If you've been in the market for your own advertising company, you will know that a large percentage of your business relies on some form of incentive marketing platform. Now a lot of people think of this kind of marketing as an incredibly inefficient use of funds.
They ask, "Why is it that an expensive form of marketing such as cost per click advertising is only used so rarely by the actual advertising companies?" The answer to this question is quite simple – incentives motivate the company to continue to advertise the product or service.
Incentives and the market place are always at war with each other. While incentives may be used by marketers, they are not usually used as heavily as they should be.
Incentives are not only limited to the advertising market. One of the biggest examples of incentivized marketing is in the world of medicine. With advancements in medicine there has been a huge push to move beyond just administering a medication and has led to the development of incentive programs that do just that.
There are two main parts to incentive marketing. These two parts are advertising and incentives. This doesn't mean you will have to advertise a certain service or product, it means you will have to create a campaign around the product or service and add incentives to it.
Incentive programs can be used to market almost anything. The incentives themselves don't have to be great, but they can be creative. Sometimes they can be something as simple as giving out an incentive for every new person you meet.
You can use an incentive program as a marketing tool in itself. A great example is a free e-book or a combination of digital and printed materials like a book and a DVD for a particular product or service.
The promotional materials can either be electronic or physical. Electronic promotional materials tend to work better than printed materials.
Another important factor is the kind of product or service you are promoting. If you're promoting a service that already has a market, then incentive marketing will be of no benefit.
The promotional material itself doesn't have to be well thought out or planned. Incentive marketing is a means of pushing the product to customers without any strings attached.
A good example is a promotional printed calendar that has an individual incentive program attached to it. The calendar isn't a product but rather a promotional item that work as a way to encourage customers to use your product and get them excited about it.
Incentives work well for many businesses but it depends on the type of products or services you're promoting. So to get the most out of your incentive marketing platform, make sure you are not only targeting your own company, but also those that you do business with, the competition, and the customer base you are trying to reach.