With Q4 upon us and those end-of-year revenue targets looming large, the need for sales incentive rewards is stronger than ever. When offered to both prospective buyers and your sales teams, they can help create a sense of urgency and offer extra motivation.
As you plan how you’ll use incentives, though, there are many factors that can change their effectiveness, for better or worse. For instance, both the value of the reward and the type of the reward must be compelling enough to encourage action, regardless of the recipient. You may even have to test a few different factors to find the most effective combination.
But one piece of the puzzle you may not have considered: Where are your sales incentive rewards coming from? Here are three ways that the email from which digital rewards are delivered can have a big impact.
First, from a technical standpoint, sending rewards from your own authorized domain instead of a third party can improve deliverability. Some digital rewards providers “spoof” the address for email senders, which is a tactic often used in phishing attacks and for other malicious messages. That’s why many trusted providers will catch spoofed emails in their spam filters. And that leads to many unhappy customers or employees contacting you because they’re expecting a reward that didn’t come to their inbox.
Sending sales incentive rewards from your own trusted domain helps ensure that they arrive safely in the recipients’ inboxes.
In addition to the email address that the reward arrives from, the sender name can make a big difference in how it’s perceived. Think about customizing the name based on the incentive’s purpose and the recipient. For example:
Using your trusted domain for the email address and customizing the sender name also help make your sales incentive rewards more recognizable to the recipients. Recognizability is key to ensure that rewards don’t get accidentally deleted or lost in inboxes. You can also tailor the subject line, messaging, and branding of the email itself so recipients know who it came from and associate it with their expected reward. Add your colors and logo (and don’t forget to use that free marketing space for another CTA!).
Just because you understand the need to customize the sender of your reward emails doesn’t mean you have to add a lot of extra administrative work to your incentives program. Especially when it comes to high-level executives, you obviously can’t expect them to actually send rewards. But with an incentives management platform like BHN Rewards, you can change the email sender and address — which is never spoofed — for each campaign, so your rewards are delivered from the most appropriate person. It’s just one step in making sure you maximize the effectiveness of your incentives and drive more success for your team.
Sales incentives aren’t just for sales teams. Don’t forget to include these non-sales teams in your Q4 reward programs!
Hannah is a reformed journalist who has more than 15 years of experience and now focuses on content marketing for innovative tech companies.
Hannah is a reformed journalist who has more than 15 years of experience and now focuses on content marketing for innovative tech companies.
