Incentive - April 2008 - (Page 53) THE INCENTIVE MERCHANDISE BUYER’S HANDBOOK CHAPTER 3 Choosing the Merchandise Awards to the winner than the actual cost to the client. Merchandise also offers the luxury of using varied price points, which helps fill in a larger program’s multiple-tier structure, while bringing the potential for more cost savings through across-the-board bulk purchases. • A creative connection—Type A employees appreciate both a cool award and the even cooler thought process behind it. Enter merchandise, an invaluable tool for clever incentives. Sending 200 winners to Tortola? Send 200 pairs of Maui Jim sunglasses along with them for their opening night, beachfront wingding. Planning a ski week in Park City? Snow goggles and arctic ski gloves make smart, stylish welcome gifts, as no doubt some attendees will have forgotten their own designer shades and mittens back home. With merchandise, recipients get a hands-on reward of immediate worth and permanence, and a constant reminder of their achievements. • Token of remembrance—Everyone wants something to take back home as a memento of an award experience. Merchandise provides a tangible, personal link to fond memories of an incentive trip, especially when it’s something local, like an oil painting from Provence or a carnival mask from Brazil. Once back home or at work, the winner can then tell his or her friends, family, and clients, “I was in Germany when I got that stein, and it was the best experience of my life.” sories from Tumi might work nicely. But if they’re fertilizer reps, a Carhartt jacket might fit the bill much better. Also, while the temptation might be to lay out a candy store’s worth of goodies, less can prove more for the recipients. Bulova may produce scores of watches worthy of any winner’s wrist, but trying to choose from among all those dazzling timepieces could be way too time-consuming. Narrow down the choices to a select few—with the emphasis on “select.” Factors in the winnowing process should include the program’s goals (e.g., customer loyalty, reaching new markets, raising sales incrementally) and how the merchandise can help participants attain those goals, and get them pumped for the next program. Understanding the specific make-up of your audience is key (see the sidebar “Know Your Audience” below for more on this). Incentive’s 2008 Merchandise IQ Survey revealed that employee recognition was the most oft-cited PLANNING WISE Know Your Audience Determining which merchandise awards to use is an important part of your motivational strategy. Ultimately, the participants will be responsible for executing the program. If they are not excited by the choices or the awards are inappropriate and second-rate, the results will likely be disappointing. To avoid this, compile a demographic profile of your incentive audience and ask a few essential questions: • What is the relationship of the audience to your product or service? Are they selling it or buying it? Salespeople and consumers will be invested in your program in different ways. • What is your goal? Is it pretty ambitious? Have you set multiple goals at various levels allowing more people to win? The higher or more difficult the objective, the more enticing and significant the award should be. • What is their experience with incentive programs? Those who are more familiar with them will likely approach the program differently and with greater expectations regarding awards than first-timers who may be satisfied with far less. • What is your incentive participants’ age range, gender breakdown, geographic locations, job functions, leisure habits and interests? Are they mostly young singles, married with families, or a mix? It may be helpful to survey your prospective audience beforehand and find out what products are on their wish list. For someone moving into their first home, housewares or electronics will be appreciated. Weekend warriors may be more jazzed by sporting equipment, while a new father may crave the latest camcorder. CHOICE IS THE WORD If there’s a problem incorporating merchandise into an incentive program, it may well be in the decision process itself. One glance around the Internet and it’s clear that the sheer number of choices can be dizzying: electronics, housewares, jewelry, home furnishings, art, athletic equipment, to name just a few. The best place to begin is with the participants themselves. While the award may be posh and pricey, keep the process as simple as possible and know your audience. For example, the recipients may be the 20 top clients who’ve done up to $1 million business in the past year. If they’re Lexus dealers, then acces- SPECIAL SECTION April 2008 | 53
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