Are You Using the Right Type of Incentive Rewards?

With Incentive Solutions incentive technology, you can pair any type of reward—including online rewards catalogs, debit and gift card rewards, and incentive travel rewards—with powerful technology. Business leaders now have the ability to turn any reward offering into a multi-faceted marketing and communications tool, custom-fit it with features that suit your needs. That makes it easier than ever to get the most out of any reward or incentive plan. With all these reward options at your disposal, how do you know which one you should be using?

Let’s look at your options:

Debit and Gift Card Rewards

Think about the last time you received a debit or gift card as a present. You probably found it incredibly useful and spent it quickly. This is the very reason that debit and gift card rewards work well for short-term SPIFs, or sales performance incentive funds. Card rewards need no introduction—salespeople immediately understand how to use them, so sales motivation kicks in fast.

Who else stands to greatly benefit from using card rewards? Those who have an international reward program participant base. With a Virtual VISA^® Debit card, you can mail a physical card or email participants their debit cards in the form of an e-code. They can then spend their debit funds anywhere VISA accepted, which is worldwide. No international shipping risks and wait times—just immediately gratifying rewards.

Travel Incentives

Travel incentives are the Big Kahuna of incentives. Keep them in your back pocket for a time when you really want your participants to reach motivation overdrive. Nothing will make a bigger change in sales motivation than the chance to visit a beautiful or exotic place. A recent survey by Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE) found that 95% respondents considered their travel reward programs either effective or very effective.

Not only do travel incentives offer a break from the fast-paced, non-stop demands of sales, but the “halo effect” of travel rewards extends long before and after the trip itself. Attendees will be pumped for incentive trips months in advance, and they’ll be sharing pictures and stories long after they return home. No other reward will have such a massively positive impact on your business.

Online Rewards Catalogs

Online rewards catalogs are effective for long-term goals, such as employee engagement and customer loyalty. With an online reward program, you reward participants with online reward points, or “cyber currency” they can spend in a rewards catalog with millions of items. These reward points are accumulative, meaning that participants save them up over a period of time to redeem them for merchandise rewards, travel rewards, or event ticket rewards. That’s what makes online rewards catalogs the best investment for sustaining long-term employee motivation or customer retention.

Large or diverse participant bases are ideal targets for online rewards catalogs because they’re the easiest way to offer a wide variety of desirable rewards. An Incentive Research Foundation survey found that 99% of reward program participants have unique reward preferences. That means that it’s virtually impossible to select a reward that will have the same motivating impact on all recipients—so don’t! Offer participants a large reward selection so everyone can choose their own reward, i.e. the one that motivates them most.