How Do Event Staffing Agencies Secure Clients?

Winning more contracts takes more than offering staffing services. Event staffing agencies need to demonstrate what makes their services valuable, market their capabilities effectively, and provide a positive customer experience even before a prospect becomes a paying client. Building strong relationships with event partners, presenting clear and comprehensive contracts, and following up consistently can also help turn potential clients into long-term business partners. 

How Event Staffing Agencies Can Secure Clients

Winning new clients remains one of the enduring staffing industry challenges. If you're struggling to secure clients, you're certainly not alone. Here's how your event staffing agency can attract new business and secure more contracts.

1. Make Your Services Competitive and Valuable

Your services can be one of your strongest selling points as an event staffing agency. A service is the specific type of work, support, or staffing solution your agency provides to clients for their events. Offering quality services gives potential clients more reasons to consider your agency and makes it easier to compete for contracts.

You already have an event staffing agency and already have services for sure. But having them is not enough; you need to put each one in writing, clearly outlining what it covers and what clients can expect to receive. Your offerings should also be competitive, with reasonable rates, flexible service packages, and bundled options that address different client needs and budgets.

Make it a habit to review your pricing, staffing packages, and competitors' offerings. Find out what clients value in a staffing provider and use their feedback to refine your services. Perhaps they need better-trained staff, a simpler booking process, more responsive communication, or faster deployment. You can also introduce customizable packages that account for different event sizes, durations, budgets, and staffing requirements.

2. Pay Attention to Marketing 

You could have the best event staffing services around, but that won't mean much if potential clients don't know your agency exists. That's where marketing comes in. Marketing is a strategy that helps businesses, including event staffing agencies, get noticed, attract clients, and show businesses why their services are worth considering. More than that, it helps build a reputation that makes clients remember you when they need event staff.

Boosting marketing always begins with knowing who you're talking to. Identify the industries, businesses, and event organizers that regularly need staffing support. Then, make your marketing messages and marketing content relevant to them. Show off what makes your agency worth considering, from your experience and talent pool to your staff training, recruitment process, and ability to handle different event requirements.

Don't leave your online presence unattended, either. Update your website and social media pages with service details, event photos, client testimonials, and company achievements. You can also share articles and posts about common event staffing problems and practical ways to address them. It's a simple way to show potential clients that you understand the industry.

Of course, posting regularly isn't the whole job. Check whether your marketing efforts are actually bringing in inquiries, website visits, engagement, and potential clients. Find out which tactics work and focus on improving them. 

Client testimonials offer powerful social proof for event businesses. Discover how to collect client feedback that builds credibility and strengthens your marketing.

3. Provide Good Customer Service Even If They Aren’t Yet a Paying Customer

Did you know that 64% of consumers have switched to a competitor following a poor customer experience? Whether clients are simply making inquiries, requesting quotations, discussing event requirements, or have yet to become paying customers, it is important to provide good customer service. Good customer service means treating every potential and existing client with professionalism, responding to their needs promptly, and making every interaction as smooth and helpful as possible.

To deliver good customer service, staff need to be approachable and responsive to every query. You have to be professional in every interaction, whether that's via email, messaging app, phone or in person. Once the contract is signed, continue being proactive with updates, responsive to their requests, and quick to contact in case issues arise.

Turning an inquiry into a client is only the beginning. Discover the essential client management skills and practices that help event businesses build lasting professional relationships.

4. Build Relationships With Event Partners

In the competitive staffing industry, a trusted referral can be more persuasive than any marketing campaign. In fact, 84% of B2B buyers start their purchasing process with a referral. Peer recommendations can also influence more than 90% of buying decisions.

As event staffing agencies operate primarily as B2B service providers, building strong relationships with other businesses is essential to generating referrals, reaching prospective clients, and securing new contracts.

Build relationships with event partners that regularly bring events to life, from event planners and production companies to venue managers, marketing agencies, and event management firms. Introduce your agency and present the staffing solutions you can provide, including the types of events you serve and the personnel you can supply. If you can, attend industry networking events, trade shows, and business gatherings so you can meet decision-makers and explore potential partnerships. LinkedIn and other social media platforms are other avenues for making connections and continuing conversations after an introduction. You can also explore referral arrangements with businesses whose services complement yours. 

Simply being known by other event businesses doesn't guarantee you'll get referrals. You have to actively nurture those relationships even in the absence of any actual projects. Be in touch with your partners, keep them up to speed with what you're doing, respond to their queries promptly and deliver quality work when they refer a client over. That consistent engagement and follow-through is what builds trust and makes them more likely to refer you in the future.

5. Write Clear and Comprehensive Contracts

Clear, properly drafted event staffing contracts speak volumes about the agency's professionalism and go a long way to establishing trust from the very beginning. They define exactly what the service is going to be, who is responsible for what, what the price is and what the terms of engagement are. When clients understand these details, there's less room for confusion and more reason to trust your agency.

An effective contract starts with a clear understanding of what the client is looking for. Customize the contract for the project in terms of the people required, the scope of the work and the arrangements. You also need to be equally clear on pricing, including staff rates, payment schedule, any overtime and any other fees. Before you hand the contract over, be absolutely clear on what the next step is, such as signing the contract, confirming the booking, and making the first payment.

For more detailed instructions on preparing client proposals that help you secure business, check out our complete article.

6. Follow Up With Clients

Here’s an interesting fact: 80% of sales require an average of five follow-ups before a deal is closed. While reaching out repeatedly may feel like an imposition, a timely follow-up could be the very thing a potential client needs to make a decision. It is an opportunity to revisit your proposal, ask if they have any questions, and find out whether they are ready to move forward. More than keeping the conversation alive, it shows that your agency values the opportunity to work with them and is willing to make the effort to earn their business.

A follow-up doesn't have to be complicated. Start with a friendly, polite greeting, then a quick recap of the event, the staffing services you're proposing and the proposal you'd sent out previously. Find out if they've had a chance to look at it and whether they need any further information. If they haven't yet decided, use that as a chance to find out why. It may be that the pricing is an issue, the staffing package isn't quite what they're after, or they're still waiting for some form of internal approval. Listen to their reasons and see what practicalities your agency can bring to bear to help them. 

Your follow-up efforts shouldn't end with potential clients. Get in touch with past event participants to gather feedback, identify areas for improvement, and understand how you can deliver better staffing services at future events. Learn more in this article on five proven strategies for nailing your post-event follow-up.

FAQs

1. Where Can Event Staffing Agencies Find Potential Clients?

Event staffing agencies can find potential clients through event organizers, exhibition centers, hotels, catering companies, marketing agencies, corporate businesses, and trade shows. They can also use LinkedIn, business directories, industry associations, and networking events to connect with decision-makers who regularly need event staff. 

2. What Should an Event Staffing Contract Include?

An event staffing contract should include the parties and contract details, event scope and staffing services, and special terms and conditions covering staff qualifications and requirements, staff training and briefings, scheduling, attendance and timesheets, replacement and backup staff, and pricing.

Get the full discussion on what event staffing contracts should include in this post.

Retain Event Staffing Clients With StaffConnect

Retaining clients goes beyond having the right staff on the ground. It means delivering consistent service, maintaining clear communication, and keeping operations running smoothly enough to earn their trust. StaffConnect is the software that helps make all of that possible.

Designed for event staffing agencies, StaffConnect brings all the essential staffing tools into one platform. You've got a talent database and scheduling tools to make staff selection and deployment easier. StaffConnect also features chat, email, SMS and push notifications to keep your team in contact from event start to end. GPS check-ins give you visibility on attendance and timesheets, and invoicing tools help you manage working hours and client billing more accurately.

StaffConnect helps organize your staffing operations, so your team can focus on delivering quality service and building stronger client relationships. Book your free demo now to explore all of its features!