Here's how meeting your resellers (essential to improving channel partner relationships) and travel incentives can go hand-in-hand.
Meeting your resellers. It's not something that should be an optional "nice to have," to be simply tacked on to the end of your channel partner sales strategy. Instead, meeting your channel partners face-to-face should be an integral part of how you keep them happy and ensure sales remain high.
The problem is, this isn't always easy, especially if resellers are located across state lines or based abroad. By incorporating travel and face-to-face meetings into your channel partner incentive program, however, you can reward your resellers for their hard work while also keeping up lines of communication and improving your relationships with them.
Why is travel such a great incentive?
Many sales-based rewards programs are based around cash bonuses. However, several studies have been conducted that indicate non-monetary rewards (and particularly travel) are more effective.
76 per cent of respondents to a SITE study said travel programs were motivating or extremely motivating.
A study by the Incentive Marketing foundation found that top performing companies (defined by higher revenue, good growth, and excellent customer and employee ratings) were much more likely to reward their sales people. And of these top performing companies, the vast majority offered non-cash over monetary benefits.
This is because a cash reward tends to be considered simply part of an employee's salary. It will often get spent on fairly mundane things such as a supermarket shop. A non-cash reward, however, is much more memorable, especially in the form of an experience such as travel.
A study conducted by the Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE) in the UK found that 88 per cent of respondents felt appreciated when their company used travel incentive programs. A further 76 per cent said travel programs were motivating or extremely motivating.
How can you link travel incentives and channel partner meet ups?
For businesses that use a significant number of channel partners, you can kill two birds with one stone by creating travel incentives that invite resellers to visit you in person.
On these trips, you can ensure you take part in all the activities that improve channel partner relationships. These include:
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Opening lines of communication between you and your channel partners.
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Training them in new products and sales methods.
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Getting their feedback on the channel partner program you've created.
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Hearing feedback from them about how your products are received by customers.
And by linking this to a channel partner reward, you are also showing them that you're interested in their wellbeing and genuinely care about them.
After your resellers finish meeting with you, you can also include some well-earned rest and relaxation as part of the reward.
A channel partner program with Power2Motivate Australia
Here at Power2Motvate Australia, we have years of experience helping businesses craft excellent reseller relationships via channel partner incentive programs. Our programs are fully customisable, so no matter whether you want to improve brand awareness, reward positive behaviour or boost sales, you'll be able to do so via the power of incentives.
We also include real-time reporting and KPI tracking, so you'll know exactly what effect your channel partner program is having at any given time.
Channel partners in lots of different locations? Our cloud-based rewards platform is available in 17 different languages, so even if your resellers are located on the other side of the world, they'll still be able to access your incentive program.
For more information on creating a channel partner incentive program with Power2Motivate Australia, reach out to the team today.