Why savvy companies turn to incentives during times of economic uncertainty

As released by the Incentive Performance Center (incentivecentral.org) and sent to us by our friends at Odenza Marketing.

5 fundamental reasons explain why incentive programs, unlike other sales and marketing strategies, withstand economic downturns:

1. Low fixed costs, high potential return
2. Ability to effectively target audiences.
3. Relative ease of measurement.
4. Flexibility.
5. Potential for both short-term and long-term results.

Long before the days of the Internet and database marketing, organizations turned to incentive programs to boost sales and productivity because they didn't need technology to identify the people most important to their business. As long as there was an economical way to deliver a message to the targeted audience, organizations over the last 100 years or more have used incentive programs to target offers, enhancements, or other engagement strategies to change behavior and subsequently, business performance.

Incentive programs are attractive during tough economic times because the cost of communicating with a well-identified audience of people is generally much less than mass-marketing programs, such as advertising, direct mail, and trade shows.

Why?

Because you have already identified the audience that can change your business outcome if they focus on what they can do to help you achieve those goals. In good times or bad, business results depend on the willingness of a key audience to do what they can as customers and salespeople to contribute to your business success.

Today, using a low-cost vacation incentive to draw consumers attention to your business is the best way to grab market share. If you believe you're that much better than the other guy, you should be able to pick up business.

Consider that consumers will still continue to spend, but they will be spending more wisely. Manage your marketing expenses carefully, plan correctly. Don't be an ostrich and put your head in the sand. Customers will expect you to do things a little differently at such times.

As companies make the shift from mass-marketing to target-marketing, they will ultimately turn to incentive programs as a primary solution rather than a secondary or complementary tool, for all the reasons outlined above. Each time an organization replaces a mass marketing technique with a one-to-one strategy, such as an incentive program, it will realize a ripple effect of benefits, engagement, satisfaction, and behavioral changes that will last over time.

The IPC is the corporate outreach arm of the Incentive Federation, an organization comprising associations, publications, trade shows, incentive providers, and others involved with all aspects of incentives, rewards, recognition, and promotional products. The IPC manages incentivecentral.org, a not-for-profit information portal providing comprehensive, objective information to help organizations improve the motivation, engagement, and performance of customers, channel partners, salespeople, and employees.