Category: Marketing Technology

How to Create a Successful Channel Partner Incentive Program

It is essential to understand what channel incentive programs are and why they are crucial to a successful company’s marketing strategy. An underdeveloped and poorly implemented program can underwhelm important channel partner incentive programs that are vital to you meeting company business objectives. It is surprising how brands fail to consider or successfully execute an indirect go-to-market approach that uses channel partnerships to help scale, expand into new markets, build brand recognition and enhance product value. Below are some essential ideas to help energize partners and increase sales. Start with the Basics What is a channel partner incentive program? A channel partner incentive program motivates your product partners, including resellers and distributors, to engage in certain behaviors by offering valuable rewards and incentives that help them grow their businesses. Channel partners often vary in shape and size depending on your market and don’t necessarily have to be in your industry to be successful. They can be affiliates, resellers, distributors, independent retailers, and even value-added providers. Anyone that sells your brand and doesn’t work directly for your business is a potential channel partner. The best way to ensure that your brand stands out above the competition is through well-executed channel partner […]

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Incentive Program Strategies: Fact-finding and involvement

The first step to building an incentive program strategy is to conduct internal research on business operations, current customers, employees, and competitors. Incentive programs are always more effective if you can get input from members of your participant audience. Try and get feedback on the rules, rewards, and any other aspects of the program that will increase ownership and engagement in your research. Meet with departments across the organization to identify what goal/objective needs to be accomplished, such as increased sales, improved attendance, etc. While you’re setting goals, identify which individuals or teams can achieve that department’s organizational goals and objectives; those are each department’s program participants. Work with management to build the foundation of the Incentive Program carefully. You will help them to understand whether they will need an open-ended or closed-ended program design and identify the organization’s fixed and variable costs. If they have current programs up and running, get a better understanding of them. Find out if you can improve on the operational efficiencies or increase engagement. Rewards should be consistent with your participant demographics as well as the organization’s brand. The more information you can get from your audience on the types of rewards they’ll appreciate, […]

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The Case for Incentive Technology

With acquisition and engagement costs on the rise, along with shifts in managing privacy, there has never been a better time to invest in incentive program technology. Incentive program technology is the key to future-proofing the internal and external engagement initiatives of your business.  It’s not enough to rely on a decentralized one-off view of single application type incentive programs to manage programs such as employee recognition,health and wellness,sales incentives, channel, and consumer promotions. to drive brand revenue, engagement, growth, and longevity companies look to advanced Platform technology developed on the foundation of security standards that can build and engage an internal and external participant base. A loyalty and incentive programs are the ideal relationship-building tool to overcome these monumental changes because it provides a clear value exchange for participants. Acquisition costs on the rise Customer acquisition costs (CAC) increased over 60% in the past six years and showed no signs of slowing. Because programs have moved primarily online to interact with participants – participants notice when technology, convenience, or delays affect their experiences.   Organizations can combat rising costs by focusing on retention.  Benefits from an enterprise-level reward incentive program can include higher participant engagement, better insights,  increased operational efficiencies, […]

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10 Tips For Choosing The Right Incentive & Reward Solution Vendor

Every incentive program seeks for high user experience satisfaction scores while maintaining operational efficiency. The right technology makes this much easier. Technology manages participants, activities, event processing, different use case redemptions, validations, QA, reward fulfillment, reporting, and more.  Organizations want to find ways to use technology to improve incentive payout processing, management, and fulfillment for their customer surveys, product rebate, employee recognition, health and wellness, sales incentive, and channel partner initiatives.  However, it can be tricky to find the right incentive and reward software provider. These tips will help you evaluate your choices. There are two main types of vendors on the market: pure-play loyalty platform providers and loyalty managed services providers. A pure-play vendor offers technology to control and build incentive programs. These vendors will support framework establishment, program logic, implementation, strategic guidance, and analytics.  Characteristics of a pure-play incentive provider: The organization is the owner of their program Extended participant data integrations Sophisticated loyalty incentive system engine Easy and fast user adoption Direct solution integrations, including third parties Quick to launch and bring to market Wide variety of pre-built rewards for engagement Wide variety of pre-built transactional reward options, including points accrual, codes, games, and redemption templates Strategic […]

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Choosing The Right Reward Management Technology

Whether it’s channel sales, health & wellness, loyalty, or a customer incentive program, the technology behind it has to fit the program’s needs. Shopping for the right reward management technology is an essential part of planning for any incentive program. Although there may be things you will need to customize, there are some standard features that should be included with your incentive management system. Standard Reward Management Software Features Member Profiles –  Set up an infinite number of member accounts with vital personal data. Manage the virtual currency accounts of members in real-time and audit-proof. Admin CRM – You should have access to a comprehensive member dashboard that allows you to view and manage your member profile data and see specific data such as points balance statement, status level, points expiry dates, program creation, and more. Reports and Accounting –   Regularly receive program reports to review the success of your program. System Users & Groups with Audit Tracking –  You should be able to provide module access to users/user groups and define permission levels. Having control and audit-proof user activity records will help you identify any changes made to your program. Event-triggered Communications and Notifications –  Good reward management software will let you set up […]

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Include a Prepaid Reward Card as the Incentive When Creating an Award-Winning Consumer Promotion

Consumer sales promotions are a great way to entice consumers to purchase a product – does your incentive reward provider offer Prepaid Rewards Cards?  Did you know that prepaid Rewards Cards are known to be one of the top preferred reward types for consumer incentive programs? There are lots of reasons why consumers love prepaid cards and a quality prepaid reward card provider can help take your next consumer promotion to award-winning levels! But what are the real benefits of using VISA prepaid incentive reward card in you consumer promotions? The main benefit of a Prepaid Card is that the branding of the card can mirror your company. Why is this such an important factor as a business? It’s simple! This is a fantastic brand awareness tool and also encourages your consumers to keep coming back for more! While Prepaid Cards may be a great option for your Loyalty Program, there are several important details to consider, for example: These cards are super simple to become accustomed to, but it’s important that the cards are loaded and ready to activate the second your customer opens it. People want instant gratification. This also ensures that the customer will not have to deal […]

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A Rewarding Experience – The Building Blocks of a Successful Panel Loyalty Program

Panel loyalty programs increase research firm’s panelist retention, survey frequency, and panelist acquisition programs, making them foundational in increasing your research firm’s profitability and revenue. An effective panel incentive program can build brand advocacy and increase the lifetime value of the panelists. The four basic building blocks when creating an effective panel loyalty program strategy include objectives, gaining program support, rewarding participants and measuring the program. There are a few steps you must take when creating your panel loyalty program. When preparing for a panel incentive initiative, panel managers often face roadblocks in the approval phase of their proposal. Be prepared to show upper management that you have a sound business case, including measurable and accurate metrics. Loyalty incentive programs have proven vital in cultivating and rewarding repeat panelists. You must ensure your loyalty program will be valuable to your key stakeholders. With a strong plan in place with clear financial objectives, management is more likely to understand the benefits of your program and see that it warrants their support. When in the program design phase, take the following steps: There are several types of incentives to select from, including: Pick incentives that fit your budget and will motivate your […]

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Elements to Consider When Comparing Loyalty Service Providers

In today’s current landscape of diverse consumers, numerous brands and ever-evolving marketing channels, creating customer loyalty and finding the right loyalty program provider is every organization’s dream come true. Companies with a quest to achieve these goals look to All Digital Rewards when comparing loyalty service providers to help attract customers and channel partners and to keep them coming back. As the demand for omni-channel solution providers grows, marketers recognize that loyalty success is tied to differentiating between service providers who offer loyalty tools and strategies that are almost always not available internally. Not all providers can provide a complete solution, one that includes incentive and reward offerings, product APIs, secure cloud-based management and incentive payment technology; supported by advanced analytics, and the ability to scale to an enterprise level if needed. All of which may be important in your quest to acquiring loyalty and brand advocacy in today’s marketing landscape. Make sure to be on the lookout for a provider that’s evolved past providing simple points-based programs or discounts, to building one that understands relationships centered on customer value and engagement. Check to make sure the service provider you are considering can provide a packaged platform that can be […]

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Top 2018 Corporate Wellness Trends

It’s that time – we are all gearing up for the new year already, getting through the holiday madness and planning for Q1. With all the busyness of the holiday season, health and wellness program participation tends to have a little bit of a decline, which is why staying up with the trends to entice your participants to get off to a good start next year is so important. When managing a successful corporate health and wellness program, it’s necessary to take ABE approach (Always Be Evolving) and work with a health and wellness incentive provider that understands services you are offering to assist them, and the appropriate incentives needed to modify the behavior to lift program uptake over last year. ABE is key to participation because they continuously need your active interest in their influencing motivation! Key considerations need to be reviewed every year to keep your workplace wellness program on track. Listed below is a handful of the top corporate wellness trends to incorporate into your program for 2018. This one’s a biggie. When presenting a more flexible work environment in exchange for program participation, you can bet that participants will be willing to engage. Offering teleworking or […]

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Incentive Management Technology – Why is it Important?

We thought so, and we’re glad you’re exploring what it takes to create, launch and manage a successful incentive program – Technology! Developing a well thought out incentive program strategy is just one aspect of creating a reward incentive program. Thinking beyond the types of the rewards offered in your program, you need to make sure you are shopping around for the right loyalty program provider and management tool to ensure your program’s transparency, performance, and ease is just as important as the selecting the right rewards to offer, maybe even more important. Bottom line, a fully custom tool that works for your program’s needs is definitely the best option to include at program launch, but sometimes the budget doesn’t allow for this option (or so we think) and you might not be exploring the best available options in today’s loyalty technology market space. But what if we told you that you could have a program management tool tailored to your specific program needs, at an affordable price? The following is what you can expect from All Digital Rewards, a leading reward management technology provider, and what you should be on the lookout for when shopping around for other providers. […]

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