Take stock of your sales promotion practices
Achieving sales targets requires effective year-round promotion.
We have carried out a test to evaluate your practices and identify your strengths and weaknesses.
It analyzes your sales promotion system across four main pillars: target management, sales challenges, rewards and promotion. The implementation of each of these pillars is evaluated using precise, objective criteria. Your scores will enable us to identify areas for improvement to boost employee motivation and commitment.
In this article, we present the four main pillars of sales promotion.
But you can already answer the questions to assess your animation performance.
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1st pillar: target management, the basis of sales promotion
Managing objectives is the first pillar of animation. It enables day-to-day performance to be monitored. It's the "default" mode of progress towards objectives. This is the main activity, and takes place outside sales challenge periods.
This is particularly important for animation, as it is often forgotten. Most of the time, objectives are tracked using an Excel file, or possibly BI(business intelligence) software. Steering concerns all the company's strategic objectives, which are monitored over the long term. The aim of steering is to ensure that objectives are met at the end of the year, and to be able to react if necessary; for example, by organizing a specific incentive for certain performance indicators (see 2nd pillar: challenge).
However, this steering is not necessarily limited to displaying information and performance data. It can also be the occasion for rewards, notifications and recognition from colleagues. This animation takes place on an almost daily basis, as events occur: a new daily sales record, targets being met or exceeded, a new indicator being tracked...
Two criteria are particularly important when setting objectives. Firstly, you need to know who you are setting objectives for: the individual employee, the team, a region, or even the whole company. Secondly, the choice of indicators to track. There are result indicators, which focus on performance. But we can also decide to give importance to means indicators, which recognize the efforts made. Choosing to lead one or the other, or both, has a strong impact on the sales experience.
Frequency is also a factor: the more regularly data is updated, the more positive it is for engagement.
"At Objow, we can clearly see the impact of management by objectives based on rituals of animation, such as this customer in the insurance sector who increased his sales of entry-level contracts by +37% over one year" - Hadryen Chartier, COO Objow
2nd pillar: the sales challenge, the highlight of the event
Organizing regular sales challenges is the second pillar of an effective sales promotion strategy. Challenges are the highlights of the year. They generate strong motivation among employees. They are generally an opportunity to focus on specific performance indicators, according to the activity of the moment, and thus enable more flexible management of the strategy.
The sales challenge is traditionally a competitive mechanism, but there are also other ways of diversifying sales incentives. These include group challenges and challenges linked to the achievement of objectives.
The duration and frequency of challenges is also a way of diversifying sales promotions throughout the year (short-, medium- and long-term challenges).
Traditional challenges generally bring value, but with the animation provided by Objow, we have seen an undeniable added value. +16% in terms of active customers and +10% of temps. - Sylvain Menigoz - Operational Marketing Director, Manpower
3rd pillar: rewards, catalysts for motivation
In our imagination, rewards are often associated with commitment and motivation. Whether financial or symbolic, they recognize and reward effort and results.
Rewards can be divided into two categories: material rewards and symbolic rewards.
Material rewards have a financial value: gifts, gift vouchers, bonuses, trips... This type of reward, traditionally used in companies, has proven its effectiveness in motivating sales staff. So, having a large annual budget per employee is undeniably an asset for an incentive program. However, they have two limitations. Firstly, companies may find it difficult to come up with a sufficient budget. Secondly, the effect of material rewards on motivation may diminish over time, necessitating ever greater gains.
To address the two limitations of material rewards, it's always important to balance the system with symbolic rewards.
Symbolic rewards have little or no financial value. They can be badges (virtual trophies), personalized goodies, attention from a manager or colleagues. This type of reward is often underestimated and under-used. And yet, they have the advantage of generating significant extra motivation, while keeping the budget down.
Valuing and rewarding employees are levers of commitment which, if properly employed, help to build team loyalty, reduce staff turnover and absenteeism, improve well-being and productivity, and boost operational performance.
By providing appropriate and relevant incentives, managers can foster a climate conducive to employee fulfillment, encouraging them to give their all. In so doing, they naturally boost the company's overall performance and long-term success.
"Many companies, lacking the means to do so, are skeptical about the idea of setting up challenges rewarded by symbolic rewards... with the help of our customers, we have proved that it is possible to sustainably engage employees through these challenges with budgets that are sometimes very limited on the reward side" - Clément Muletier, engagement and gamification consultant at Objow.
4th pillar: sales promotion, the sinews of war
Objectives, challenges, rewards... to express their full potential, these ingredients need to be backed up by a genuine year-round program.
Animation is all the means the company uses to bring sales objectives and challenges to life on a daily basis.
First and foremost, there are the human resources who manage the day-to-day running of the event: employees dedicated to the event, team managers, or geographical managers, for example. These human resources guarantee the "managerial" relay that infuses this dynamic throughout the organization and its teams.
Then there's the communication plan, which depends on digital tools such as email, powerpoint, excel, internal messaging and dedicated applications.
As part of this continuous improvement process, it is essential that managers foster a strong feedback culture through regular performance reviews and in-depth data analysis, in order to identify what's working well and what can be improved.
How about you? Take the test!
Evaluate your sales performance management practices now with our audit questionnaire. Detailed scores by Pillar (Steering, Challenge, Reward, Animation) are assigned to you. Each Pillar is the subject of personalized recommendations.
