Defining and Simplifying Promotional Incentives
As consumers, we all enjoy exciting discounts and offers, and there’s something extremely satisfying about redeeming them for exclusive benefits from our favourite brands. But these promotions aren’t just about selling more products or services. These are promotional incentives that go beyond offering price reductions to consumers. They are not just a marketing strategy used by companies to attract new or retain existing consumers but also a powerful tool to energise, reward and influence buying behaviours among customers. To simply define promotional incentives, they can be any rewards, similar to our Digital Select Card or benefits given to customers to encourage them to make a purchase. Incentivising your customers with branded merchandise, promotional codes or digital gift cards can help encourage buying and spending while also increasing brand loyalty, but how does it really work?
What are Promotional Incentives?
Promotional incentives are certain benefits or “enticements” offered to customers to achieve certain marketing or strategic business goals. Usually given to consumers to increase sales, generate leads, facilitate repeat purchasing, create brand awareness or increase customer loyalty. A promotional incentive could offer monetary benefits through gift cards, coupons, special discounts and cashback, but they could also be non-monetary benefits like reward points, loyalty programs, early and exclusive access to products or services, free samples and goodies etc.
Some widely used promotional incentives include:
- Discounts and Coupons - Percentage off (e.g., 20% off) Fixed amount off (e.g., $10 off) Buy one, get one free
- Freebies and Samples - free samples, free gifts, free items to try.
- Loyalty and Point System Reward Programs - exclusive access and offers, loyalty points, rewards.
- Gift Cards - digital gift cards with a specific redeemable amount.
- Special Merchandise - promotional or branded merchandise like tote bags, stationery, mugs etc.
- Referral Codes- refer to a friend code, affiliated brand codes.
- Contests or Giveaways- competitions and prizes for customers, subscribers etc.
Their purpose and use?
The sole purpose of offering promotional incentives is to create value for customers while achieving specific goals and objectives for businesses. Some common objectives include driving company sales and revenue, improving brand awareness, personalising customer experience, increasing consumer buying cycles and increasing brand loyalty. The idea here is to a create positive brand association among consumers and reinforce trust by enhancing engagement and brand resonance. It also helps brands gain competitive advantage in the market for better customer relations. One of the most compelling purposes of promotional incentives is their ability to influence consumer behaviour.
Benefits of Promotional Incentives
Apart from the more common uses for promotional incentives discussed earlier (higher sales, brand awareness etc.), there are some unique uses too!
- Customer Retention- while we know that attracting new consumers can increase sales and generate new leads for the business, we also know that it is far more expensive than retaining our existing customers. Fostering customer loyalty through consistent interaction and engagement can be achieved by offering loyalty programs and personalised offers. This strengthens the bond between customers and the brand and therefore, encourages repeat purchases among existing customers.
- Creating a Buzz- getting people to talk about your product or service boosts brand visibility. It can be done online through social media platforms where consumers get a chance to engage and interact with the brand and other consumers about these incentives or, offline through Out of Home (OOH) advertising and promotional tactics like pop ups and ticked events that generate interest and allow potential customers to experience products or services firsthand.
- Influencing Behaviour- promotional incentives play a huge part in influencing consumer behaviour. Businesses can leverage this strategy to convince customers to switch to their product or service, try new brands and make impulsive purchases. Limited time offers can help create a sense of urgency among consumers while “Buy One Get One” offers can help change the perceived value of a product. Such incentives can influence consumer behaviour in a major way and increase loyalty.
Case study
One brand that nailed their promotional incentive strategy was McDonald’s and their collaboration with Monopoly. McDonald’s gamified their promotional strategy by partnering with the Monopoly game and encouraged people to participate globally.
- The Objective: to drive engagement, create a buzz and increase purchase frequency.
- How they did it — with every purchase made from the select menu items (like fries, drinks, or burgers), customers received Monopoly stickers with property names.
These property stickers had rewards that customers could win. Customers could also collect and group their stickers into sets for unique prizes. For example, small prizes included a free coke or free large fries while, large prizes included winning a car, a paid vacation or cash. Some stickers included instant prizes, which could be entered online or via the McDonald’s app to win digital prizes, encouraging app downloads and data capture that helped create immediate gratification.
The results
McDonald’s was able to create a multi-channel engagement promotion strategy via social media, advertising and product placements targeting monopoly players across the world. It helped promote “repeat visits” to McDonalds so that customers could try to complete their sticker sets or win more prizes. McDonald’s didn’t just see a hike in their sales but were also able to influence customers to indulge in their promotional incentive strategy and make it a cultural phenomenon. Buzzing social media platforms with stories of people winning (or trying to win) big, they influenced their customers to participate and created a sense of urgency, making them conscious about the fear of missing out.
Our Digital Select Card at Ovation Incentives is a flexible, digital rewards solution offers customisable branding and personalised messaging to support every promotional campaign. From campaign setup to reward delivery, Digital Select Card helps businesses manage end-to-end process. Present in 120 countries with 80+ currencies - Digital Select Card is perfect for global promotions domination!
Are you ready for your next promotion – contact us to find out more.