Your Travel Incentive: How to Get the Best Results
This question, just like any other marketing-related question, is an important one to answer. Because no matter what it is your business sells or provides – be it a car dealership or a credit union – promoting any incentive or reward can be integral to both short- and long-term success.
Now, while we could cover an endless torrent of the dos and don’ts of travel incentives, getting the most of out of them often comes down to one key area: is your incentive being marketed everywhere? If that sounds like a broad, blanket statement, it is. And that’s because any good marketing effort is achieved through global exposure. I don’t mean literal global exposure, but rather exposing your offer to your key audience through as many marketing and ad channels as possible.
So whether it’s your ads; your showroom, office, retail locale; or each individual employee; everything and everyone needs to be in on the promotional side of things.
It doesn’t have to be on every channel – just every channel you use
You’ve got a great travel reward you want to advertise. For every car bought in your dealership or 4K TV sold in your store, customers will be given a travel certificate that allows them to go on a quick getaway to Las Vegas at a time of their choosing. It’s an alluring proposition, but you want to get it in front of as many eyes as possible.
Now, we understand that not every business is going to be able to afford TV ads or a promo of the offer up on a billboard, but this is not what dictates success. What dictates success is that this promo is front and center of every channel you do utilize. Only have a budget for social advertising? No problem, just make sure that you use these ads to tell people about the promotion.
If you want to go the radio or TV route, the same rules apply. You don’t have to be investing in myriad channels – you just have to ensure the ones you use are used correctly. But even if you’ve got all your ads sorted and pushing the same message, you then have to account for your place of business.
Embrace all promotional materials
When a business engages Odenza for a travel incentive package, we also provide them with a plethora of promotional materials to make use of: posters, balloons, tent cards, price tags, and much more. We provide these because we know how critical it is for your promotion to have a universal consistency.
If someone had seen one of your ads and then rushed into your store, only to find it lacks any mention of the promotion, they may understandably be a little confused. And while some may come up and ask about the promotion anyway, others may jump to conclusions – “Oh, I guess the promotion is over” – and leave. Those people are important to your success, and you could’ve just lost them due to a simple but critical oversight.
There’s no problem with making a big deal about a promotion, especially if it has to do with offering customers a vacation. When you have marketing material explicitly stating how customers can get a trip with a certain purchase, you’ll undoubtedly get people’s attention.
Get All Staff Involved
The final key piece of this puzzle is your staff. With the right ads and marketing, as well as promotional materials within your store, you have built a campaign that has hopefully garnered some solid attention. However, all of that attention and interest from prospective customers can be negatively affected if your staff members are not properly informed of the promotion and what it offers.
If you’re offering an incentive, travel or otherwise, then you should spend some time educating staff on what this incentive is and how long it is available for. Is the promotion based on a number of weeks/months or a number of specific sales (e.g. available to the first 100 applicable customers)? What exactly does this incentive get the customer? It could be a 2-day trip to Vegas, a 7-day cruise, VIP tickets to a sporting event, or an offer of the customer’s choosing – and so on.
You’d also need to train them on the terms and conditions, on what statements they can or cannot make (will your business be handling any associated fees for the trip or will the customer need to cover those?), and the guidance they should give customers that do qualify for one of these incentives – what to do next, who to call, how long the travel voucher or VIP ticket is valid for, etc.
It’s important that everyone in your company has a clear willingness to make the incentives work. The simple fact is they won’t have the same positive effect if they’re only treated as a half-measure. So get everyone involved and behind the effort. Staff who are motivated by the unique challenges and goals of making a promotion work can bring about fantastic results.
We’ve had many clients, past and present, who have gone that extra mile on their own – such as ensuring reception follow a unique promo-based script when answering calls – and they’ve experienced great success. This success is dependent on you and your staff, not on the customers having to go out of their way to learn more about it.
Achieve More with Travel Incentives
There is no doubt that travel incentives are an effective way of increasing sales and bringing in more customers. Odenza’s been in the incentive business for 20 years, and our clients have experienced an average sales increase of 21.8%, far exceeding the industry standard of 15%. It’s important to remember that a travel incentive cannot stand on its own; neither can any other type of incentive of sales promotion.
Your target market needs to know about what you’re offering them. They have to see or hear it in ads, be able to learn about it on your website or social accounts, see confirmations of its existence in-store, and have the ability to discuss it further with your staff. Each step is essential, as the more consistent its presence is, the deeper it becomes integrated into a customer’s thoughts.
Promotions are designed to excite and incentivize people. So make sure you offer the best promotion possible with a solid incentive and a consistent presence across the digital and physical landscapes. To learn more about travel incentives and how they can help your business, simply fill out the form below.
