The 12 Components of Channel Incentive Programmes

Channel Incentive Programmes Dissected

Channel Incentive Programmes can be a highly effective way to influence channel behaviours to help you meet your business goals.

On the surface, it looks easy. But, they require a lot of planning and organisations may face several challenges along the way.

Managing them requires:

• specialist skills (such as data analytics),
• experience (what works and what doesn’t) and
• knowledge (understanding the industry and incentive audience.

Below, we break down the components of a typical channel incentive programme to help you understand how to alleviate the issues.

You may be unaware of all the things you need to think about when planning your incentive. So this short guide acts as a checklist of the things you need to consider. 

Budget

The first key step is to calculate the budget for your incentive programme as that sets the parameters and scope.

To estimate the budget allocation you need to:

• Make sure your goals dictate the budget.
• Analyse your audience and what motivates them.
• Understand the purpose of the incentive – what does it need to deliver?
• Identify the type of incentive that will deliver the needed results.
• Get buy-in from channel partners and internal stakeholders.
• Review previous incentive reports and analytics. Did it achieve it’s goals, is more budget needed?  

Goals

Establish what results you are aiming to achieve. Your goals should be SMART i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound. 

You can use previous results by analysing what was achieved and where improvements can be made for future incentives.

The goals can be:

• Financially based (deals registered, deal value, closed deals etc.).
• Number of leads or prospects generated.
• Enablement-based. When sales reps complete enablement training or certifications.
• Learning based. Focused on the training and knowledge of sales reps.
• Brand-based. Getting buy-in from partners and sales reps in your products, services and solutions. Help them to promote your products by executing their own marketing campaigns or using campaigns you provide via a Portal. 
• Fun-based. Focused on those taking part and enjoying themselves so they are motivated to sign up for other future incentives.

Brainstorming

Don’t be afraid to change nothing – if it worked before it should work again. However, most of the time some inspiration is needed to take a step up on the next incentive.

In this instance, focus on the areas you need to improve on rather than necessarily the incentive as a whole.

For example, if there wasn’t much uptake on the previous incentive, why was that? Were the prizes not appealing? Did you advertise the incentive widely enough?

Once you have the focus on that problem, gather the experience from stakeholders and your incentive agency (if you use one) and generate a list of ideas that will solve it.

It isn’t always necessary to change the whole incentive – it will probably be just part of it.

Conceptualising your Channel Incentive Programmes

On top of the ideas generated from the brainstorming session, the next step is to create an identity for the incentive, even if it is the same as you have run before – this will help drive incentive registrations from your target participants and help your stakeholders visualise what the incentive programme could look like and how it will work. 

The concept broken down includes:

• The incentive brand banner or logo: this will go on all incentive communications and collateral to easily indicate what the communication is regarding
• An incentive description which makes it easy to understand what the incentive involves, what participants can earn/win, how they can take part and how long it runs for
• A process diagram – outlining visually how it will work
• A list of the core elements involved

Make a Plan

Map out a clear plan in an easy-to-understand and visual format –  we recommend using a PowerPoint deck that contains the below content:

• Overview
• Budget
• Goals
• Concept
• Collateral
• Process
• Team: Roles and Responsibilities
• Timelines
• Action Plan (who is doing what and when)
• Key Milestones
• Reporting / Data
• Prize fulfilment

Communicating the Channel Incentive Programmes

Work out how, what and when the incentive will be communicated and promoted. Ensure you communicate both internally to Account Managers and externally to Channel partners. Create a comms plan for your incentive programme.

The most important communication is the terms and conditions document. This acts as not only the incentive guide for both the participants and the stakeholders but also addresses the legal side.

Every incentive needs a terms and conditions document as it explains:

• who can take part
• the incentive timeline (including start and end)
• what the rules are
• how participants can keep track of their progress
• what participants have to do you win/earn rewards
• what the rewards and prizes are
• when the prizes will be awarded
• the incentive legal and contact information

Collateral

When the final concept is approved, internal and external promotional collateral should be produced. Collateral such as flyers, landing pages, PPT decks and banners.  These are used to explain and promote the incentive to the participants and encourage them to take part.

Programme Execution and Management

Assign a dedicated project manager to ensure the incentive runs smoothly from start to finish – this will keep everyone on track and will ensure actions are completed within the set timescales as set out in the plan.

Data Analysis

Before the incentive programme commences, ensure you obtain a clear brief on the data set. This is essential to guarantee the extraction of the right information for incentive rewards and accurate reporting. It’s advisable to test this beforehand by having a sample report run to ensure your data team can provide the necessary data. The data is key to the whole incentive.

Schedule the extraction of data within the plan and provide participants with reporting timelines for ongoing incentive results.

It is important to work out a clear process and method for analysing the data, calculating points (if applicable) and verifying the data against the incentive criteria to establish the results. Sometimes, we have to combine or cross-reference multiple data sets.

To find out more, read our earlier article: How to ensure your incentive programme doesn’t fail due to data.

Progress Notifications and Tracking 

The data analysis then makes it possible to track the progress of the incentive and provide regularly scheduled notifications to the participants and other stakeholders.

Alternatively, with an incentive platform, you can publish data updates to let participants track their progress in real time.

Prize Fulfilment

The data analysis also enables the prizes to be allocated and tracked. If you are using a fixed budget pot this allows for close monitoring of the prize fund spending throughout the incentive to make sure it stays within budget.

Ensure the budget plan factors in the management time of administering the rewards, fulfilment costs, and the actual cost of the prizes.   

Consider the persona profile of the participants when choosing the type of rewards to offer – NB if the incentive is sales-focused most sales reps prefer cash incentives rather than merchandise items.

In the communication schedule and T&Cs, include a timescale of when the rewards will be delivered and notify this timeline to the participants to set the correct expectation of when they can expect to receive their rewards.  

Wrap-up and Reporting

Once the incentive has been completed the last key step is to assess the success of the incentive from the final results data analysis report – this should provide measurements against the original estimated performance metrics and whether the incentive achieved and/or even exceeded the original objectives.

An assessment should also be carried out to establish what worked well for repeatability and what enhancements can be incorporated for future incentives.

Channel Incentive Programme Summary

In conclusion, the most important element to running successful incentive programmes is careful and in-depth planning – this guide can show you the way. 

Alternatively, you could leave it to us, as Essential provides an end-to-end channel incentive management service. We are experts in incentives and can do all the heavy lifting for you. We can run your incentives offline or support your incentives with a platform that enables your partners to check on their progress themselves.