Using marketing gifts as an incentive method gives the ability to build strong and long-lasting business relationship

Adding marketing gifts to the roster of incentives you use for your marketing efforts can be a great way to keep your current customers happy and increase the addition of new accounts to your business. These types of physical incentives, when supported with a good marketing strategy, may even be more effective than deep discounts for a number of reasons.

Leads or prospective clients are likely to receive tons of promotional messages from different companies, including flyers, e-mail updates and daily discount deals. Because of market saturation and the overwhelming number of offers each potential customer sees, these messages are often overlooked and discarded after a quick glance. If you give these leads actual merchandise along with your promotional message, they are better inclined to study what you offer and act on it if they are interested.

Physical merchandise usually evokes positive reactions from people, which can then motivate them into patronizing and frequenting your business.

Deep discounts , for the most part, do not evoke emotion or help set the stage for an involved, long-term business relationship between your company and each client. The Akamai Marketing Group backs up this theory with findings that show more than 60% of all individuals who have received deep discounted products or services do not return to the business without another deep discount offer. Deep discounting can not grow your business. In addition, further studies say that incentive marketing based on deep discount may cost more than 500% of the overall expenses of a well-developed incentive strategy built around actual merchandise as incentives. Lastly, customer perception of deep discount pale in comparison to physical incentives, most especially in the case of reputable companies who have established a trustworthy brand. It is this perception that can generate great business performance and rates that you can set accordingly.

If you are thinking of building your marketing strategy or streamlining it by offering deep discounts, remember that you may only be able to stand out from your competitors by giving a deeper discount. In comparison, a gift incentive plan that is well-researched and planned can result in an actual connection with your potential customer or a rekindling of business ties with a current one. The ability to constantly update your strategy and still remain fresh when it comes to your products, services, and customer approach is better accomplished with innovative gift products based on market trends. In a nutshell, the main advantage of using marketing gifts as an incentive method is the ability to build strong and long-lasting business relationships based on the personal connections and customer loyalty; results that deep discounts simply cannot generate.

We Do Social

Using Social Referrals and incentives to drive more quality traffic.

Word of mouth has always been a high-value marketing channel for businesses; however, there hasn’t been an easy way to automate and measure this traditionally offline process. With the increasing volume of consumer online sharing and conversations, businesses have a new opportunity to identify their highly engaged, loyal customer advocates and turn them into “social marketers” who will refer your product or service to their friends. This is the foundation of the Consumer-to-Consumer Social Marketing opportunity that we see at the Akamai Marketing Group.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen businesses take advantage of social networks–Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.–to build a social presence. However, much of that social presence was an extension of traditional marketing pushing brand content out over these social channels. Companies are building brand pages and driving fans, likes, and engagement, but many of these companies are struggling with the true ROI of social marketing investments.

At AMG, we believe that the reach of the social networks, combined with the proclivity of consumers to share more, create an enormous new opportunity for marketers. Instead of creating content and pushing it out to the market via traditional and digital channels, companies can identify social advocates who are willing to create content and promote the business. This provides businesses with a massive opportunity to tap into a new marketing channel that ultimately results in high quality sales and acquisition via trusted referrals. With the proper tools, you can easily launch and optimize a social referral program for your business

Read our Report on "Using Social Media and Incentive Marketing to Build Your Business" .

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