Discounts are all around us, as consumers we are constantly being conditioned to not to purchase unless we are getting a great deal.

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When you need to drive sales, it can be tempting to jump on the discounting band wagon.

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Sometimes this is the right thing to do, especially when you are in a sales slump. But straight discounting can have an impact on your business beyond the initial sale - on your brand, on the perceived confidence in your product, and creating a bad precedent for what customers are prepared to pay for your products in the future. This can be particularly dangerous in industries where there is high competition and little differentiation between options – where discounting becomes a race to the bottom price wise.

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This is where incentives sourced through partners can come in. Done well you can benefit from the following:

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Manage Your Cost Per Acquisition Or Response:

Maintain your margin in your core products, while choosing incentives that are appropriate for the value of the consumer you are acquiring or retaining.

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Drive Response:

Make the action you desire rewarding, maybe it’s a sale, but depending on your industry it could be a quote or data capture that is your “ask”. Simple works best, your consumers will give up if you make them jump through hoops. Make sure you signpost the incentive through the journey and ensure that once the desired action is completed that you follow up quickly.

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Be Relevant:

Want to support local? Demonstrate your environmental consciousness? Doing a campaign to target students heading to uni for the first time? When you reflect the needs and desires of your target audience through your incentives this can really help you to increase consideration, differentiate your offering and drive sales!

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Remove A Barrier To Change:

Incentives can support behaviour change by removing some of the inertia in your audience and removing the financial obstacle to change.

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Enhance Your Campaign Idea:

Tie the right incentive to your campaign creative to drive additional engagement and sales. This is even better when your creative is built on a robust consumer insight!

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Modify Perceptions:

Aligning your brand with an incentive that is highly desirable to your target audience, this can shift their perception of you and increasing consideration.

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Allow You To Offer A Choice:

Your audience may respond to different types of incentives, after all none of your other marketing initiatives assume that your audience is homogeneous.

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Learn More About Your Audience:

Knowing what else your customers love could help drive better results, develop new products or help inform your future strategy?

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Find out more on our blog 8 Tips: How Rewards and Incentives Can Help Drive Your Sales

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