January, 2016
BThruB Leadership Summit 2015So, We Heard You Like Peer-Led B2B Conferences | |
We’re still basking in the afterglow of another successful BThruB Summit in October. Our decision this year to focus on peer-led discussions and presentations proved to be one that delighted everyone in attendance. Over half of BThruB’s discussions and presentations were led by our clients and we greatly enjoyed hearing about their real-world experiences with incentive program implementation, communication and promotions. These insights helped demonstrate that incentives have tried-and-true ROI, driving customer loyalty and increasing B2B sales. They also helped us determine how we can develop even more effective incentive solutions in the future.
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“Any time we can interact with our best customers and foster dialogue about best practices is very valuable,” says Incentive Solutions President, Mark Herbert. “Our clients presented what they are doing with their incentive programs, how they are positively impacting their organizations, and the discussion tables afterward led to great conversations.” Notable guest speakers at the 2015 BThruB Summit included Todd Hanson, President and founder of The ROI of Engagement and Rodger Stotz, Chief Research Officer of the Incentive Research Foundation. Hanson shared insights on increasing incentive program return on investment (ROI) while Stotz delivered a presentation on leveraging research to drive results. | |
| ‘Tis the Season for Giving | |
| The holidays are our favorite time of year here at Incentive Solutions and Loyaltyworks. For us, it’s a time to focus on raising money for various charities. Over the years, we’ve developed great relationships with outstanding organizations and drives whose admirable missions we are proud to support. | |
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| Salvation Army Donations Each year, here at Incentive Solutions and Loyaltyworks, we like to personally thank our clients for their business and continued loyalty—after all, we’re in the business of recognition. We strongly believe in sharing whenever we can with those who are less privileged. As is our tradition, we have donated to the Salvation Army on behalf of our clients and partners in lieu of holiday gifts or cards. Our clients can expect a letter from the Salvation Army thanking them for their contribution. We wish you and your loved ones success, health, happiness this holiday season and we offer our gratitude for your ongoing trust in us. Distinguished Clown Corps Our President and Chief Opperating Officer, Mark Herbert, once again put on his red nose and colorful wig to step into his alter ego as a superhero of Children’s Hospital of Atlanta (CHOA)’s Distinguished Clown Corps. Mark and the rest of the Clown Corps greeted children at CHOA on December 5th before joining in on the Children’s Parade festivities, handing out smiles and treats along the way. | |
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| “This is my fifth year as a Distinguished Clown,” Herbert says. “It’s a really fun opportunity to dress up, join the parade and make kids smile.”The CHOA Distinguished Clown Corps raises money to help fund services that improve and expand CHOA’s child health care services. This year, CHOA’ Clown Corps surpassed their goal of $100,000 for a total of $120,345! Thank you, Distinguished Clowns of Atlanta, for participating in this great cause, and thank you to everyone who donated! | |
| Agape Atlanta’s Great Thanksgiving Basket Giveaway We’ve greatly enjoyed being able to participate in Agape’s Great Back-Pack Giveaway for the past two summers, so we thought, “Why not make theThanksgiving Basket Giveaway part of our regular holiday charity activities?” Once again, working with clients and Agape proved to be a great strategy for us, yielding over 100 Thanksgiving baskets donated to Atlanta’s underprivileged families. We would like to extend a special thanks to CertainTeed, Legend Brands and Chace Building Supply for being generous enough to donate points from their Passport Points account to help us purchase Thanksgiving baskets. Bert Show’s Big Thank-You For Thanksgiving this year, we again participated in the annual Bert Show’s Big Thank You letter-writing campaign. Altogether, we sent off 100 letters from Loyaltyworks and Incentive Solutions employees to our U.S. soldiers who were spending the holidays protecting our country overseas. We hope our letters—from the sincere and the artistic to the zany and humorous—demonstrated our appreciation of our soldiers’ service and made their holidays a little brighter. Thank you to the Bert Show for once again coordinating and allowing us to participate in this wonderful opportunity. | |
| There’s Still Time to Be “Business Matters” Radio Star | |
| One of our most enjoyable new ventures this year was CEO Steve Damerow’s talk radio show, “Business Matters. ” Produced through Business RadioX,“Business Matters” is an informative and exciting platform for the exchange of business and marketing ideas. Steve spoke with Mitsubishi Electric, SolarGard, Honda Marine, Social123 and Big Social Marketing about the challenges of marketing and selling in B2B industries. Hearing from our clients and affiliates has been even more fun and enlightening than we anticipated. There are five slots left in Steve’s episode schedule. | |
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| New Features and Technology—We Just Keep Getting Better | |
• Learn and Earn for Mobile: Put the Power to Learn and Earn in Your Participants’ Hands! Our Learn and Earn module is now available on our mobile app, with a brand new Daily Trivia feature! We developed the Learn and Earn module to act as an online training and education tool, so our clients can encourage participants to provide survey data and increase product and service knowledge by passing quizzes. | |
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By adapting the Learn and Earn module to a mobile app, it is easier, more convenient and more engaging for participants to stay up to date and informed. Whether your employees, sales reps and channel partners are out in the field, taking a lunch break or waiting in line at the bank, they can whip out their smartphones anytime and earn points for filling out surveys, passing quizzes or answering Daily Trivia questions! • Houston, We Have Texting We’re happy to unveil a new feature we’ve worked hard to bring you: TEXTING! By adding texting to incentive program communications, clients can create text messages to welcome participants to their reward programs, acknowledge tenure and birthdays, notify them of promotions and update them on point balances. Program participants can choose their preference for either text or email communication so that you can contact them in the way that’s most effective and engaging to them. Contact us today to learn more about activating texting in your program!! | |
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• Happy Holidays to You: Here’s Your New & Improved Communication Plan for 2016 Consider it our holiday gift: in 2016, we will be rolling out a new and improved communications plan! Thanks to hard work and great ideas from our Communications Project Manager, Katie Harton, our 2016 communication plan will create a unique experience for your participants. | |
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We will be sending out more emails and more print pieces starting next year with targeted calls-to-action. These will include reward wishlist mailers, account activation email reminders, a “thank you” to your most highly engaged program participants and more! Our goal is to engage your participants with more exciting and personalized messages. According to Katie Harton, “The cumulative impact of these touchpoints will inspire engagement and commitment to your brand.” Thanks to all the staff, clients and affiliates who helped make 2015 an exceptional year for Incentive Solutions and Loyaltyworks. All the hard work, networking, brainstorming and risk-taking resulted in positive changes for our companies. Here’s to growing in even greater leaps and bounds in 2016! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact your Account Manager. They will be happy to provide you with more information. Remember that you can always earn extra points by referring new business! | |
| The Incentive Solutions Group of Companies: | |
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Star Employee of the Quarter Sydney Coleman
Our Star Performer for Quarter 3 of 2015 was none other than Sydney Coleman, Senior Account Manager!
Sydney brings more than 19 years of incentive-industry experience to our clients and their reward programs. Of our top 25 accounts, Sydney manages 10 of those programs with great care and attentiveness to clients’ needs. According to Mandy Freeman, “Sydney is a Star Performer because of her proactive approach to account management; her proven track record in making their programs successful; her ability to oversee multiple, complex projects at one time; and the fact that her clients both adore her and respect her input. There was no better person for this quarter’s Star Performer award. Congratulations, Sydney, and thank you for your dedication to consistently top-notch account management!
Movin’ On Up! Promotions: | |||
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| Deven Crane We are thrilled to announce the well-earned promotion of Deven Crane into the role of Director of Travel Services! Deven has been one of the organization’s most devoted employees, having been with us since 1999. In his 16 years with us, he has operated countless travel programs, has acted as the primary contact for some of our top clients, and has proven his ability to bring in new business. “Being a planner through all of this has taught me a lot about the industry and I am now very excited to move into a management position where I can share the wealth of my knowledge with my team and match my client’s needs with an Incentive Solution,” Deven says. Join us in congratulating Deven on his new role! | |||
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| Hem-Raj Singh Congratulations to Hem-Raj Singh on his big promotion to Business Development Specialist! “Having never been in sales, I look forward to this new role challenging and strengthening me professionally and personally,” Hem-Raj says. Luke Kreiter, Vice President of Sales, says he decided to bring Hem-Raj onto the team because, “In his previous Account Management roles, Hem quickly proved he had the ability to empathize and connect with people—perhaps it was his charming and proper British accent! This made him a natural choice to earn the promotion, which is all about building relationships.” Cheers, Hem-Raj, and best of luck to you in your new role! | |||
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| Selena Singleton | |||
We are excited to announce the promotion of Selena Singleton to the position of Account Coordinator as of January 1, 2016. Selena just recently joined our team in September as a Participant Services Coordinator and has impressed us greatly in a short amount of time. “She has demonstrated great ambition and a dedication to providing excellent customer service to our program participants,” says Director of Account Management, Mandy Freeman. “I am extremely confident that she will bring that same tenacity to the Account Coordinator position.” In her new role, Selena will be responsible for the day-to-day tasks that we manage for our clients’ programs, as well as providing program support to our Account Managers, assisting with client-facing inquiries helping to execute our 2016 communications calendar! | |||
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