This is a guest post from Hawke Media partner Rybbon, a digital rewards management platform.

Marketing teams have many different measures of success. Number of qualified leads, webinar attendance, conversion rates, expansion opportunities, brand exposure, community engagement — it’s different for every department and every marketer. But there’s one common thread: Marketing campaigns need some level of audience participation to work. Prospects and customers have to register for the webinar, download the e-book, submit referrals, spread the word, and many other things. So how can marketers boost participation and engagement in their programs? You need a rewards and incentives program. 

Incentive structure is a surefire way to encourage your contacts to participate in various campaigns. By allocating budget dollars for rewards, you’ll get more out of your marketing efforts. But before you start, here are five tips for incorporating rewards.

1. Look at the Entire Customer Journey

There isn’t just one type of marketing campaign that can benefit from using a rewards program, so make sure that you’re considering all the possibilities. Whether your goal is to generate more leads, build brand loyalty, collect customer feedback, or drive conversions, rewards can do it all and then some. Incentivize participation in webinars, customer communities, and demo presentations. Offer rewards for referrals, survey responses, newsletter sign-ups, and social media posts. Delight new customers, rebuild trust with unhappy ones, and encourage engagement among your brand advocates.  

2. Go Digital

There are countless reasons to opt for digital incentives rather than physical rewards. Not only will you save the time and cost of packing and shipping items, you’ll also be able to more easily track deliveries and redemptions. Digital rewards are sent instantly via email and offer far more options, particularly for international programs. You can send e-gift cards for popular brands like Starbucks and Amazon or prepaid Visas and Mastercards — you can even give recipients the option to donate their reward to charity.  

3. Set an Appropriate Reward Value

Once you have decided on the goals and types of incentives you want to offer, the next logical question is “How much is enough?” Obviously a higher-value reward will foster increased participation, but you also need to keep your incentives budget in mind. The two most important considerations are the level of effort for the desired task and the target audience. For instance, enticing executives to attend a one-hour webinar will require a higher-value reward than getting young professionals to take a five-minute survey. Here’s a simple formula you can use as a rule of thumb to determine a compelling reward value. If you’re concerned about budget, try setting a cap on the number of rewards, so just the first 50 or 100 participants receive it. Not only will you control your costs, you’ll also create a sense of urgency.

4. Implement a Rewards Management Platform

Adding digital rewards to your marketing programs shouldn’t mean adding a lot of extra work. Marketing teams are busy enough without having to manage incentives manually — from filling out spreadsheets to juggling gift card orders to fielding recipient questions. A tool like Rybbon can be integrated directly into your existing automation platforms, including Marketo and HubSpot, to help streamline the incentives process. Your rewards management tool should also provide a great experience for your recipients, a wide range of global reward options, and robust tracking capabilities. For a full breakdown of everything you should look for in a marketing incentives platform, check out our Buyer’s Guide.

5. Don’t Forget the Follow-Up

You have offered a delightful reward and built goodwill with the recipient — so make sure you put that goodwill to good use! Start by taking advantage of the reward email and redemption page, which are almost certainly going to be opened and read, since that’s how a recipient claims their digital gift card. Customize it with your branding and colors so recipients more strongly associate your company with the fun experience of getting a reward. Also use the opportunity to include more information about your offerings and, most importantly, an appropriate call to action. For instance, if the reward was sent to a customer who referred a colleague, why not ask them to leave an online review? Encourage a webinar attendee to set up a sales demo, or ask a survey respondent to fill out another questionnaire. 

These calls to action can also be effective beyond the reward email and redemption page. With the integration of your digital rewards management and marketing automation platforms, the two-way data sync updates your contact records when someone receives and claims their reward. Set up automatic triggers so that upon redemption, your sales team is notified or the recipient gets a follow-up email.

What Can a Digital Rewards Program Do for You?

No matter what marketing campaign needs a boost, digital incentives can help you increase participation and grow your success. Many Rybbon customers have seen great benefits, including:

• Doubling webinar registrations and increasing attendance by 30%.
• Getting 29% more customer referrals.
• Booking 19 virtual sales meetings in a week and cutting the no-show rate to just 26%.
• Increasing survey response rates by 350%.

Rybbon can help your programs, too. Its digital rewards management platform incorporates incentives into your marketing programs with streamlined and integrated workflows, a delightful recipient experience, flexible controls and options, and extensive reporting capabilities. 

Contact us or sign up for a free account to get started today!