Experiential marketing is a $2.2 billion business in the United States, and it’s growing at 12 percent per year.
But it’s very difficult for companies to find brand ambassadors—the temporary workers who represent their products at trade shows, music festivals and other live events.
Kansas City startup PopBookings is solving that problem by creating a one-stop platform that lets marketing agencies quickly hire event staffing across the country. Clients can log in, locate experienced help and then send them a job offer via text message.
PopBookings’ founders, Erika Klotz and Scott Hanson, talked about their company at the Sept. 16 edition of 1 Million Cups at the Kauffman Foundation.
A recent SparkLabKC graduate, the startup is a finalist for one of the $50,000 LaunchKC grants at this week’s Techweek Kansas City festival. PopBookings recently raised $150,000 in seed funding.
“We’ve got a beautiful product, and we’ve got traction,” Klotz said.
She and Hanson got the idea for PopBookings from their modeling agency, which developed a healthy niche in booking brand ambassadors for events.
Most marketing agencies have to rely on Craigslist to find people, especially if an event is in a different city. The problem is that a Craigslist ad can elicit hundreds of responses—some of them from qualified talent, but many that are not. Sorting through it all can take hours.
PopBookings simplifies the process, and it offers tools for paying and managing talent.
Some marketing agencies have built their own systems for hiring and managing brand ambassadors, but most of those were created by people who don’t understand the industry, Hanson said. They don’t perform as well, and they force the individual agency to spend time and money on upkeep.
When PopBookings has made initial outreach to agencies, it’s gotten a 30 percent response rate from people interested in using its service—a very good sign.
Right now, PopBookings’ service has 11 beta users who’ve booked more than 1,000 jobs. Hanson and Klotz are working to launch its mobile app, which could debut by the end of the year, Hanson said.
You can check out the video of PopBookings’ 1 Million Cups presentation here.
