Incentive travel rewards can be an important tool in influencing channel sales, especially in competitive fields like insurance sales. Many people don’t think about distribution channels when they think about insurance sales. But in a lot of ways, it’s just like industrial distribution. Insurance companies ‘manufacture’ the policy. Brokerage agencies play the role of ‘distributors.’ And you can think of the independent and corporate insurance agents as ‘dealers’ or ‘contractors.’
Bet you weren’t expecting that comparison when you woke up this morning.
Mark Herbert’s latest article in ThinkAdvisor explores the benefits of incentive travel rewards and pulls back the curtains on Incentive Solutions’ considered, tactical approach to incentive programs.
A Smart Approach to Incentive Travel Rewards
“5 Smart Ways Life Insurance Distribution Organizations Can Still Use Incentive Travel” has all of the hallmarks of Incentive Solutions’ expertise. One of our key differentiators is our ability to break things down so that our clients can figure out what channel partners they need to influence and what rewards are the most powerful motivators.
While point-based rewards are useful for motivating a wide array of channel partners with different levels of investment, incentive travel is typically reserved for top tier performers. For internal sales teams, that would be your top 20%. For B2B sales, this would be the channel partners or accounts you couldn’t live without. Incentive travel rewards, especially with the right event planning, can be used to personalize those relationships, to retain top sales talent, or to solidify customer loyalty.
5 Steps to Maximize ROI for Incentive Travel Rewards
Here’s a quick breakdown of the article:
- Be smart when structuring your incentive travel program: Mark Herbert’s article explores some of the specific issues insurance distribution companies run into in regards to ethics and compliance and how they can select KPIs (key performance indicators) to make sure they’re doing the right thing for their agents and their clients. While most industries don’t have those concerns, they do have specific challenges. You always have to ask yourself, What do I want my incentive program to accomplish? Do you want to build B2B customer loyalty? Do you want your incentive program to make your account-based marketing way more personalized and effective? Our ROI-certified account managers can help you identify the KPIs you need to look at to make that happen.
- Use tiered rewards to boost performance and recognize top performers: I mentioned earlier that incentive travel rewards are a tool to retain top performers, and merchandise rewards are a tool to boost the performance of your middling majority. For high investment business relationships, such as those insurance distribution companies have with their top agents, you can even tier travel rewards with a great trip for your middling majority and a really exclusive destination for the best of the best. Tiered rewards create attainable goals for a larger section of your target audience while making your most important business connections feel valued.
- Incentive travel rewards offer an opportunity to solidify key business relationships: Incentive travel turns business relationships into personal ones. For important B2B channel partners and your most loyal customers, incentive travel is an opportunity to educate them on your brand and the values of your organization. Plus, it will make them think twice about working with a competitor!
- Looking to hire next-generation talent? It’s no secret. Digitalization is disrupting traditional distribution channels. Online mega-retailers are changing the game. How is your business going to adapt and thrive in this new marketplace? Many of those solutions will be provided by next-generation talent. New problems require new ideas. Companies that cling to the old way of doing things are going to be left behind (We all saw what happened to Circuit City). Building materials manufacturers and industrial distributors are in a similar position today. Millennial talent will provide many of the digital solutions businesses will need to modernize channel sales, as well as their account-based marketing strategies. It’s no secret that millennials love Companies that offer travel incentive rewards will have their pick of the litter.
- Boost organizational culture and workplace chemistry: This is more in line with companies that rely on internal sales teams. Getting away from the office and having a little bit of fun is a great way to give a long term boost to productivity. Incentive travel rewards might just be what your salesforce needs to make the next big push to help your business.
One of the biggest things Incentive Solutions has to offer our clients is our people. Interested in a behind-the-curtains look at President and CEO, Mark Herbert? Find out more about the people who make Incentive Solution happen.
We have a couple very exciting announcements in the pipelines. Don’t miss out!
Til next time,
Nichole Gunn
