Channel Sales Incentive Solutions compared

End-to-end channel incentive management or white-label tools.

So, you have decided to run a Channel Sales Incentive! You know what outcome you want to achieve, you have an idea of when to start, and how long to run it for – now the question is:

‘How do I ensure it is successful?’

If you haven’t already, take a look at our checklist of questions you should consider to maximise the success of your sales incentive programme. The Essential Agency offers a bespoke, end-to-end incentive management solution, from planning to communications, execution, and ROI tracking.

However, if you are specifically looking for a tool that can address one part of the incentive there are white-label options available in the marketplace.

What do we mean by white-label incentive tools?

White-label tools are applications or services that you use to tackle specific elements of your incentive rather than a complete solution which addresses every aspect of it.

There are tools available on the market that can help you with the following areas of your incentive:

• Gamification
• Registrations
• Hosting platforms
• Admin portals
• Activity tracking
• Notifications
• Data analytics
• Prize awards and fulfilment

These tools are generic in nature and can often be personalised with your brand logo and taglines. Typically, for channel sales incentives, you would start by investing time in researching and identifying the best application or service that can address the needs of your business.
 

What is The Essential Agency's solution?

The Essential end-to-end, bespoke incentive solution starts with a team of people who understand your business; a team that supports and guides you from establishing goals to end-of-campaign success summaries. We manage every aspect of the incentive and ensure our solution is tailored to your needs. Below is a comparison chart that maps the activities where white-label tools can be used.

Comparison

Channel sales incentive comparison in detail

Simply put, every channel sales incentive programme requires planning and preparation, design, detailed execution, data analysis to identify winners, and an end-of-campaign summary. Not forgetting that at the end of the campaign, you will also need to identify prize winners, deal with query management, and the logistics of issuing the prizes.

The key driver to choosing the right channel sales incentive partner will be ensuring that you have the right solution for what your business needs!

White-label tools are designed with ease of use in mind and will save time during the execution of the campaign. However, any tools you invest in will need to be piloted by someone with an understanding of incentives and how they are structured to maximise success. In essence, white-label tools address some but not all aspects of running an incentive. Whilst it is important to have the right tool for the task, it’s just as important to know how to use it in the right way.

At The Essential Agency, we have a comprehensive blend of experience, expertise, people, and tools for the job. Plus the know-how to ensure it is used in the right way. With this unique blend, we have successfully delivered incentives for many companies and we are confident our end-to-end solution can deliver for you.

What does Essential do that you can't get from white-label solutions?

Strategic guidance and planning

It all starts with your end goal, then we work back from there to help you develop an incentive programme that supports your strategic objectives. We work with your key stakeholders to get a clear understanding of what you want to achieve. Once we understand your aim, we brainstorm ideas and work with you to create a concept and develop your incentive plan. Upon agreement from all parties, our creative team turns the concept into stunning assets for your incentive, in readiness for the programme launch.

Strategic guidance, planning and preparation services are not found in ‘off-the-shelf’ tools, this is something your teams would need to undertake independently of any software applications your business may invest in. In summary, this means you still need to dedicate a lot of man-hours to establish achievable goals, brainstorm ideas, create the concept and finally develop your incentive plan. Once agreed, you will need all the visual components created.

Execution

Project management is intrinsic to campaign success. We work with you to create the concept and strategy for your channel sales incentive and, once agreed, we remove all the administrative burden, ensuring your incentive is well-managed and you remain updated on progress throughout.

Whether you require weekly registration updates or monthly campaign update reports, we can ensure that you are provided with the data you need to show progress, as well as analyse this data in line with your campaign goals.

With most white-label tools, you will have the ability to run your channel sales incentive, however, you will still need to manage all elements of your campaign. In addition, as with all new platforms and software, there is a learning curve that will need to be undertaken. You will need to ensure that your internal project manager knows how to structure and manage the incentive to maximise your opportunities and ensure your programme is a success.

Communication is an important part of any sales incentive. You will need to communicate the plan, not only to your key stakeholders, partners and to participants. In addition, you need to ensure progress notifications and tracking is implemented and communicated to participants throughout the life cycle of the incentive. If not outsourcing the communications plan, you will need to project manage this task internally and dedicate resources to ensure effective comms at each stage to maximise incentive uptake from participants.

Here at The Essential Agency as part of our bespoke programme we manage all the communications for you, tracking participant uptake and ensuring maximum engagement at each stage.

Analysis

Data and reporting! Having the right skills and resources is key to ensuring that incentive data is analysed accurately. We are experienced at reviewing, combining, and extracting learnings from a variety of data pools, including SFDC, CRMs, training & enablement platforms as well as spreadsheets. Data and reporting are intrinsic to the incentive programme, without data and reporting, you will be unable to identify success!

Whilst some white-label tools offer bespoke reporting, you will need to spend time understanding the platform, setting up reports, and reviewing the data for both optimising the campaign whilst the sales incentive programme is live, but also for end-of-campaign success. This is a hugely integral element of the campaign and it’s vital that your project manager has a clear understanding of the structure of the incentive, as well as the end goal, to be able to interrogate the data.

Prize fulfilment: Verifying claims and having the resource necessary to source, fulfil and ship prizes can be a timely affair. Our unique end-to-end solution takes care of this, so you don’t have to. We track all elements of prize management and share with you the information for your visibility. We work with your participants and deal with any queries from your partners – so you don’t have to!

This isn’t a solution offered by your typical white-label tool. Whilst some applications may be able to provide a list of verified participants, you will still need to dedicate resources to manage any queries, source and fulfil prizes, and deal with shipping, where appropriate. Logistically this can be incredibly time-consuming, but don’t worry, at Essential this is all part of the service we offer to our clients.

Summary

From concept to completion, Essential is responsible for your Channel Sales Incentive Programme. Our bespoke end-to-end incentive management solution leverages our 20 years of experience. We deliver a fully managed and effective programme that maximises results, whilst ensuring you are kept up to date throughout the incentive lifecycle. 

Whilst white-label tools can be effective at specific tasks, they only address certain components of the incentive. Strategy, planning, preparation, communication, and design are vital to success. In fact, without an effective strategy and proper planning and communication, you are unlikely to garner engagement with your key stakeholders and run the risk of a failed sales incentive. Additionally, without the right expertise in-house, especially around the analysis of data, your teams may struggle to understand the learnings and insights gained throughout the sales incentive and at campaign completion.

Incentives don’t have to be hard to manage, let us do the heavy lifting for you. We will provide you with regular updates and reports so you can get on with your day job, safe in the knowledge that we've got your incentive covered.

Let Essential manage your next incentive and ensure it's a success.