Rewards
When your own product is the right reward
Product access can bring personal value and firsthand understanding together. The opportunity starts with the person you want to reach.
Imagine a customer asking a retail associate what a speaker is like to live with. How does setup work? What happens when someone else in the house wants to use it? Where does it sound best? Product information can help answer those questions. Having used it gives the associate another kind of knowledge to draw on.
That is the appeal of a brand offering its own products to the people who sell them. The reward may be something the person wants, while using it creates opportunities to understand the product more closely.
We think product access is most compelling when those two things overlap: genuine personal value and useful experience. The brand’s enthusiasm for its product is the starting point. The participant’s circumstances determine whether the offer makes sense.
Experience gives someone something of their own to say.
The opening example is illustrative, but the distinction is practical. Someone who has installed, configured, or regularly used a product can draw on specific experiences when discussing it. They may understand a feature better, recognize a suitable customer, or know which questions to ask before recommending it.
Research by Robert E. Smith and William R. Swinyard examined how attitudes formed through product trial differed from those formed through advertising in predicting purchase behavior. It gives useful background to the distinction between hearing about a product and experiencing it. It does not establish the sales effect of a channel reward program.
For a brand, the opportunity is to help people form an informed view. Actual experience includes learning the product’s limits and where it fits. That can make the conversation more useful to a customer than asking someone to repeat a brand message.
Smith and Swinyard: The Impact of Product Trial versus Advertising. Journal of Marketing Research. The abstract describes research on product trial, attitudes, and purchase behavior; the channel-program applications here are Incenify’s judgment.
Decide when product access should help.
Giving qualified people access to a product before a sales opportunity serves a different purpose from offering that product as a reward for a completed activity. Both may belong in a program, but they ask different things of the participant.
If the objective is familiarity with a new product, an eligible associate might receive access so they can use it ahead of customer conversations. If the objective is a particular sales priority, a desirable product might be earned through qualifying activity. In the first case, experience helps prepare the person. In the second, the offer gives them a reason to act.
Make that purpose explicit before deciding the qualification rules or reward mechanics. A program intended to create familiarity needs to give people a realistic opportunity to gain that familiarity at the point when it will be useful.
A desirable product still needs to fit their life.
Consider who can actually use the product. An associate may admire a home audio system and have nowhere suitable to put it. Someone may already own the model on offer. A product that needs complementary equipment may involve a larger commitment than the offer first suggests.
Any participant cost matters as well. If access involves a purchase, the amount someone pays, the available selection, and the effort of receiving and setting up the product all shape its value. A generous percentage discount alone tells you little about whether the opportunity is attainable.
Ask a few people in the intended audience what they would choose, where they would use it, and what would prevent them from taking the offer. Listen for practical detail. Those answers are more useful for shaping the program than assuming enthusiasm for the brand translates into demand for every product.
Some products belong in the workplace.
A commercial equipment salesperson may have no personal use for the equipment they sell. A software reseller may benefit from access to a demonstration environment without wanting the software as a personal reward. Those are good reasons to separate product learning from the sales incentive.
In those situations, hands-on training or demonstration access can develop familiarity, while a relevant sales incentive recognizes qualifying results. Cash may fit that role. The program can still be thoughtful, specific to the audience, and closely connected to the brand’s objective.
Even within one brand, the answer can differ by role. A store associate, installer, and partner sales manager may influence different outcomes and value different opportunities. Their role in the sale is a better guide to the offer than a single reward choice for everyone.
Look beyond the redemption.
A redemption shows that someone wanted the offer enough to claim it. If the purpose is firsthand understanding, follow through on that purpose. Find out whether people used the product, which questions the experience answered, and what help they still need to use it confidently.
If the purpose is sales activity, examine qualifying results alongside participation. Take account of selling opportunities, product availability, and other promotions before attributing a change to the reward. An attractive offer and an effective program are related judgments, but each needs its own evidence.
Keep the follow-up proportionate. A small number of useful conversations may reveal a setup issue or an audience mismatch that a redemption total cannot explain. Use what you learn to improve the next offer, the support around it, or the people it reaches.
Start with the person who will use it.
Your own product can be a particularly meaningful reward when someone wants it, can use it, and gains experience that matters in their work. That combination deserves deliberate program design.
Begin with the people and the outcome. Give product access a clear role where it fits, and choose another incentive where that better serves the audience. Relevance is what makes the reward worth acting on.
See how this works in Incenify.
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