There are tons of categories incentives can fall through. Here are some types – hopefully from this list you can choose what may be a best fit for your company and consumers.

Material incentives: tangible rewards often monetary — wages, fringe benefits, patronage

Solidary incentives: intangible rewards from the act of association — sociability, status, identification

Purposive incentives: intangible rewards related to the goals of the organization — e.g., working on an election of a supported candidate

Bonuses -One of the most popular sales incentives is cash, and a great way to offer it is through incentive-based raffles. Use a chart to identify defined goals, and each time an employee achieves one of the goals she is given a raffle ticket. Hence, the more goals an employee reaches the more raffle tickets she receives and the better the chances are she will win.

Gifts – Offer the winning staff member a gift from your store’s merchandise, which could be a new flat-screen television or an all-expenses-paid vacation. They key is to ensure that your staff members all continually want to make a sale.

Promotions -When a position becomes available you can hold a sales incentive competition to award it to the highest seller. In this case, it’s best to run the competition for several months so you see who can sustain a high level of performance and deserves a position of more responsibility. Typically, these competitions are limited to a small group of employees.

It is important to understand how much incentives can affect your company – both positively and negatively. With this economy it might be tough to gain positive influence to your company by using incentives, so it is best to start mildly with an incentive to see how much influence it may gain. Keep reports of your progress.

When you want to attract new customers creating a mailing list is a nice option to promote your incentives. A newsletter is a wonderful incentive that allows your company to show off honesty, credibility and trust. These newsletters should mostly contain sales and coupons. Give people a reason to sign up – for some valuable information. Also, be sure to keep your content fresh, The biggest reason that people unsubscribe to newsletters is that they don’t feel the information is relevant to them any longer. A handy tip to get more exposure: keep your incentives personal. Keep track of your specific customers. If you have a large amount of customers who go in your store and only purchase outdoor items, offer an incentive that goes out to them only. Identify your target markets and keep them organized within your newsletter/email campaigns. Make them personal.

A free download is another great incentive to include on your web site, email marketing or newsletter. A free download means instant gratification and is perceived as a ‘must-have’ item. Make it valuable to your customers. Pay attention to your graphics as well. I personally like buttons that look ‘click-able’ or ‘touchable’ make sure you choose a nice graphic that has a nice ‘call to action’ mood to it. See don’t you just want to click it?

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