What Type of Channel Incentive Should You Opt For?

Types of incentive options - Is it just sales? 

If you’ve never run a Channel Incentive before or want some fresh ideas for the next one, this blog is for you! Let us provide you with inspiration and direction on some of the types of incentive options that are available.

When devising a channel incentive, the traditional method is to reward the participants for securing deals. However, before going down the usual route, you may want to consider alternative ways to engage your channel partners and generate long-term revenue.

Start with an end goal in mind

Before deciding on your measurable outcomes, you should start by establishing the main objectives of your partner incentive – your goals could be one of the below or a combination of:

• Generate a number of sales within a set time frame
• Recruit a number of new logos (customers)
• Educate a number of sales reps from your channel
• Skill up a number of pre-sales / technical people from your channel
• Increase awareness within a number of focus accounts
• Drive attendance at an event
• Progress several cold leads into warmer leads
• The list goes on….

Do a deep data dive

To help ascertain the key objective(s) it is important to take a close look at your sales data. Analysing the pipeline, conversion rates and the sales cycle length will allow you to establish what type of channel incentive will work for the products and/or services being promoted. It will also provide an indicator of the best time to run an incentive based on the historical point of sale (POS) reports.

Lead the way with the right incentive option

Once you’ve determined the objectives of the channel incentive and carried out the data analysis you can then choose what incentive programme you need to put in place to generate your desired results. Here are some incentive examples you could opt for:

Sales led

If your key objective is to close the immediate pipeline, then a sales-led incentive is ideal.

Enablement led

One way to influence buyer behaviour is to ensure the sales and/or technical teams at your channel partners fully understand how to position and sell your products and services.  Incentivising them to become more knowledgeable about your products/services will give them the confidence needed to be brand advocates when talking to their target accounts. It will also promote self-sufficiency – as we know only too well that pre-sales teams are often overloaded – enabling sales teams helps to take the pressure off pre-sales so they can then concentrate on running more in-depth demos, proof of concepts and benchmark projects.

Also, with an enablement-driven partner incentive you can choose to reward technical personnel for becoming accredited or certified and/or undertaking certain training courses – it doesn’t always have to be sales that get a chance to earn prizes and recognition for their efforts!

Demo led

The first step towards securing a sale could be to provide an initial demonstration of your product or service. So, you may want to consider running an incentive for your sales and/or technical staff to encourage them to book a certain number of demos in a set time frame.

Trial led

If you’re running a free trial to entice prospects to purchase, then setting a target for your sales team to secure several trials within a certain timeframe could be a good incentive option. Make sure you can obtain post-incentive data to assess how many of the trials have resulted in closed deals as this will help you ascertain the success and return on investment of the incentive.

Events led

To help drive attendance to in-person or online events, you could run an incentive to motivate your sales team to encourage invitees to register.

Make the best choice

When selecting what type of channel incentive to run, keep in mind your end goal and choose the incentive that will deliver the results you want.  In this blog, we have highlighted a few ways you can motivate your teams to generate results and revenue for your business.

Want to run a channel incentive but not sure where to start? Then reach out to us to book a free incentive health check where we can give your advice on which incentive is best for your goals.