As it becomes harder to attract the attention of customers, using incentives to encourage brand awareness can foster business growth. Creating and maintaining a brand for your product is one of the most difficult things to do. As consumers have an increasing number of choices available, they rely even more on brand awareness to help decide which products to buy.
Incentives to Encourage Brand Awareness
Many incentive programs exist; the only limitations are your creativity and budget. The most effective incentive program should be tailored to fit your business and location. However, sometimes coming up with a good concept can be hard to do. The ideas in this article are designed to be a starting point to get you thinking and are organized around business or product goals.
Introduce a New Product
New products are released everyday. To have your product noticed, you need to gain attention. Consider sponsoring an event people will want to attend or visit online. The event doesn't need to have anything to do with your new product, though having a tie-in makes it even better. By sponsoring an event, you are advertising your product or company, but doing it in a way that doesn't feel like an advertisement to the public.
Increase Traffic to Your Store
Sometimes the best way to get people into your store is to give away something they want. Stores that offer free training classes, for example, will draw people in who might not normally visit. While there, they may then buy something. This incentive strategy also encourages your present customers to stay with you.
Overcome Seasonal Lows
Chances are your business experiences a slow time of year. To encourage an increase in business during times that traditionally slump, come up with a creative idea to get people interested in your product during the slow times. For example, let's say you sell snowboards. You likely have low sales during the summer. To overcome this, consider teaming up with a local sporting goods store to have some fake snow imported so that customers can board down a small hill. Go a step further by offering discounted season passes at a nearby ski resort.
Boost Slow Product Sales
If one of your products consistently outperforms another product, develop an incentive to associate the slower product with the faster selling one. Free trials works well, and less subtly, just package the two products together for a brief time.
Increase Customer Base with Trial Products
Giving away products to current customers is good, but it won't grow your customer base. To do expand your clientèle base, you need to give away your product to people who may not be current customers. Choose a market of people that you hope to bring into your business as not only first time customers but also recurring custoemers, such as men 18 to 24, or women 29 to 40, then think of places they like to attend or products they like to buy. Offer a free trial of your product in these places.
Grow Your Prospect List
If you give something away for free, customers will give you more than enough personal contact information. Your sales team can follow up with courtesy calls to see if they can be of further help. Consider giving away a free trial of a product to each person who signs up, and then offer a drawing for a bigger prize as well. Better still, make it possible for people to sign up their friends and family. Receiving additional entries in the grand prize for the signer-up, and free trials for their friends and family works well.
Target Kids Instead of Adults
Adults may have the money, but kids often pull the purse-strings. If you have a product kids will love, bring it to them by setting up a booth where kids play - at parks, playgrounds, amusement parks, etc. Give away free trials, have the product on hand to touch, play with, etc. If the kids like it, mom or dad will often buy it.
Draw Attention Away from High Prices
If you sell high-cost items, you have to overcome the price by offering something of value. Sale prices work also, but sometimes it's better to give something away instead. Giving away an associated product is usually a good idea. An example would be offering a free printer or free software with the purchase of a computer.
Keep Current Customers Coming Back
Give your current customers a reason to keep coming back. A favorite example is the Monopoly game that McDonald's offers. They receive increased sales from many people during that promotion because they like to play the game - even though they've never won a big prize.
Conclusion
The incentives to encourage brand awareness ideas presented here are designed to boost your sales. They do it, however, in a way that generates buzz about your product that a sale or normal advertising often does not achieve.
