Blogs
15/3/2023
Performance Improvement

Top 10 Tips for Delivering a Successful Sales Incentive

Top 10 Tips for Delivering a Successful Sales Incentive

Incentives come in all shapes and sizes and at Neon, we are experts in tailoring the right solutions to your brief. Whether your business wants to incentivise your team to complete their e-learning modules, to drive sales or promote excellent customer service, we have proven results from our programmes. Incentives not only drive revenue for your business but also ensure employees feel valued, rewarded and recognised. 

We are experts in sales and channel incentives that drive long term sustainable results. This year we are busy engaging with a network of over 3,000 with an incentive app. Tactical monthly campaigns see an average sales uplift of 45% for the client, and channel partners saw uplifts of over 50% month on month. We have over 95% of the audience engaged in our communications, so every message is targeted from the business to the right individual. They are all enrolled onto the learning modules and sales campaigns. The outcome? Employees that are motivated, driven and educated to achieve their KPIs.

So how do we achieve these great results? We have compiled a list of our top 10 tips below!

1. Be Inclusive

It’s important to create a sales incentive that is inclusive and achievable. There’s a fine line between pushing your employees to perform to their highest potential and making a goal, which is unachievable - one will incentivise, the other will do the polar opposite. We always take this into account when setting KPIs for an incentive for our clients to ensure the best outcome.

2. Be Individual

What may appeal to one person may not the next. Creating an incentive that is equally unique, desirable and appealing to the majority is a tough task. That’s why we curate incentives that are varied, so that we can ensure to appeal to all of your network.

3. Goal Setting

Goal setting is integral to a successful incentive campaign and it’s important to remember that different people are motivated by different factors. Whether it’s recognition, rewards or anything in between, we always make sure we encompass these goals and motivations in our solutions.  

4. Unique Rewards

Over the past year we’ve learnt that there are still plenty of options to incentivise your employee’s performance remotely. From supermarket vouchers, Netflix subscriptions and hampers to technology, fitness bundles and virtual experiences, we create fun activities that form connections and give teammates a sense of well-being that as a result, makes them feel more fulfilled at work.

5. Knowledge is Key

E-learning tools (modules, quick learning, sales tips and more) will provide you with valuable quantitative results of the skill sets of individuals within your network. Including e-learning in your incentive, will ensure that any sales person is informed and educated on a product before going ‘over the top’ in any sales campaign. Employees who are enriched in their role will provide an improved customer experience, which leads to higher levels of customer retention. At Neon we use a continuous learning approach that allows for improved targeting of content to end users, mitigating any areas of weakness. Training can be broad or bespoke (to the individual). We see a sales increase of at least 3x more products sold, when our users are engaged with learning.

6. Communicate in the Right Way

An incentive programme isn’t complete without a comprehensive communications plan to support it. With every incentive programme we run, we curate clear, exciting and engaging copy to send to the network to keep them up to date with incentives, winning opportunities and any brand and product news. It’s also important to communicate in an effective way. This is why we communicate using many different mediums (emails, push notes, alerts etc) and compile data on open rates, best times to send communications etc. to ensure they’re as effective and impactful as possible.  

7. Your Audience has to be Engaged

Through great communication comes engagement. For an incentive programme to thrive, engagement from your network is key, which is why we use data insights to pinpoint where engagement is high and where it might need improvement. By using this data, we can then focus our efforts on finding out why engagement isn’t so strong in those areas and then target our communications to combat this.

8. Everyone Loves a Celebration!

… But remember, some people may hate having their name in the spotlight, whilst others like to see they are at the top of the leaderboard - celebrate your employees and partners in the right way. We spend time finding out how your employees like to be recognised, so your messages are delivered the right way. This ensures long term buy-in from your people with your incentives. Furthermore, individuals have greater satisfaction when they feel they are understood and listened to.

9. Be Tactical

A good sales campaign should instantly boost the sales of your products whilst motivating your employees. Sales campaigns can help you push particular products or to increase sales over a certain period of time. By running a campaign for a limited time only, your staff, clients and prospects are motivated to move quickly on sales.

10. Be on Brand

Your incentive solution has to encompass your brand values, news and sales focus. Brand awareness within your selling teams is critical when launching new products and services. It drives consumers' decisions when differentiating between competing companies. It encourages repeat purchases and leads to an increase in market share and incremental sales.

One final (really important) note… be conscious of the current climate!

In any challenging period it is essential to incentivise and engage your audience whilst boosting wellbeing at home. Working from home has become the new normal for many businesses over the last year, so we must adapt to this digital transformation.

Maintaining a workplace culture whilst making this change has been a challenge, shifting to effective remote working environments and staying motivated and engaged whilst doing so. This does not mean that incentives and team bonding should stop, in fact it has shown these to be more important than ever. We want ‘remote working’ to be remote in name only. It is so important to stay connected with your employees and to recognise them in a personal way… it is not ALL about digital.

This could be anything from organising a virtual coffee break, calling your employees for a chat or going for a walk with a colleague if the rules (and weather!) permits. Some people are having a hard time currently, so why not take 15 minutes of your day to reach out and connect with them, whilst also getting some important exercise away from your desk at the same time.

Considering a human centric approach to your incentive will ensure you create long lasting sustainable results. At Neon, we will ensure we deliver the right incentive for your audience. Talk to us today to find out how!