Incentives were traditionally always about the financial benefits to a business, but this has evolved over time. The data gathered should gauge more than a programme's effect on the bottom line. It’s now more about the holistic view. Whether company culture has improved, retention rates have increased, or brand sentiment has risen. There are a whole range of metrics/KPIs to track with an incentive, and below is a snapshot of the data you could measure.
- Pre, during and post-event feedback
- Incentive activity feedback
- Email open rate
- Email click-through rate (CTR)
- Event app interactions
- Sales growth
- Brand sentiment improvement
- Employee engagement (i.e. absenteeism, turnover, retention rate, employee net promotor score)
- Productivity
Start off by truly digging deep into the reason behind the incentive. Is it to motivate the sales team to grow revenue? Is it to increase employee engagement? Is it to improve brand sentiment? These objectives will form the foundations of what you measure. For instance, if the incentive is to reward top sales performers, your measurement KPIs will likely be around productivity, top sales performance and the highest % increase in sales. There are many variables affecting sales year-on-year, so you might want to look at previous data and whether particular destinations and experiences drove improved sales performance. For instance, did an all-inclusive week in Bali drive a higher performance than New York? Understanding what experiences and destinations drive improved sales growth will also help you to determine future destinations to choose.
Incentive comms campaigns shouldn’t just be a few months on the lead-up to the big event, they should be a year-long activity. This continuous activity helps to drive real change in the business and gives maximum opportunity for sales teams to achieve growth in figures. Throughout the 12-month cycle, there will be multiple touchpoints, and each of these touchpoints can be tracked and measured for engagement. Emails can be measured on open rate or click-through rate, event websites can be assessed on page clicks, bounce rate, and teaser video content assessed on views and watch time. Each of these pieces of data will help to paint a continual picture of the success of the campaign.
If your goals are around increased sales performance, then you can calculate the financial ROI of your incentive. When calculating your financial ROI, it’s integral to understand the full budget related to the incentive. Beyond the event, this might include elements such as email marketing software, web builds or teaser gift postage costs.
Total annual sales revenue - Total cost of incentive / Total cost of incentive x 100 For example £10,000,000 in total annual sales revenue - £1,000,000 total cost of incentive = £9,000,000 £9,000,000 / £1,000,000 = 9 9 x 100 = 900% ROI
This data is crucial in evaluating whether an incentive has driven real change to the business. It’s important, too, that ROI is never measured as standalone data. Was there an 800% ROI the year partners were invited, compared to the 400% the year prior when they weren’t? By tracking ROI year-on-year and analysing where the incentive took place, the experiences and the format, you can better understand the trends that take place.
If you’re looking to deliver an incentive trip and would like to speak to one of our event strategists about how to deliver an event that drives real ROI, then do contact us at patrick.ockendon@bcdme.com