Rock and roll musicians, and the industry that has grown up around it, have always been perceived as trailblazers. Innovative ideas and expression have always been a big part of the development of popular music, and getting broader acceptance has been a challenge that has motivated musical acts and performers to come up with new ways of getting the word out. One important marketing method that grew out of the music industry is the use of loyal followers to help spread the word about a band or act. That’s where the concept of the “street team” came from, after all—and if you really think about it, this was one of the first true forms of channel marketing.

What is a street team? In the music industry, it’s a group of fans and followers who help spread awareness of a performer or act through local and regional efforts. Corporations and major brands are now starting to pick up on the concept and develop their own “street teams” to help promote and market their own products. Let’s take a look at what makes up a street team from an operational standpoint, what makes teams successful and how channel marketers can learn from them.

Any given act might have local street teams set up in various cities across the country or even the world. Street team members are, first and foremost, advocates of the act. Their role is to go out and create brand awareness and adoption. In fact, very organized regional teams have often established guidelines and strategies, and they train or “onboard” other members in these approaches. Typically, they distribute marketing materials, which are either self-generated or provided by the performer, and those materials are sometimes co-branded. They also are likely to handle sales in a localized way—say, by running a merchandise booth at a local performance or festival. Furthermore, team members are often incentivized or compensated for their efforts and allegiance with offers of free tickets, merchandise, rewards and so on. They can even petition the act to create their own “deal,” perhaps negotiating for a local appearance at a particular venue.

Is this starting to sound familiar? Not only are street teams often quite successful as a grass-roots, localized and dynamic resource, but they also operate in ways that reflect many of the core principles that form the basis of partner or channel marketing.

So, what specific street team principles can we apply to channel marketing?

Focus on direct one-to-one customer base engagement. Regional teams or networks are local to the customer base of that geography, and they are engaging with the target audience in a more in-person and close-touch way than global vendors who do business out of central hubs. They collect feedback and audience reaction to the act or brand and use that feedback to adjust their efforts, tactics and approaches—often passing this information back up to the act themselves, or networking with other regional teams to share insights for success. Unfortunately, these same activities are not often seen in traditional corporate channel marketing or partner marketing. Partner portals and channel platforms often lack a mechanism to pass insights back up to vendor—let alone share marketing insights and success stories with other partners in the network. “Boots on the ground” engagement in various global areas is very useful in gaining valuable metrics and insight, and this tactical data can help focus and empower the collective local success of a brand. Intranetwork sharing of best practices can only help the OEM to develop a more powerful channel by providing successful methodologies as demonstrated by high-performing partners.

Pull regional success up to global efforts. To elaborate on the discussion above: When local or regional paths to success have been identified, sharing with other partners to strengthen their efforts is great. But the vendor or OEM itself should pull this methodology up to analyze and adapt to the global chann...