Hiring a marketing contractor for your chorus can feel like a lifesaver. With the right person to help you with marketing, you can free up your valuable time to work on the million other tasks on your plate—programming concerts, coordinating auditions, researching venues, you name it. But to truly set yourself up for success, a little prep work goes a long way.
Having a solid "Brand & Marketing Toolkit" ensures your marketing contractor has everything they need at their fingertips to represent your choir online, authentically and effectively.
In this first installment of my "Best Practices for Working with Contractors" series, I’ll walk you through creating a comprehensive, easy-to-navigate Brand & Marketing Toolkit. By putting together a Brand & Marketing Toolkit, you’re setting up a streamlined, professional structure that can help your contractor bring your choir’s brand to life with clarity and ease. This way, you’ll get the most out of their expertise—and they’ll thank you for making their job easier!
Here's a template for what to include in your "Brand & Marketing Toolkit."
As a marketing contractor starting on a new project, it’s essential to be clear on who you can reach out to when you have questions. That’s why providing your contractor with info on who’s who is important. This section should include a list of people they can reach out to for questions, whether it be graphics, music selections, or event specifics. With a clear roster of who’s in charge of what, your contractor will feel more confident reaching out and respecting everyone’s time. Trust me, this makes things smoother for everyone involved. Things to include:
Who’s Who: List everyone they might need to reach, with names, titles, emails, and phone numbers, and what they are in charge of (graphic design, programming, etc.)
Preferred Contact Times: Include your availability as well as the contractor’s. Setting these boundaries can help maintain a healthy, respectful working relationship.
Ever tried to tag a choir on Instagram but couldn’t remember the exact handle? This section is a contractor’s roadmap to direct your audience where they need to go—whether that’s your website, your season’s landing page, or your donation portal. With all the links and handles in one place, your marketing contractor won’t need to dig through emails or your website to find them. Things to include:
From social media captions to event descriptions, sharing your choir’s narrative authentically is essential to good marketing. Maybe you have a touching origin story—like starting with just five singers in a church basement and growing to a city-wide sensation—that they can weave into posts for extra authenticity. Putting your choir’s story in one easy-to-access place will help make storytelling easy and accurate for your marketing contractor. Things to include:
Giving your contractor easy access to design, scheduling, and project management tools saves a TON of back-and-forth. No delays in accessing platforms and no asking for credentials every other week. Having this handy section in your Brand & Marketing Toolkit will mean your contractor can log in and start designing right away without emailing you at midnight asking for the Canva password. Things to include:
Platform Logins: List login credentials or access permissions for scheduling platforms (e.g., Sprout Social), design tools (e.g., Canva), and project management software (e.g., Asana).
File Sharing: Link to shared folders for assets like images, concert flyers, and season descriptions.
Think of a Brand Guide as a marketing contractor's playbook for creating visually cohesive content. Why it’s handy: This guide ensures your contractor knows exactly how to use your logo (and has access to the correct version), colors, fonts, and imagery so that every graphic or flyer has your choir’s vibe. Otherwise, it’s possible that posts might start to look inconsistent or feel “off-brand,” which can confuse or distance your audience, and we don’t want that! Things to include:
This section provides all the details they need to give a proper shoutout or tag the venue, without wasting time hunting for profiles or guessing who’s who (which is really annoying, trust me lol).
When it comes to promoting your choir’s concerts, this section is key! If your marketing contractor is anything like me, they’ll probably check this section each time they create a new post about an event because they want to ensure that every detail is consistent. With easy access to clear, accurate details, your contractor can confidently promote your choir and get your patrons excited about upcoming concerts! Things to include:
Every marketing contractor’s dream! A content library is where you’ll keep high-quality images, videos, past event footage, and any bios your contractor might need to craft engaging posts or event announcements. When scheduling social posts or designing graphics, they’ll pull directly from this library to keep your feed fresh and professional, and they won’t need to track you down for the latest choir headshots or that beautiful photo from last year’s holiday concert. Instead, this library becomes their one-stop shop for all visual needs, making sure they always have what they need to create captivating content. Things to include:
With a Brand & Marketing Toolkit like this, your freelancer will have everything they need to hit the ground running, saving everyone time and avoiding last-minute scrambles. And the best part? Once it’s done, you’ll have a master resource that’s helpful for every team member, not just contractors! (And it will be easy to update for next season since you have it all laid out.)
Has your chorus hired a marketing contractor before? What questions do you have about working with one? Do you have any tips for getting your contractors up and running? Share your questions and recommendations in the comments!