen first-hand in the staffing industry is the payment of brand ambassadors. There are many horror stories of BAs getting underpaid, paid late, or not even paid at all. Our office is doing our part to fix this industry gap by maintaining a lean office budget. We work 100% remote, and that allows us to allocate better rates to our brand ambassadors, resulting in satisfied, high-performing BAs. 

  • Giving opportunities to new team leads when we see potential for leadership,  motivating brand ambassadors to do their best

Not only do we provide some of the best rates, but we also provide advancement opportunities for our BAs to become team leads. We want to ensure quality performance, so we reward our staff to strive for their very best at every activation.

Interested in Learning More?

Don’t just take our word for it. Vet us and see what our brand ambassadors and past partners have to say about InCast Marketing. You can read more about our client success stories here.

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